Happy Easter and Greetings from Hollywood

In the past few months we’ve felt like spies in the promised land. We’ve been gathering information from various sources including other Christians, ministry leaders, books, personal observations, and prayer. Some of what we’ve discovered is confirmation of what we’ve already known or suspected, but some of it was a little surprising. Our discoveries have helped us to understand our part here. Although it won’t be easy, we have come to this conclusion: With God’s help and by His direction, we are well able to take this land.

INTELLIGENCE REPORT

Background to the Spiritual Climate of Hollywood

The origins of the film industry in Hollywood give a little insight into the “spirit” that pervades the industry and the people in it. The town began in 1883 when a Prohibitionist named Harvey Wilcox bought a 160-acre parcel of land and began subdividing it to form a Protestant Christian temperance community. His wife, Daeida, gave it the name Hollywood. Even as late as 1912, when Cecil B. DeMille moved there, free land was being offered to anyone who would build a house of worship.

The movie industry arrived in 1911 and completely changed the direction that Hollywood was headed. The reasons for moving there were greatly influenced by the need to avoid certain legal complications and related problems in shooting elsewhere.

The main problem was with claims to a patent made by Thomas Edison. Early film was made by Eastman but Edison managed to patent the sprockets on the film, thereby claiming to have invented the motion picture process.

Edison partnered with a former rival, Biograph, to form the Motion Picture Patents Company in1908, commonly known as the Trust. Early American movie production was centered primarily in New York and New Jersey. The Trust licensed film equipment to a variety of companies and they sued anyone who dared to make films with non-Edison cameras, often enforcing their patents by sending hired gunmen to put bullets through the cameras (and occasionally the camera operators) of any competitors who wouldn’t pay up. The first film companies to move to Hollywood were mainly attempting to escape New York and New Jersey and get as far away from the Trust as they could. Even then, they were not always safe. DeMille was shot at twice during his first few months in California and was in the habit of carrying a .45 revolver with him everywhere he went. With this kind of a beginning, it is no wonder that Hollywood developed the character of a rebel culture, always at odds with everyone, often doing things for no other purpose than to be different and shocking.

Thus Hollywood developed into a relatively godless and immoral place and, at least within the industry, still is, though that has been changing over the past decade. There were ministries that embraced the Hollywood community and, for a time at least, had great impact. Aimee Semple McPherson, for example, frequently had a host of celebrities in attendance at her church in Los Angeles. Numerous factors caused the proliferation of a multitude of religious groups. Beginning in 1906 with the Azusa Street revival, churches sprang up everywhere, often with a holiness flavor to them. This inevitably came into conflict with the wild lifestyle that the film industry was developing.

Bob Schuler arrived in 1920. He took over the failing Trinity Methodist church in Los Angeles. He was a powerful orator with a spellbinding, adversarial style. He became known as “Fighting Bob” for the way he attacked everyone for the problems around him. His congregation grew to 3,000 and he became very influential through a radio ministry that made him America’s first broadcast evangelist in 1926. He was anti-Catholic, hated Hollywood, movies, Jews and the theory of evolution and he was an outspoken supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. In reference to movies, he said, “There are poisons here that shall destroy the home, besmirch the virtue of womanhood, and sully every principle of social intercourse unless a mighty cleansing be wrought!” He was actually jailed in 1929 for slanderous remarks made on the radio about a local theatre owner, but the same year a former Klan member became mayor of Los Angeles and for a time, Schuler was untouchable. Once he put a curse on the whole state of California and claimed credit for two earthquakes. He offended so many people that William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, reportedly spent a million dollars to destroy him. Ultimately the FCC took the radio station away from him, but not before he succeeded in completely separating the church from Hollywood.

Schuler’s preaching attack on movies coincided with four scandals in a two-year period, from 1920 to 1922, that got O.J. Simpson kind of publicity. The public pressure from these scandals, combined with Schuler’s attacks, resulted in the abandonment of Hollywood by the church.

