Rhonda - Transgender Elder @ Hollywood Adventist Church

Hollywood Life - December 12, 2015

Hollywood Adventist Church

Published on Dec 15, 2015


Come worship with us!
1711 Van Ness Ave.
Hollywood, CA 90028

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7th-Day Adventist Church--an Ironic Hollywood Landmark

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.roadarch.com/modarch/cachurchla2.html

April 22, 1993|AARON BETSKY | SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Aaron Betsky teaches and writes about architecture




Hollywood was founded by temperance-minded religious pioneers who dreamed of a city of churches, not saloons. Ironically, it became the sin center of Los Angeles, filled with worldly entertainment ranging from raunchy sex to rock 'n' roll.

There are only a few churches left, and those that exist must adapt themselves to a hostile environment. A case in point is the Seventh-day Adventist Church at Hollywood Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. Its sanctuary is hidden by a formidable bunker of concrete block, while its nave offers itself as a freeway equivalent to the cathedral of Chartres, rising up above the road to mark the place of devotion.

The church is a landmark: It marks the place where the Hollywood Freeway bisects Hollywood and starts its sweeping ascent through the Cahuenga Pass. Depending on your perspective, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is shaped either like a boat of faith riding out onto this river of passing humanity or like a spindle for this movement. Its thin spire rises out of a circle of steel fins that look like the gear for the curved apse that confronts the boulevard and then comes apart into four fins facing north.

The image that comes to mind is that of a car engine, and it would be easy to see this building (as one rather irreverent critic put it) as God's Own Gas Station, but architect Robert Burman claims that the form is just an expression of the triangular site and the tradition of modern places of worship. Burman moved to Los Angeles in 1959 from Seattle to design this church, which opened in 1962. Since then he has graced the Southland with dozens of ecclesiastical structures. His churches are plays of folded white planes that stretch over the interior spaces in overlapping geometries that allow light to seep in between their structural members.


That certainly is the case in the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church. Walk into the nave, and you see nothing but planes held up by high-strength, thin steel tubes. Between the splayed planes, Burman placed glass that is invisible from the main space but lets a sequence of yellow, pink, blue and green light wash around the structure. A rounded apse of folded planes leading to randomly placed panes of glass ends the whole space, while a large chandelier and pulpit mirror the finned steeple outside, giving you the sense that the whole building is revolving into religious mystery around that one, sharp point.

The reality of mundane concerns and the passing of time unfortunately dull the impact of this gesture. On the outside, the main nave is covered with a glittering Venetian glass tile that, with the years and the application of weatherproofing, has turned into a rather undignified pinkish purple. The various offices and classrooms that surround the sanctuary are bland and uninspired, though functional.

The worst part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is its attitude toward the city; from the street level, its great curving gesture remains hidden behind a deep and tall wall of textured concrete block. This helps keep the street noise and violence out but also manages to project a sense of animosity toward Hollywood. Even worse, you enter the building through a giant parking lot at the rear of the structure.

Burman had plans for a more open structure that included courtyards and a friendlier texture to the walls, but budget restrictions and an increase in the needs of the church led to the current bunker configuration. Like many modernist architects, Burman is fascinated with such basic elements of building as structure and light, perhaps at the expense of a concern for how the building fits into the neighborhood. The result is a modern structure, isolated in its purpose and its design. The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a great building to drive by, but I am not sure I would want to live near it.

Seventh-day Adventist Church: 1711 N. Van Ness Ave., at Hollywood Boulevard

Architect: Robert Burman

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First Transgender SDA Elder

First open Transgender SDA Elder under Pastor Stoltz, Hollywood Church! Is this the First of many?

ProphesyAgainTV

Published on Jan 8, 2016

Weaving Together the Stories of God, People, and City

When Ryan Bell (DMin '11), senior pastor of the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church, felt drawn to Fuller's Doctor of Ministry program, he "was looking not so much for a school, but for mentors," he says, "who could help me think in a new way about the mission challenge I was facing." For Bell, this challenge included his passion to help people who may not view themselves as religious or spiritual to discover that God is at work in their lives and in the world--a task that required equipping "well beyond the church growth tools and marketing strategies" Bell had previously been taught.

"In my ministry, I find my greatest reward in weaving together the stories we inhabit," says Bell, describing how satisfying it is when a member of his congregation "makes the connection between their 'spiritual life' and the rest of their life." Bell sees a divide caused by American culture, which has "cordoned God off from the affairs of our daily life" so that God is "irrelevant or unknown" to many people. For Bell, then, "spiritual leadership is about helping people weave together God's story in Scripture, their personal story, and the story of our neighborhood and city." It is at the intersection of these stories, Bell believes, that one can find what God most wants to do.

The DMin program in Missional Leadership was integral to Bell's process of creating his unique approach to ministry. "What I needed," he says, "was a framework in thinking theologically about our contemporary mission challenge." While the Master of Divinity he earned in 2000 was helpful in giving him solid skills in biblical languages, as well as exegetical and theological methods, it was the DMin program that met Bell's present need for his ministry.

"It combined rigorous theological and philosophical work that I didn't get in my MDiv with innovative cultural and leadership studies," he explains, describing the way that the leadership component was integrated into his DMin courses instead of merely added on, as he was accustomed to in the past. While this model kept the program from being about "techniques to make the church more relevant to our culture," Bell points out, that also means it focused on "something infinitely more difficult--and more rewarding." Pressing on through the program, Bell experienced that reward as he learned how to integrate the many disconnected pieces he already had for ministry--theology from his MDiv courses and personal reading, "an innate curiosity about the cultural moment we inhabit" and the way it affects local churches, and ten years of urban ministry and leadership experience.

Today, this integrated model of ministry equips Bell not only to lead his congregation in Hollywood, but also to step out with them doing interfaith work with Muslim and Jewish friends in the city and to partner with LA Voice, an affiliate of PICO, a faith-based community organizing national network. Through these and other efforts, Bell and his congregation actively seek God's peace and justice enacted in their community, as they weave their stories together with God's and those of their neighbors.

Bell says that "the timing couldn't have been better" when he moved to the Hollywood Adventist Church one year into his DMin studies. "Fuller's DMin program quite literally transformed my ministry," he states, recalling how he was able to begin his work in Hollywood with a "different kind of leadership--more in harmony with my theology and better able to address the world I actually inhabit."

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Those Who Trust

by Scott Arany

2 days ago

Those Who Trust from Scott Arany on Vimeo.

Performed at the Hollywood Adventist Church. Scott Arany on lead vocals, Nathan French on vocals and guitar, Dannon Rampton on mandolin, Brian Lauritzen on cello, Thomas Hjorth on electric guitar, Troy Welstad on keys, Mikkel Heimburger on bass, random dude on the drums.

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