This Is The Church...: The First "Season" of Our Father's Evangelical Church

By Brad Brown

This book makes a uniquely bold claim: "This is the Church." Not "That is the Church" or " There is the Church." No, this is it! How can this be? Because within the pages of this heartfelt, fictional memoir is the author's own personal story that he transparently lives out through his alter-ego, Ian Block. Finding himself "plopped down" into a w

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brad A. Brown
• Release date: Jun 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987046128

Brad Brown

Brad Brown graduated with high honors with a Master's degree in Theology from Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He also graduated cum laude from Biola University with a degree in Speech Communication and a minor degree in Biblical Studies and Theology. He was voted the Most Outstanding Student of the Speech Communication Department for 1981-1982. Rightly Dividing? is the sequel to This Is The Church . . . , and is followed by Upon This Rock., and Raised!-the completed four "seasons" of Our Father's Evangelical Church.Brad lives with his wife Cindy in Franktown, Colorado.

Book preview

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

THIS IS THE CHURCH . . .

Yes, indeed, this is the church: part hospital—part armory, part old-folks’ home—part nursery, part academy—part mental ward, part beacon—part neighborhood irritant, part gathering place—part evil deterrent, part historical landmark—part modern convenience, part infirmary—part insane asylum, part saint—part sinner, part divine—part dementia, part charismatic—part criminal, part professor—part lunatic, part opulent—part destitute, yet, somehow, by some enigmatic heavenly adhesive, whole!

This divine invention was the home of my first introduction to the Savior (and my woefully tardy but eventually obedient baptism!), my first kiss, my first girlfriend, and my first ministry opportunity. When functioning properly, this institution, affectionately known as the Body, has been so carefully constructed that it can potentially embrace all of the triumphs of a life and, at the same time, withstand all of the tragedies of that same life with uncanny ability and spiritual savviness.

Like the flippers that guard the bottom of a pinball machine, you shoot through life with speed and agility, racing back and forth and slamming into bumpers that cause all sorts of internal and external bells to go off, racking up point victories when the correct trajectory is achieved. Yet to prevent you from careening out of sight and out of the game, the flippers are positioned to push you back into the race just in the nick of time as you begin to bottom out! One’s ball free-falling past the flippers of the church is either by unfortunate circumstances or sheer determination, requiring specific self-destructive aiming in order to do so. Or, worse still, the church itself is caught by surprise asleep at the buttons as their charges fall through the crack caused by their collective irresponsibility. I, for one, am grateful for the life perspective, the oft-denounced boundaries, and the occasional catapult Our Father’s Evangelical Church provided me so that I could stay on the ball and not be swallowed up by the gravitational pull of a ball-swallowing world!

Our church was situated on a remarkable piece of real estate at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills of Monument, California (this spur of the mountain chain would later be named more specifically San Gabriel). Monument was originally called Vista Pacifica by the settling Spaniards of the 1700s to commemorate the spectacular view of the pristine Pacific Ocean afforded by many of the promontories at the time within the prime acreage that would eventually become the township of Monument in 1927. Our church commands just such a view, although the breathtaking panorama has now been relegated to only occasional days when the air quality permits beholding such an historic vista.

The church was built some 60–70 years ago in a neighborhood nestled at the base of the monument after which the town was named, or re-named. As the terrain and foothills are predominantly composed of granite, it was the dream of 39-year-old Max Stellar of Grand Rapids, Michigan, when he came out to California in the 1920s, as an architect for the rich and famous, to literally carve a name for himself against the backdrop of our picturesque little hamlet. As the story goes, Stellar had been inspired by a recent summer excursion to South Dakota, and profoundly affected by not only the power and majesty of Mount Rushmore, but also by the miracle of sculpting that was reflected in the four confident presidential heads that remained facially austere and even defiant against the seemingly insurmountable odds that nature had and would fling at them. Max came back home to California and immediateIy purchased some 15 to 20 predominantly vertical acres going up the cliff face of the Sierra Nevada foothills of Vista Pacifica that were untouched by human hands. He set out to sculpt (in his spare time from making those studio-contracted movie stars of old a little more comfortable in their living spaces) the head of his favorite movie star, Rudolph Valentino, in full Arab headdress, as depicted in the 1921 classic movie, The Sheik. With a crew that fluctuated between 10 and 15 fellow architects, movie makers, demolition experts, artists, naturalists, and sculptors, Max worked for many years at carving the 100-foot face of his beloved movie star permanently into the Southern California topography. Interestingly, Max and his crew strictly worked from left to right, as it was somehow advantageous to the sculpting process—the result of the slope of the sheer cliff, the downhill pattern of the massive amounts of falling chiseled debris, the flow of rainwater, and its resultant erosion of growth and topsoils during inclement seasons.