Our Observations

Hollywood has a distinct and overt hostility toward fundamentalist Christianity. It is due, in part to the licentious lifestyles of most of those who make films and in part is a defensive reaction to attacks by the church.

There is an equally intense hostility from the church community toward Hollywood. It is demonstrated in the history of Hollywood and the abandonment of film by the church. The message that began in the 1920s was that to be a good Christian you must renounce the film industry.

The church’s hostility toward Hollywood is also demonstrated in the “them vs. us” attitude adopted by so many evangelicals. Instead of infiltrating the industry, Christians have attempted to create an alternative to Hollywood. The attitude is conveyed by the recent release “End of the Spear.” The primary advertising focus was through churches. The e-mail campaign stressed the phrase, “Send a message to Hollywood.” The message was supposed to be that Christians don’t need Hollywood anymore. The message that God commissioned us to deliver is the Gospel. Instead it has become “We don’t need you anymore and we will destroy you if possible.” This is not exactly the love that Jesus told us to extend. (Understand that we are not bashing “End of the Spear.” It is a very well made film, a refreshing increase in the quality of Christian filmmaking and we recommend it. It is the marketing approach that we question, not the film itself.)

Even Los Angeles Christians have abandoned Hollywood. Fewer then 10% of those involved in the film industry claim to be Christians when the Los Angeles metropolitan area has the highest number of “born again” Christians of any of the top 54 market areas in the United States. Los Angeles has 3.6 million people who are born again believers. Yet those believers have created a wall between themselves and the film industry and bragged about it. When celebrities become born again, the usual approach is not to take time to mentor and teach them as they grow in their spiritual lives. Instead they are paraded on TBN and Daystar as the latest trophy of the ministry and they are pulled completely out of their “immoral” careers and injected into low quality Christian productions or Christian talk shows. Without being in the industry that made them celebrities in the first place, they soon are no longer celebrities and in a relatively short time they are no longer of much use to those ministries. Celebrities tend to be used and discarded by ministry, which is not really much different than the way they were treated in the film industry.

The belief that making movies with Christian messages will change Hollywood is not supported by the evidence. “The Passion of the Christ” is a good example of a very successful film with a Christian message. About 31 million non-Christians saw it (compared with 36 million Christians). Studies showed that less than one-tenth of one percent of that audience was moved by the film enough to embrace Christianity. In fact, most of the effects of the movie that were reported by attendees faded after six months.

There are some studies that show a great influence of media but the studies cited above seem to indicate the opposite. The incongruity may stem from the fact that core values are not changed much by outside influences. They are established early in life, primarily by parents, and it takes more than viewing a film to change them.

Media has great influence on those already predisposed to react to it. Those who are violent by nature, for example, might react to violence in film by becoming more violent, but those who are not violent by nature will not be affected in an adverse way.

At the same time, media does seem to have a tremendous impact on superficial things that are not a part of core values-such as fashion, slang, product purchases, etc. Effective message movies, then, might start a fad of wearing crosses, but they will not change the core beliefs of the audience and they will not change Hollywood. Those kinds of changes only come through the power of the Holy Spirit acting directly in people’s lives and that only happens through personal contact with other Christians.

The key to changing Hollywood is to see talented Christians move into the industry in a way that enables them to occupy key positions in the industry and affect change from the inside. If Hollywood is a mission field made up of unchurched people, then we should be treating them in the same way that we would people in a foreign country. In the words of producer/director Phil Cooke, “We don’t boycott or humiliate a tribe in Africa because they don’t understand Christian values, so why to we do it to Hollywood?”

It is interesting to note that the infamous McCarthy hearings in the 1940s revealed that there actually was an agenda followed by the communists for influencing the culture of America. According to Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, a California author who studied the recently released transcripts of those hearings, the plan was not so much to alter the content of the movies as it was to infiltrate Hollywood unions. They tried to place key people in key positions of influence. All this occurred at the same time that the church was warning people to stay away.

