His Way : Pastor Sparks Rebirth of Pentecostal Church

Fifteen minutes before the early service ended, the pastor slipped away from his pulpit in Van Nuys. Stopping only to let an assistant apply hair spray to flatten an errant lock, the minister stepped briskly to a waiting car.

The Rev. Jack Hayford was beginning his demanding Sunday morning shuttle between four overlapping services at Church on the Way, which has two sanctuaries half a mile apart. The car radio was tuned to a live broadcast of the 9 a.m. service at the other church building.

“We have this playing so that I know where we are in that service,” Hayford said. He deftly joined a service 20 minutes under way. “Pastor Jack” then left before it was over and raced between sanctuaries two more times before noon. Counting an identical service he had led Saturday evening, Hayford delivered his half-hour sermon five times.

“The only way I can go to sleep at night in comfort and say that I am pastor, “ said Hayford of his 8,000-member congregation known as First Foursquare Church of Van Nuys, “is for me to say: ‘Lord, you’re the one who made it this size. I didn’t.’ ”

Church members do not give God all the credit, however.

Displaying the same energy he exerts now at age 57, Hayford transformed what was a dying, 18-member Pentecostal congregation in 1969 into one of Southern California’s mega-churches. The church grew so fast that it bought Van Nuys First Baptist Church for a second sanctuary a few years ago.

Hayford’s flawless personal reputation and a self-effacing, conversational manner of preaching also has revitalized the Foursquare denomination founded in 1927 by flamboyant preacher Aimee Semple McPherson.

“When the younger generation thinks of Foursquare now they think of Jack Hayford,” said Roy Hicks, missions director for the Los Angeles-based, 1-million-member denomination.

More than that, Hayford has emerged as one who many Christian leaders say is the shining hope for respectability for all Pentecostalist churches where exuberant worship, praying in unintelligible tongues, faith healing and casting out demons are standard practices.

“He’s certainly not the stereotype of the ranting, raving Pentecostalist,” said Vinson Synan of Oklahoma City, a prominent organizer and historian of the movement. “He gives a heady, intellectual impression and is probably the most accepted Pentecostal speaker in the evangelical world.”

Pentecostalism’s claims of supernatural “gifts of the Holy Spirit” caused it to be shunned by fundamentalists and evangelical Christians for most of this century. A rapprochement developed in recent decades, despite controversies surrounding Pentecostalist stars such as Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson.

Hayford, widely known through his books, television ministry and 400 hymns he has composed, became Pentecostalism’s most credible spokesman.

In 1989, Hayford was picked to address the high-level World Conference on Evangelism in the Philippines on behalf of Pentecostalism. “That was a watershed event in a way, introducing the Pentecostal experience to mainstream evangelicals,” Synan said.

“I think Jack is one of the great spiritual leaders of our time whose ministry spans denominational lines,” said the Rev. Lloyd Ogilvie of Hollywood Presbyterian Church.

Ogilvie and Hayford co-direct “Love L.A.,” a prayer gathering of hundreds of Los Angeles ministers four times a year at the Hollywood church.

The Van Nuys pastor adheres to traditional Pentecostal beliefs, but enjoys wide respect for not making a splashy show of them and--in the words of one admirer--”not acting as if he has all the answers.”

For example, some Pentecostals and their counterparts in mainline churches, the so-called charismatics, are now enthused over “spiritual warfare,” a belief that concerted, coordinated prayer may break the reign of “territorial demons” over a geographical region.

Yet, without fanfare, Hayford said, the Church on the Way has waged such spiritual warfare since 1973, as well as praying to exorcise demons from thousands of individuals since he became pastor.

Church on the Way has grown because so many members take part in the ministry--and also because God wanted it that way, Hayford said.

God appeared as a silvery mist inside the church on Jan. 2, 1970, Hayford said. He sensed God telling him first that he was not imagining things, then saying: “I’ve given My glory to dwell in this place,” Hayford recalled.

The church was averaging 100 churchgoers then, 30 of whom had been kicked out of Van Nuys First Baptist for holding charismatic beliefs. “But the next Sunday, with nothing special going on, we had 170 people in church. From that day on, the church grew,” Hayford said.

Conceding that the story makes him “sound like a blithering idiot,” Hayford added: “I’m not willing to sacrifice honesty with my own experience for the sake of trying to gain acceptance.”

Hayford has taken a number of positions shared by the religious right, including opposition to laws permitting abortion, pornography and homosexual rights. But the Rev. Scott Bauer, Hayford’s son-in-law and chief pastoral aide, said: “We don’t have a political agenda, but we do have a moral agenda.”

Nevertheless, the church was the setting in July for a two-day leadership school of the Christian Coalition of California, a fledgling version of the political action group started by Robertson, who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1988.

“I’d love for Jack to say to members: ‘Join the Christian Coalition and walk the precincts,’ ” said Sarah Hardman, a longtime Church on the Way member and director of the state organization. “But he is very careful not to take a position politically. It would harm his ministry to all people.”

If there is any criticism of Hayford it is that he is manipulative in how he leads his flock. Although he denies it, he acknowledges that some people think he is manipulative because he frequently tells worshipers to repeat a sentence aloud or to say it to someone nearby.

“They say it’s a technique for teaching children, not adults,” said Hayford, who often preaches a “childlike” approach to faith.

He defends the practice, saying it reinforces the sermon and keeps the congregation alert. “You cannot remain passive in our worship,” said Hayford, noting that for five minutes every service he has worshipers form small circles and pray for one another.

“Jack has a down-to-earth quality that helps create the atmosphere of a small church,” said actor and church elder Dean Jones, who with Pat Boone and Carol Lawrence is among several entertainment figures in the congregation.

The small-church feel is belied by a yearly budget approaching $10 million and a salaried staff of 98 people.

Early next year the two church sanctuaries probably will be linked by closed-circuit television for simultaneous Sunday morning services, Hayford said. Instead of preaching four times on Sunday as he has since February, 1990, he will deliver the sermon only twice.

However, to avoid the sense of people coming to church to watch a TV preacher, the Sherman Way shuttle will stay in operation so that he will appear in person for part of each service. “I think it will work,” he said, adding that now, “by that last service I really am tired.”