BUILDING PLANS: The Master’s Seminary on the...

BUILDING PLANS: The Master’s Seminary on the grounds of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley is attempting to raise money to build a permanent building by September, 1994, to house its library and faculty offices.

The fundamentalist Christian school, which graduated 43 men at its sixth commencement in May, has been operating primarily out of temporary buildings, for which the current city permit expires in 1994.

The Rev. John MacArthur, senior pastor of the large congregation and president of the seminary, wrote in a recent church newsletter that $100,000 in foundation money was secured for architectural plans and that at least $4 million more would be sought--$3 million for the building and the rest for an endowment to fund its maintenance.

The elders of Grace Community Church decided that the seminary could have free use of the land but would have to finance the building itself.

“That is the only way I’d have it,” wrote MacArthur, “because I don’t want to put a burden on the church.”

NEW HOME: A small Episcopal congregation that holds services in Westlake Village has broken ground in nearby Oak Park for a church building that will incorporate materials from a Tujunga church that closed in November.

Pews, stained glass windows, an altar and a baptismal font from Ascension Episcopal Church, which closed after dwindling to 21 members, will be used in the new facility for the Church of the Epiphany. Construction is expected to be finished by spring, 1993.

A plan to move the actual Tujunga church to Oak Park was abandoned because it would have cost too much, according to Episcopal News, the newspaper of the Los Angeles diocese.

LUTHERAN MISSIONS: Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez, who was exiled from El Salvador because of his anti-war views but returned to that country in 1989, will be the featured speaker during a western regional meeting of Lutheran missionaries next Thursday through Saturday at Cal Lutheran University.

Also speaking will be Presiding Bishop Herbert Chilstrom of the sponsoring Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The opening and closing celebrations will feature American Indians at Samuelson Chapel on the Thousand Oaks campus.

News and announcements for this column can be sent to Religion Desk, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311.