To accomplish the placement of Christians in Hollywood, however, there are three serious obstacles. The first is the attitude of the church. That needs to be corrected through education. The second obstacle is the lack of discipline among Christian filmmakers. Most have become so convinced that they must bring a message that their films are primarily preaching instead of storytelling, which is supposed to be what films are all about. There is a tendency to believe that the anointing of the Holy Spirit is what will make the film good. Most Christians seem to think that “The Passion” was successful because it was about Jesus. The truth is that it was successful because it was simply a well-written, well-filmed, well-directed and well-acted movie. Christian artists must be taught to hone their skills through training and self-discipline so that they are as good as they can be at their craft.

This gives some idea of the background that we have found here. Over the past several weeks, God has begun to clarify for us a plan for how to approach this ministry. In the next few weeks we will share some of that with you. What seems clear to us is that the church has not had very much impact on the film and television industries. There are some things happening but not nearly enough. We have seen ministries in the area of Hollywood/Beverly Hills/West Los Angeles struggle to even survive. Since that is right where we are, that is something that we want to address. Why have they struggled so much and how can we meet the challenges successfully?

We will share more on that in the near future as well. For now, let us leave you with this observation. Ministry that attacks and condemns Hollywood does not change it. They only entrench the Hollywood community deeper in their hostility toward the church. What is required is more of an infiltration, an approach that highlights the love of God, not the judgment of God. The only churches that seem to be taking that approach are traditional denominations that do not move in the gifts of the Holy Spirit or utilize the power of the Holy Spirit in prayer and in ministry. They use a more intellectual approach which is relatively ineffective against the spiritual strongholds here. Those who understand how to move in the Holy Spirit, for the most part, hate Hollywood and are more interested in judgment that in redemption. We believe that God is now raising up several ministries that can be more effective in every way. We believe that we are here precisely to be a part of that movement.

Thank you for your prayer, support and encouragement. We truly know this is a team effort.

Don & Christina

It certainly wasn’t what we expected.  In all these years neither one of us had ever experienced anything like it.  On Monday night we were relaxing in our living room when suddenly we felt a thump as though someone had rammed their vehicle into the side of our house.  We rushed to the windows expecting to find a modern addition to the Spanish architecture but found nothing out of the ordinary.  It wasn’t until we checked the online news reports a few minutes later that we discovered we had just experienced our first earthquake.

It’s a very unstable area—in more ways than one.  We all know how unstable the earth is here, but the people in Los Angles may be less steady than the ground.  The city’s residents just can’t seem to get connected.  The average pilgrim to LA stays only eighteen months.

The very nature of the Entertainment industry dictates that people be transient.  Very few ever work the same job for their entire lives and then retire.  Most are hired for a specific project—a movie, a show—and when that project is over, they look for another job.  Projects can last from a week or two or up to a year.  It means that even those who are successful here spend a large amount of time moving around.  One friend we spoke with this week, a very successful writer and actor, told us that in just three years time, you might go from knowing everyone at a studio to knowing no one.  They all change.

This produces a kind of flakiness in people.  They are always trying to advance their careers so they are hesitant to make any kind of commitment that might tie them down.  Even such simple things as RSVPs to parties get put off until the last possible minute.  You never know whether or not you’ll get a better invitation.

It really is all about who you know, here even more than most places.  Networking is everything.  If you don’t have the contacts, you don’t have the jobs.  It is imperative that you meet a lot of people if you want to succeed.  Normal channels don’t really help much most of the time.  For example, we have asked about a dozen writers how they got an agent.  Every single one of them said that a friend took them in and introduced them.  None of them went through the usual process of approaching an agency.

