My First Church

[JTC]

We had great worship services. What made them so good was the very simple songs were sung by everyone. They accomplished this by projecting the words of a screen in the alter with an over-head projector. One or two guys played guitar and several people in the congregation brought a tambourine. It has occurred to me some of them might be here. Many of them had very small children and they might be here as adults.

   My favorite song was based on Psalm 134. I still sing it to the Lord but I'm alone.

1 Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord
    who minister by night in the house of the Lord.
2 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
    and praise the Lord.

  Psalm 134 has one more verse but the song used only the first 2.

[listener24]

That's awesome brother @JTC!

I'm glad that you've found a good church! Praise the Lord!

[dailyprayerwarrior]

Praise God that you found a good church!

[Jubilea]

Praise God for these kind of worship services. I remember a praise song based on that same passage, but the words were slightly different than the ones you posted.

[JTC]

10 hours ago, listener24 said:

I'm glad that you've found a good church

I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. That was my 1st church nearly 40 yrs ago. As great as the worship services were the church was based on the teachings of a false prophet. This man claimed he had a vision of a total economic collapse in all the earth that would occur in the year 1984.

  I don't think those churches exist anymore. But I'm still alive and I'm sure some others are too, especially the children.

9 hours ago, Jubilea said:

I remember a praise song based on that same passage, but the words were slightly different than the ones you posted.

  I think we sang it as:  "Lift up your hands in a sanctuary and praise the Lord.  (repeat 3 times)

  Praise ye the Lord all ye servants of the Lord (repeat 1 time)  who by night stand in the house of the Lord, who by night stand in the house of the Lord."  And then we either repeated the 2nd verse or went back to the beginning. We sang this until the Holy Spirit had people jumping up & down. Probably 15 minutes.

   The teaching wasn't bad it was very Biblical......until they got to the false prophesy. I still sing this song to God.

[Debp]

My childhood Presbyterian church wasn't Evangelical.    After I was born again I attended Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles in the 1970s.   It was founded by R.A. Torrey and D.L. Moody.   COD was known for expository preaching.   We also supported 125 missionaries....there was a big map in front of the church with a dot everywhere we had a missionary.  We sang alot of the old hymns which I still love.

However, many years ago Church of the Open Door moved to Glendora, California, so I then attended a nearby Presbyterian Church.

Check the second photo down on this link.   It shows the original Church of the Open Door in downtown.   You can see the huge Jesus Saves signs atop the white building.    The signs were visible all over and lit up at night.

https://www.churchoftheopendoor.com/about/

https://www.churchoftheopendoor.com/our-beliefs/

Edited October 11, 2019 by Debp

[BeauJangles]

26 minutes ago, Debp said:

Check the second photo down on this link.   It shows the original Church of the Open Door in downtown.   You can see the huge Jesus Saves signs atop the white building.    The signs were visible all over and lit up at night.

https://www.churchoftheopendoor.com/about/

I've seen this photo but at a slightly different angle. It's been shown in numerous secular publications. How privileged it must have been to be a member of this church. 

Edited October 11, 2019 by BeauJangles

[Debp]

10 minutes ago, BeauJangles said:

I've seen this photo but at a slightly different angle. It's been shown in numerous secular publications. How privileged it must have been to be a member of this church. 

Yes, it was and is a good church.   Back then nobody lived in downtown, so that's why they left for the suburbs.  Now there are many people living in downtown.   

I have a post card of Church of the Open Door....it also has a better angle, where you can see the Jesus Saves signs easily.   The old church building was torn down....there is a high rise office building there.   However, the architect made a little nook where you can watch a video about the church.

Besides the missionaries worldwide, Rev. Norman Allensworth operated out of the church.   He had a ministry to the Jews which included a radio program and door to door visitation.   Some of us young people did evangelism with him in the Jewish neighborhood each week.