What I Learned About What God Is Doing in Hollywood
God is moving so dramatically in Los Angeles that young people are even paying $5 to park to go to church! My husband Jim and I wanted to know what God is up to in our city and especially in the entertainment industry. After working as professionals and ministering here for the past 30+ years, we felt the desire to visit churches across Los Angeles, to either get updated or visit for the first time. I've heard about how young entertainment industry professionals are going back to church, but I've also heard from parents of grown children that their kids have no interest in going to church. So, we took on the challenge to find out the truth. For 17 weeks in a row, we visited 17 different churches in and around Los Angeles and what we found was mind blowing.
The list of churches we visited came from the list of 85 MEDIA FRIENDLY CHURCHES on my Hollywood Prayer Network website. I put together this list years ago in order to point Christians who are not yet connected to a church, to a growing list of Gospel focused churches across the city. For I believe that every Christian working in Hollywood needs to be committed to a church! Check them out
at: http://hollywoodprayernetwork.org/resources/media-friendly-churches/
So, week 1 brought us to a church in the Valley. It was packed. The message was powerful, the worship was beautiful and the attendees were all 30 years old and under. We felt very old in this group of loving young people. But they welcomed us in as if we were their own family and we had a great time. This experience happened over and over again for over 4 months! Each time we walked into a new church, it was packed with young people. One church times their three services more than 3 hours apart because first of all the sermon is an hour and 10 minutes long, and the worship and prayer time book-ending the sermon are long and incredible. We truly were sorry when it was time to leave.
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Of the 17 churches, only 4 of them own their building! The rest rent office space, school auditoriums or even store fronts. They all have different forms of worship music and different styles of preaching, but they are all overflowing with young people and they are all filled with the Holy Spirit, regardless of their denomination. In fact, none of them even mention their denomination.
So, here's what I learned about what God is doing in Hollywood:
- Young people ARE going to church, just not with their parents or to their parent's church. They are worshiping together, where they feel understood and at home.
- Young creative Hollywood professionals are seeking Jesus and they want more of Him. These people come early, stay long after the service is over and they eat up the sermon, wait in line for prayer, and then hang out together for as long as they can.
- Christians are paying to park in order to get to church. Two of the churches had very little, if any, free parking. One is in the center of downtown LA in a rented classic theatre and the public parking lot is all that's available. The other is in a school auditorium in Santa Monica and there is a charge for the public parking structure.
- Young Christians are bringing their friends to church and many are getting baptized. We attend one church in downtown LA where they held a public Baptism after the service in the empty lot next door. 100 people got baptized as the rock band played and the food trucks served their fabulous lunch menus.
- God is building a community of Christians in Hollywood beyond anything we had imagined. These young people go out to lunch afterwards, commit to mid-week home groups and hang out together in their free time. They talk about Jesus, they try to live like Him and they are spreading the Word.
So, be encouraged. The decades of prayers asking God to bring Christians to Hollywood, asking Him to do miracles in our industry and to change the climate of Hollywood, are being answered. So, keep praying. The revival is happening!
