LAUMC History

In the early 1950s the east side of Long Beach grew very fast. New single-family homes were built by the hundreds which resulted in thousands of new residents in that part of Long Beach. The California-Arizona Conference recognized a need to establish a Methodist Church in the area.

Bishop Gerald Kennedy assigned Dr. Ray Firth to the Los Altos area to establish a new congregation in 1954. Dr. Firth arranged an initial organizational meeting at Lakewood Community Church. About twenty-five people attended the meeting and the group voted to find a temporary meeting place for worship.

The congregation was able to rent the Stanford Junior High School auditorium for worship and the cafeteria for Sunday school. The membership of the church grew quickly from 97 Founding Members in 1954 to 277 members in 1956 with 233 children enrolled in the Sunday school program.

The Conference acquired the land at the corner of Willow and Woodruff Streets. The chapel and an education wing were completed and consecrated by Bishop Kennedy in 1956. The lounge building was completed in 1957 and three years later the administrative office building was built. The membership soon grew to almost 1,400 and plans were launched for building the sanctuary. The sanctuary was consecrated in 1965, just eleven years after Dr. Firth was assigned to organize the congregation. In 1987, the congregation celebrated the final payment of the mortgage.

The church continued to grow and ministered to it constituency and the community through worship, Sunday school for all ages, youth ministries, women’s groups and men’s groups. The Prayer Chain, organized in the late ‘80’s has been instrumental in lifting up parishioners’ concerns through prayer. The youth program prospered with many youth participating in summer bus tours, international youth exchange programs, and in recent years, the Sierra Service Project sponsored by the Conference. The Preschool was established to minister to preschool children of both neighborhood and church families. In 1987 the LAUMC Foundation was established to build an endowment fund for the church. Part of the chapel became the home of the Sarah Rawl Church Library in 1993.

Early in its history Los Altos members were in mission. Some projects were short lived such as the Service Counseling Center established at the church during the Viet Nam War. Others had a longer lifespan such as supporting Alternative Christmas, Meals for Millions, Habitat for Humanity, Ecology Fair, the Door of Faith Orphanage in Mexico with food and supplies as well as work teams to assist in repairs and maintenance, the CROP walk, feeding the homeless in downtown Long Beach, Get on the Bus (bussing children to visit their mothers in prison on Mother’s Day), health fairs for the community, participation in Interfaith Council of Long Beach’s ecumenical projects, a food pantry at the church, support for Shalom and COA as well as Conference and national outreach such as United Methodist Commission on Relief.

The church’s music program began small and expanded to what it is today. The church presently supports the sanctuary choir, which sings at the 11:00a.m. traditional service every Sunday. In addition to the sanctuary choir, the youth and children’s choirs also participate in worship. A Fine Arts Committee was established and the church choirs began producing musicals and singing many sacred cantatas and requiems. Bells were purchased with memorial money, and presently the adults, youth and children’s bell choirs add to the worship services. When the informal worship service was started, a praise band was formed to support the music at that service.
 
When the original electronic organ no longer functioned, the church purchased the historic tracker pipe organ. It was built in 1846, shipped around the Horn of South America, and installed in a Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. The organ is registered and listed in the Historical Record.

Los Altos Church’s history has been rich and the congregation continues to minister to its constituents as well as serving as a mission outreach arm.