Los Angeles RP Church

Location: Los Angeles, Calif.

Presbytery: Pacific Coast

Organization Date: Mar. 11, 1904

Membership: 66, communicant and baptized

Pastor: Ken Orr

Website: http://rpcla.org

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Our History

In 1894, Rev. J. Milligan Wylie, pastor of the Denver, Colo., RPC, took an exploratory trip to California and made the suggestion that a mission work could be organized in Los Angeles. In 1903, Synod issued $200 to explore the field in Southern California.

On Mar. 11, 1904, the commission of Colorado Presbytery met to organize the First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles with 27 members.

In the late 1970s, efforts to evangelize in the immediate neighborhood of the church were hampered by the influx of Spanish-speaking people, who were either established Roman Catholics or didn’t speak English.

In 1986-87, a program called “English as a Second Language” was started as an effort to penetrate the Hispanic community. Out of this program the church became acquainted with Raul Sanchez, who was hired to begin a part-time ministry among Spanish-speaking people in the neighborhood. Within a few years, about 13 Spanish-speaking adults and four children were added to the congregation through this ministry.

Our Ministry

Our Hispanic language ministry includes a Spanish-speaking Sabbath school class for adults and the simultaneous translation of our morning services into Spanish by Higinio Hernandez. Those needing translation receive it with wireless headsets.

Recent outreach activities have included Spanish-speaking, evangelistic movies, door-to-door distribution of Bibles and invitations to the church, and an activity booth at the local arts and crafts street festival. Here we have had art activities for children, distributed Bibles and literature about our church, and held many conversations with neighbors.

Our discipleship program is centered around “FLEX” (Fellowship and Learning Experiences) groups. These are 6- to 8-week home studies for small groups around a single subject. They have a Bible study, fellowship sharing, and prayer times.

This past summer we held our first Book Club, with a number of ladies reading a novel and gathering for a day of discussion around the book. We would like to see this become an evangelistic outreach with books that have a wider audience, enabling our members to get friends involved (men and women) and have discussion groups around the themes of the novel or nonfiction books we use.

Prayer Requests

✧ Pray for the future direction of our Hispanic ministry.

✧ Pray for ways we can impact the greater Los Angeles area.

✧ Pray for ways to minister effectively to our membership, which is spread over a large area and is comprised of people very busy with work and family responsibilities.

✧ Pray for a new generation of leadership to be raised up.