It was called the “glory barn” so...
It was called the “glory barn” so that the poor would feel welcome. Even its wood-frame architecture bespoke commonness.
Now, a hundred years after Phineas F. Bresee left the Methodist Church and founded a Los Angeles congregation that would become the forerunner of the 1.1-million-member Church of the Nazarene, the First Church of the Nazarene continues to minister to the poor and disenfranchised. This weekend, the 700-member church, led by the Rev. Ron Benefiel, is celebrating the centennial of its Oct. 20, 1895, founding with a series of programs that began Friday and will conclude Sunday at 4 p.m. with a celebration expected to attract 5,000 people to the Shrine Auditorium on Jefferson Boulevard.
For the church’s four multi-language congregations, it is a time to take stock of where they have been and where they hope to be in the years ahead.
“This is the landing strip for Los Angeles,” Benefiel said of the Mid-Wilshire area around the church, where he has seen hope rekindled and lives snuffed out by street violence.
The church’s meeting rooms are filled with the children of immigrants learning to become computer-literate. It offers food to the hungry and medical care to the indigent and uninsured. Its four congregations worship in English, Spanish, Filipino and Korean, and support an elementary school.
The stately colonial-style church, built in 1950, stands at 3401 W. 3rd St. near Vermont Avenue, just a few blocks from neighborhoods ravaged by the 1992 Los Angeles riots and three miles from the site of the original Nazarene congregation. Its Bresee Institute, named after the founder, is a leading force in training men and women for urban ministries.
The public is invited to anniversary celebrations. Activities today include public tours of the church’s archives and portrait gallery and a video on Bresee from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. At 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. there will be tours of early Nazarene sites in Downtown Los Angeles.
A buffet luncheon ($5) will be served in the church basement from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. At 6 p.m., there will be a banquet held at the First Congregational Church, 540 S. Commonwealth Ave. Cost is $12 and reservations are required.
On Sunday, there will be a multi-congregational worship service at 10 a.m., followed by the centennial celebration at the Shrine Auditorium at 4 p.m. Parking there is $4.
DATES
* More than 5,000 people are expected to attend the three-day Christian Ministries Training Assn. convention opening Thursday at the Pasadena Convention Center. Pastor Ken Ulmer of the 3,500-member Faithful Central Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles and Tony Campolo of Eastern College, St. Davids, Pa., will be featured speakers. About 400 workshops are planned. $40 for all three days. Information: (818) 288-8720.
* A 24-hour mountain retreat, sponsored by the Southern California Council of Orthodox Churches, will reflect on the Eastern Orthodox view of sin, suffering and reconciliation, beginning Friday night at St. Nicholas Camp in Frasier Park. The pan-Orthodox retreat will be led by Father Dan Suchu of Corpus Christi, Tex., and Father David Ogan of St. Timothy Church in Lompoc. $50, including meals. Registration: (310) 378-9245.
* The melodies, energy and spiritual teachings of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who died last year, will be recalled next Saturday at 8 p.m. at Congregation Shir Ha-Ma’alot, 3652 Michelson Drive, Irvine. Cantor Arie Shikler, musician Fred Field and musician-composer David Anthony--three men who once played with the Orthodox rabbi--will perform. $10 general admission. Reservations: (714) 857-2226.
* Leigh Schmidt of Drew University, author of the newly published “Consumer Rites, the Buying and Selling of American Holidays,” will speak on the transformation of the Victorian Christmas at 3:45 p.m. Thursday at UC Riverside, the campus where he earned his undergraduate degree.
* A one-day conference on church-state separation issues will be held on the Queen Mary at Long Beach next Saturday. It will be the first event sponsored by the new Center for Inquiry-West. The meeting’s co-sponsor is Free Inquiry magazine, published in Buffalo, N.Y. Information: (310) 587-1049.
* Connections between environmental concerns and racial justice will be explored at an ecumenical conference next Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Church of Christian Fellowship, 2085 Hobart Blvd., Los Angeles. Under United Methodist Church sponsorship, the conference features keynote speakers Sharif Abdullah, an educator and former attorney, and James Nash, executive director of the Center for Theology and Public Policy, Washington. Information: (818) 344-7870.
* Jesuit Father Robert Drinan of Georgetown University, a Democratic congressman from 1971 to 1981, will lead a workshop on political life, social justice and the search for God next Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 4-5, at the Doheny campus of Mount St. Mary’s College on Adams Boulevard in Downtown Los Angeles. Information: (213) 746-0450.
* Pope Shenouda III, the Egyptian-based spiritual leader of 8 million Coptic Orthodox Christians, will be present next Saturday at the national meeting of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 54 N. Oakland Ave. The two-day conference will open Friday with talks by Christian leaders. Information: (818) 791-1978.
FINALLY
* Two days before the mock-scary holiday of Halloween, UCLA Prof. Henry Ansgar Kelly, author of “The Devil, Demonology and Witchcraft,” will explore the origins of the devil, demons and Halloween in a talk at 2 p.m. Sunday in Caltech’s Baxter Lecture Hall in Pasadena, sponsored by the Altadena-based Skeptics Society. $5 for members and students; $8 non-members. Information: (818) 794-3119.
For those interested in less skeptical musings on the supernatural, the Philosophical Research Society, 3910 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Angeles, is having an open session on “the meaning of ghosts.” Information: (213) 663-2167.
And several churches will hold alternative parties on Halloween night. For example, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, 102 E. Baker St., Costa Mesa, is offering a “safe and fun Halloween” festival 5 to 8 p.m. with live music, dancing, food and game booths. And in the Porter Ranch area of Northridge, the newly merged Shepherd of the Hills and Hillcrest Christian churches will hold a “Hallelujah Harvest” from 5 to 8:30 p.m. on church grounds at 19700 Rinaldi St.
