A fit place

Michele Marr

For years, the big, boxy building near the corner of Hamilton Avenue

and Brookhurst Street was a gym -- first the Huntington Beach Athletic

Club, then a location for L.A. Fitness. Now it’s home to Beachcities

Community Church, whose congregation and founding pastor, Kent Sparks,

waited close to 20 years for a place to call their own.

The congregation began with a group of 10 men, friends of Sparks, and

their wives. Sparks was a recent graduate of Talbot Theological Seminary

with a master’s degree. He had served as an intern at Calvary Baptist

Church in Huntington Beach. He was newly ordained.

It was 1985 and Sparks was looking for a permanent appointment as a

pastor to a church. He came close to accepting a position at Calvary

Baptist. Then his friends asked him to be their pastor and to start a new

church. The young congregation held its first worship service on Sunday,

Dec. 8.

“I saw the need for a church that was committed to traditional

biblical teaching and values, yet was contemporary in its worship,

intimate connection with God through faith in Jesus Christ,” recalled

Sparks, who is still the church’s senior pastor.

The original group of 20-some members grew quickly. They started to

meet at Edison High School. Later they would meet at Estancia High School

in Costa Mesa. In 1993 the church articulated and wrote its mission, “to

help people find Christ and grow in maturity and spiritually, emotionally

and relationally.”

Sparks and his congregation began to strategically develop their

ministry based on the Purpose Driven Community model of Rick Warren,

pastor of Saddleback Church in South Orange County. They reestablished

their core principles.

“They are biblically based on the Great Commission, ‘go and make

disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey,’ and the Great

Commandment, ‘love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind and love

your neighbor as yourself.’ That is how we achieve our mission,” said

Sparks.

With 500 members, more than 100 of them children, the congregation

prayed to find a building they could buy -- a place to call home. They

started a building fund dubbed Homeward Bound and they saved. In 2000,

L.A. Fitness decided to leave its location in south Huntington Beach for

a remodeled facility near the freeway. Grubb and Ellis put up the for

sale sign. Charlie Koeller, a member of Beachcities Community Church

since 1990 had been a member of the fitness club from early in the 1980s.

He was very familiar with the building, so when it was listed for sale,

he saw an opportunity for the church. He knew parking would be an issue.

The building had only 55 spaces and Sunday worship brought in 10 times

that many people. But he thought that obstacle could be overcome by

holding multiple services.

“If the building had 200 parking spaces instead of 55 the price of the

building would probably have been out of our price range,” said Koeller.

The church went through a six-month process to get a conditional-use

permit from the city. An economic impact study was completed before the

permit was granted. The church eventually got a 6-0 favorable vote from

the Planning Commission. The building owners waited graciously, Koeller

said. The church structured its sanctuary to comply with the city’s

parking requirements. There are now three worship services on Sunday

instead of one. It took more than a year to transform the building that

was once a fitness club into a sanctuary, offices, conference rooms,

classrooms and kitchens. The first Sunday services were held in the

building in November of 2001. It was a long time coming and a lot of

work, but the congregation, for now, is home.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic designer from

Huntington Beach. She has been interested in religion and ethics for as

long as she can remember. She can be reached at o7

michele@soulfoodfiles.com.f7