Ironically, these contacts rarely lead to connection.  People know each other at a very superficial level.  We noticed quickly after moving here that everyone talked to us.  Standing in line at a store, walking down the street, sitting in a café, no matter where you are, people will strike up a conversation with you as though you have known them for years.  But we also noticed that the conversations never had any depth.  Personal space here is much closer than other places we have lived, so people stand closer to each other but they maintain higher walls, also.  It is very difficult to connect at any kind of intimate level.  It is a shallow society.

The instability of the culture is reflected in the lives of Christians here as well.  Many believers we’ve met have been shopping for a church home for years or simply don’t attend at all.  There seems to be a great difficulty committing to a local congregation.  The resistance to ministries is also intense.  In the last six months, at least seven LA churches have lost their pastors.  In three of these churches, the associate pastors also left.

There are many angles from which we could describe our impressions at this point and over the next few weeks we will cover most of them.  For now, we hope to give a general impression of where ministry stands in relation to the entertainment industry and how God has directed us to enter into that arena.

Last week we mentioned the hostility that exists between the church and the Hollywood community.  This means that the Christians in Hollywood have developed some beneficial characteristics in their spiritual lives and some other traits that are not beneficial.  The good thing is that they seem to instinctively understand that they have to support each other or they will not survive.  There is amazingly little of the kind of sectarian and territorial attitudes that so often causes Christian groups to avoid working together.  So many believers in Hollywood are in hiding that when they do find each other they are very supportive of each other.

Unfortunately, that means that most of their connection to the church is limited to other believers in the industry.  The groups that they are attached to are not really churches but more parachurch ministries directly related to the industry.  A great deal of their energy is devoted to helping Christian artists develop a sense of mission.  They discuss film making, the world view of movies, how a Christian should handle involvement in R-rated films, how Christians should react to movies like “The DaVinci Code,” and a host of other topics related to working in film and television.  These subjects are very important to discuss, but do not replace spiritual growth.

As a result, very little of the basics of Christian living is really dealt with.  There is not much teaching done about how to pray effectively or how to tap into the Holy Spirit to accomplish things or how to hear the voice of God clearly.  The things that would normally be learned in church are not addressed very often or in much depth.  And those people are not really connected to churches so they don’t learn that much of it there either.  The end result is a lot of industry believers who are not connected and who don’t understand spiritual warfare very well.  They usually mean well but they are remarkable ineffective in ministry.

We will talk more in the future about this but for now, we mention this because through this the direction God is becoming much more clear and we are able to understand our part in meeting some of these needs. These are the things that He has said to us thus far.

1.  A celebrity or program based ministry will not have much impact.  What will change Hollywood is a move of the Holy Spirit that causes people to connect to each other and to a church where they can learn the basics.  Churches that have tried to found their efforts on the strong personality or charisma of a pastor have grown quickly and faded quickly.  They have little impact on the lives of people around them in any way that gave much of a foundation.  It will take numerous smaller ministries that work together to build relationships with people.

2.  The Holy Spirit is the connector (a word that God gave to Christina a few weeks ago).  Without a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit, nothing of value will be accomplished.  Because of this, it has become clearer than ever that teaching and Bible studies will only have limited affect at the beginning.  Everything is dependent on intercession for this city and this community.  As a result we are spending more and more time in prayer.  We are also fasting one day a week (Monday) as a regular part of our prayer.

3.  To help people connect, we are turning much of our effort to developing internet ministry.  This will mean starting an online church with worship, teaching, prayer and intercession, opportunities for input from other people and regular instruction in the basics of Christian living.  The object will be to provide a place where people can tap into even when they are on a project and their schedule does not allow them to attend a regular meeting.  The emphasis will be on pointing them toward an actual church that they attend in person, but in the interim, they will have a place to connect.  This site will develop as we go.  For now, we felt that it was important to start the ministry even without the complete structure, much like Ezra who set up an altar and began the ministry of the Temple first, then build the Temple building around the ministry.

This newsletter, which we are sending out weekly, is the beginning of that.  It will evolve into the online church over time.  We are spending a few weeks bringing all of you up to speed regarding what we have observed and what we are planning.  Then we will begin to do weekly teachings, sort of online sermons.