Amidst all of the excitement generated by this artistic defacing of the landscape was the uncharacteristically flexible Vista Pacifica City Council. At the time, the Council consisted of only a handful of citizens who had built homes in the area. They also worked in some capacity, either in Hollywood proper (some 25 miles to the west) or in other local industries that were continuously cropping up. Others had cultivated farmland still replete in the sparsely populated San Fernando Valley. Together they decided to re-name the town, in the haughty heat of the moment, to Monument.

Ironically, it seemed, just as soon as the name was officially adopted, the civic ceremonies all completed, and Monument legally recorded as a city in the State of California in 1927, Max Stellar died of a sudden heart attack in the fifth year of his Rudolph Valentino project. Having left no specific prodigy to finish the project (he was single and had no children to carry on his name or career), his other co-workers slowly lost interest at varying stages for other obligations and endeavors clamoring for their attentions. Thus, the left half of the 100-foot face of Rudolph Valentino—a left ear, left eye, whole nose, and half heroically smiling lips—was abandoned to the inquisitive, destructive, tenacious exploration of nature.

The hillside brush that surrounded The Sheik began to prey upon it, and the indigenous animal life sought to inhabit it (like the family of raccoons that currently call Rudolph’s left nostril home). In addition to abruptly encroaching upon the rugged yet serene backdrop of the city, the cloven project has also permanently chiseled into the psyche of the perplexed inhabitants of Monument a gigantic to do list in the sky! Not to be outdone by all of the attention drawn to Monument, a High School in downtown Hollywood adopted the Valentino Sheik as their mascot as well!

Of course, the unfinished half-head of Rudolph has fostered as many rib-poking jokes and barbs over the years as my last name. Virtually every Christmas, against all of the imposed city ordinances, some prankster-vandal, under the erroneous pretense of creative originality, climbs up the partial face of Rudolph and spray-paints his nose red. After so many years of defacing in December and corrective sandblasting in January, the nose now retains a year-round red hue!

Even Our Father’s Evangelical Church was not immune to fostering its own series of jokes and quips over the years regarding the 100-foot partial sculpture that looked down on the church property from a height of 50 feet (where the chin begins). Many of the remarks were jocular derivations from our very own hymnals! Classic phrases such as Our sacred [half] head, His eyes [eye] are [is] on the sparrow, and He hides me in the [partial] cleft of the rock did not escape a double meaning unique to our church and caused a smirk or two. Church members were compelled to admit that, on the occasions when they sang these verses, their minds were engaged in a shameful worshipful duality. They would try, in vain, to pensively focus singularly on the Godhead, but find themselves pursing their lips in a worthless attempt to deflect the devious smile that was imminently forming at the corners of their mouth, caused by a mental picture of Rudolph staring down at them from outside the stained-glass windows, which defiantly replaced their intended holy thoughts with comparative hilarity.

Valentino Avenue is one of only two off-ramps from the freeway that take you up the hill and drop you into the heart of downtown Monument (the other being the highly unoriginal Main Street, which runs perpendicular to Valentino, bisecting the avenue about halfway up the hill). Since the town is built on this incline that ascends toward the foothills, the freeway commands an excellent view of the half-head of Rudolph beyond. Even in its unfinished state, or perhaps because of it, our monument is quite the attraction for those visiting the Southland. Spectator slowing is commonplace, as all manner of tourists and sojourners will deliberately schedule a brief side excursion east along the freeway, away from the established entertainment attractions and amusement parks that garner fame in the Los Angeles area, to get a glimpse of the most famous unfinished project in Southern California!

Our church is right off Valentino Avenue at the top of the hill (after one passes the usual battery of commercial buildings—our bank, City Hall, Police and Fire Departments), where the avenue curves to the left in a directional change to the northwest. The church is on the corner of Ridgeway and Valentino Avenues. Our forefathers possessed enough foresight to obtain some sizable property for the church and its grounds, which can be clearly seen even at the bottom of the hill. As I have stated, the property is located directly 50 feet below the protruding chin of the legendary movie star. At the back of the property, a retaining wall butts up against the hillside as the mountains roll upward and eventually frame the famous face. This wall serves as the rear perimeter of the play area for our church’s King’s Kids Preschool, which includes all sorts of plastic forts and jungle gyms, as well as designated sand and grass areas. On some afternoons, the children literally frolic in the shadow of the chin and nose of the monument as it stretches over the play area, ominously staining the ground with shades of Hollywood lore as the sun