The Methodist Church on Via de la Paz burned on January 8.
Pastor John Shaver of the Community United Methodist Church in Pacific Palisades, not only lost a home, the parish, where he lived with his family, but the church at 801 Via de la Paz was also destroyed.
He wrote to CTN that “I told the bishop that my hope is to stay and help rebuild and retire at CUMC Pacific Palisades (I have about 20 years left).”
Shaver said the congregation and other interested people are invited to do a Crosswalk Service on April 18, Good Friday at 2 p.m. They will start at the location of the church and walk to the bluffs, carrying a cross and reading scripture along the way. “It will be about a 45-minute walk and people can drive/bike/scooter along, too,” Shaver said.
On Sunday, there will be a short worship service at 1 p.m. at the church campus, around a flower cross. If anyone wants to bring flowers to place on the cross, “that would be great,” Shaver said. It has been a long-time tradition to have a cross with flowers on it by the church entrance at Easter.click here.
“Blessings during this Holy Week,” the pastor said.
Thousands gathered for this Easter Sunday sunrise prayer service in the newly named community of Pacific Palisades in 1922. The future seemed bright for founder and Methodist minister Charles Scott’s vision of a “Christian utopia.” Photo courtesy of Ernest Marquez Collection, Huntington Digital Library