4.  While we are doing this, we are in the process of doing the paperwork necessary to give the church a structure both administratively and legally.  That will develop as we go, also.  In all of these areas, we will give you as much information as we can along the way so that you can continue to pray for us as we progress.

Many of you responded last week to our first real newsletter and we appreciate that.  Many asked what you could do to help.  Our needs right now are really pretty simple.

Prayer.  Because of the manner in which spiritual strongholds have gripped the minds and the thinking of Hollywood, prayer is the absolute essential ingredient for a breakthrough.  Please know that we will not succeed without strong support from those of you who are intercessors.  Pray for divine connections; that God directs us to the right people at the right times.  We know that our own efforts are of no value without this.

We would also appreciate prayer for finances. The cost of living here is 36% higher than living in Arizona.  Every month has been miraculous since we started preparing for this move.  God has met every need that we have had.  But there have been times when we really weren’t sure how it was going to happen until the last minute.  This provision has been part of the evidence that we are exactly where we belong.  Pray for support to come in that will enable us to continue doing all that we need to do without hindrance or delay.

You are also invited to join us on Mondays (or any day you wish) to fast and pray for this city.  Our most important prayer is to invite the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of the people here.  Without God’s Spirit, no real change can occur.  This week we celebrate the hundred-year anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival.  God did mighty things in the past because His people joined together and asked Him to.  Join with us in eager expectation of His love to be revealed in the hearts of the Los Angeles community.

We delight in your comments and your encouragement.  Please feel free to contact us at any time.  We love hearing from you.  We value your input, suggestions, encouragement and prayer.  If there are specific prayer requests that you have, please send them to us.

A few days ago we attended a Christian event where we met many veteran filmmakers. When we mentioned to them that we were new to the Hollywood area, one commented on the resistance that we must be facing. We replied that although the resistance here is the strongest either of us has ever felt, we have an even stronger prayer support from our friends. Thank you for your prayers.

In our last update we asked for prayer in two main areas. One was prayer for connections and the other for our finances. God has answered both in abundance. Since you have been praying we have made so many valuable connections and we are still trying to follow up on all of them. We also saw another month end with all of our bills paid. Please continue to pray for both of these areas.

Last Thursday was the fourteenth annual observance of the National Day of Prayer with a prayer meeting specifically for the entertainment industry. We attended along with more than a hundred industry professionals who represented every part of film and television from producers, directors and actors to writers and camera operators and even agents and attorneys. They all prayed together for the people that they work with. We met at the CBS Studio City Lot on the sound stage where Seinfeld was taped.

The importance of prayer cannot be emphasized enough. What we saw was evidence that prayer is working. Changing Hollywood is a spiritual battle and no amount of reasoning, debate or the making of Christian movies will make a bit of difference without the Holy Spirit doing his work in response to prayer.

One of the men led a prayer for Gay Hollywood. He had been saved out of that lifestyle. He began by reading 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy or drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

He then pointed out that too many of us stop without reading the next verse.

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

It was only in the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit that this man was redeemed—the result of prayer. He is just one of many here who are living proof that prayer works. We are more committed than ever to prayer, not for God’s judgment but for his redemption. The church abandoned Hollywood in the 1920s but things are changing. There is a great unity among Christians in this industry and the ministry and outreach is growing. But there is still much to be done. Keep praying for those who are working in the industry. There is still a great need for them to grow in their relationships with Jesus and to get connected with other believers in such a way that they can grow and mature. Please let us know if there are any areas that we can pray for you. We want to stand with you as faithfully as you stand with us.

We are excited to invite you to visit the new Cyberchurch site: communityemergo.com It is in the first of many stages of growth. We have a special place on the site called Diablogue for you to write something inspiring or encouraging. We hope you will consider sharing what God is doing in your life or teaching you. It’s a chance for all of us to be ministers.

We will continue to update you through the newsletter monthly, but since the weekly teachings will be posted on the website, we will discontinue emailing them directly to you unless you request it. We will send out a short weekly inspirational email and a reminder that the site has been updated.

We’ve been so grateful to those of you who have been praying for us as we launch into this new area. We’d also like to thank Jim Veness for helping us to focus in the direction of the website, Bethany Ruck for building the site, and Alan Meyers for technical support.

We shared with you a few months ago that we were preparing to file our 501(c)(3). We assumed that to have a church or to be a ministry, we had to do what other ministries do. As we searched our own hearts and sought God’s wisdom, we came to believe he is leading us in another direction. This means that donations to this ministry will not be tax-deductible. But it also means that we won’t have the restrictions placed on us that most other ministries do. It’s also an opportunity for our would-be supporters to ask themselves the motives behind their giving. Even though it may cost us donations, we believe that in honoring God, he will bless us.

Our prayer is that the Holy Spirit would continue to work in your life and in the lives of the people here.

Blessings,

Don and Christina

Happy New Year!  With the new year comes a new look.  We have redesigned the Community Emergo website and we’d love to hear your opinion.  We are still working on smoothing out the rough spots, but it is a huge improvement.  Thank you to Bethany Ruck, (our daughter) for the new website.  Check it out:
communityemergo.com

In ‘Theologiblog’, Don continues his teaching from “Let’s Blame it on the Snake”.   He’s discussing the subject of authority.  He teaches some things that I’m sure most people haven’t heard before.  In ‘Aha! Moments’ (the new name for Christina’s blog), I share another one of those embarrassing experiences for all the world to judge/laugh at/learn from/wonder why.  In ‘Diablogue’ Mark Bristow writes on ‘Name That Seed’ (not what you think).  Be sure and leave your own comments and insights on the site and remember that anyone is welcome to submit your own insights on ‘Diablogue’. 

Our weekly Bible study is going very well.  We meet in our home on Monday evenings and eat and study God’s Word.  We all get to comment and ask questions.  Sometimes Don even answers.   We are studying ‘The Kingdom of God’.  Don will probably be teaching on this subject for the rest of his life.

We are so thankful for all that God has done in our lives in this past year and are so excited to see what this next year will bring.  Let us know what’s going on with you.
Love and blessings,
Don and Christina

In our society, numbers have become a very important part of our identity.  Job applicants are evaluated by the number of years in school.  Potential suitors are appraised by the number of dollars in their bank accounts.  Pastors are evaluated by the number of people in their congregations.  For those of you interested in numbers, here are a few:

18 months living in Los Angeles.  The average turn around for new residents is 18 months, but we have our feet firmly planted in earthquake country.

17 celebrity sightings.  We’ve seen Paris Hilton frequently and even wondered if she might be stalking us, but it turns out she just enjoys the café at the end of our street. 

9 homeless people who sleep on the streets near our home.  One of them pushes two shopping carts and frequents Starbuck’s, but most of them aren’t so well-off.   

3 hamburgers seen in our neighborhood.  The carnivores were chased out at the same time as all the ugly people.

Zero times God has disappointed us.  It’s been an adventure in trusting him and he’s never let us down—not once.  (This is the number that means the most to us).

The past few months have been busy but rewarding.  The home meetings are going very well.  Don’s teaching a series from his soon-to-be-published book, The Harlot and the Bride on the book of Revelation.  Honestly, I was never very interested in the last book of the Bible until I heard Don’s explanation.  I thought of it as a book of future events that weren’t all that important to my life.  Don shows how relevant it is and has been to every Christian since it was written.  He challenges us to examine our own hearts and purify ourselves from religious and worldly thinking. 

We had our first guest speaker in March.  My dad, Pastor Fred Schamer taught on obedience.  His visit was a blessing to all of us.  He left us with a new perspective on the subject of Lordship and a fresh desire to obey.  He returned to Arizona with a clearer understanding of our vision and prayer needs.   We are grateful for all of his prayers and encouragement. 

We’ve been asked what we’re calling our church and we don’t really have a name.  For now, at least, we’re the “No Name Church”.  As we’ve said before, we’re more interested in building people than an organization.  Since the people are the church, I suppose we already have a name: The Body of Christ.  We don’t intend to go against the grain for the sake of being different.  We’re just intentional about investing in things that really matter and skipping those that aren’t. 

The communityemergo.com website has been updated after being neglected for awhile.  Don’s series from his book, Let’s Blame it on the Snake has been posted in its entirety.  His new series for Theologiblog is on the Lord’s Prayer, titled “Simple Prayer”.  I highly recommend following along weekly.  I’m a big fan of most of his material, but his series on prayer is particularly insightful, useful and freeing.   I finally posted a new blog, “Are You Shoulding Me?” about enforcing our own religious and personal rules.  The guest blog, “Diablogue” is open for submissions from you to share what God is showing you. 

Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement.  If you would like us to pray for you, drop us a line.  Let us know what’s new in your life.  We’re always to glad to hear from our friends.

Love,

Don and Christina

When we discussed what news to share with you this month, we agreed that we absolutely hate sensationalism.  However, we were told that to keep you interested in the work that we’re doing, we have to impress you with thrilling and astounding accomplishments.  We’re supposed to wow you with how much, how many and how new.  So it is with great pride that we announce we are now:

THE SECOND SMALLEST MINISTRY IN HOLLYWOOD!!!

As we celebrate this amazing distinction, we’d like to thank all of you who have believed in us, encouraged us, prayed for us, and given to us.  We know that we couldn’t have accomplished all of this without you.  I guess all the others who didn’t think much of us are really embarrassed now. 

To be perfectly honest, we’re not really sure our claim is true. We don’t have a notarized certificate verifying that we really are the second smallest ministry in Hollywood.  We might be only the second smallest ministry in West Hollywood.  Maybe even the third smallest.  So maybe we should just tell you plainly what’s been going on without comparing ourselves to other ministries or astonishing you with our accomplishments. 

We pray to love the people of Los Angeles as passionately as God does.  We desire to embrace the city’s residents the way Jesus longed to embrace Jerusalem.  Instead of looking in disgust at these celebrities whose names fill the tabloids, ranging from the political activists to the pop tarts who can’t drive without being under the influence of something, we’ve begun to look upon them with great compassion.  More than any other single group in America, they desperately crave validation, approval, respect and to be liked.  We can’t think of a mission field in the world more ready for harvest. 

We have the privilege of seeing some powerful ministry going on by those in our fellowship.  For example, one of our friends, responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, gave a kind word and a $20 bill to a homeless woman who supported her crack addiction by prostitution.  He continued to pray for her well-being and talked with her occasionally.  As a result, she left her abusive drug-dealing boyfriend, completed re-hab, got a respectable job and her own apartment.  Most of the changes we see are less dramatic and more incremental, but no less real and no less miraculous. 

Our Sunday fellowship is going very well.  From the beginning, we have been denominationally diverse and continue to be.  Now, we are politically diverse as well.  At first, since we have lively discussions anyway, the political differences led to some passionate exchanges.  What a zealous people these artists are—and we absolutely adore them.  Ultimately, everyone settled down long enough to listen to Don’s teaching and maybe even learn a thing or two from each other. 

The evidence that we are on the right track is the reaction we’ve seen to the most basic Bible teaching.  They are desperately hungry for Bible teaching that is relevant.  The changes that we are seeing are changes in attitudes, changes in relationships, changes in self-image, changes in goals—all things that have potential to change the world, but none of which can be quantified statistically.  That’s why we don’t really know if we are the second smallest ministry in Hollywood, nor do we care. 

Love to you all,

Don and Christina Enevoldsen