Prayers for home

Every Sunday morning about 8 a.m., Steve Acosta gathers with a half-dozen friends in a back alley in Sunset Beach and assembles a church from scratch.

The worship leader for Calvary Chapel of the Harbour enters the compact space of the Sunset Beach Women’s Club and sets to work opening folding chairs, lugging picnic tables and assembling a sound system for guitars and bass.

When the main room is packed with chairs, Acosta and his helpers create another row in the hall for those who show up late.

Calvary Chapel, which launched in 2003, has acquired a congregation far bigger than the confines of the Women’s Club allow.

On a typical Sunday, churchgoers fill most of the chairs in the hall, while others crowd around the front door to listen in.

The children’s ministry makes do with a tiny playroom in back for the younger kids, while the older ones squeeze into the picnic tables out front.

The church, believed to be the first in Sunset Beach’s history, is seeking permission to move several blocks away to a new location in Huntington Beach. For Acosta, the change won’t be a minute too soon.

“We’re just counting the days off, praying that nothing will happen, that we won’t have any mishaps and we’ll get right in,” he said. “It’ll be good for us and good for the community.”

Calvary Chapel has approached the Huntington Beach Planning Commission to get a conditional use permit to move to Peter’s Landing Marina, a seaside shopping center across the line from Sunset Beach. The commission plans to hold a public hearing on the matter Tuesday. Even if the commission approves the permit, the California Coastal Commission will have to approve an ordinance proposed by the City Council to allow churches in coastal zones before Calvary Chapel has the green light.

Still, Kathleen Pedick, wife of Pastor Joe Pedick, is staying optimistic.

“God is doing great things, and we’re excited,” she said. “But we need to move.”

Starting from nothing

Sunset Beach, a seaside community of about 1,200 people, has the vibe of a small town near the northern edge of Orange County. Residents often walk to church and pick up their mail at the post office. When the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission put Sunset under Huntington’s sphere of influence in July, residents donated nearly $30,000 to the neighborhood’s Community Assn. to research ways to incorporate as a city.

The Pedicks, though, were outsiders when they started the church six years ago.

Joe Pedick, a Michigan native, had started as a youth pastor for a Calvary Chapel in his home state. He had a well-paying job for a water meter company and did church work on the side, but had an epiphany when he attended a youth retreat in Indiana and heard the speaker talk about letting go of material pursuits. The next Monday, he told his boss he wanted to quit, and his boss suggested he take 60 days off to make up his mind.

“Basically, the lord spoke to my heart about letting go of the corporate world and going into full-time ministry,” Joe Pedick said. “I didn’t know how that was going to work out financially.”

During his time off, Pedick visited the original Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa and met Kathleen, a native of Scotland who worked in the front office.

The two married eight weeks later, and Pedick worked his way up to assistant pastor. One day, a fellow assistant pastor decided to start a Bible study group in Sunset Beach, and he asked Joe Pedick to scout out a location for him.

After several months of searching, Pedick found the Women’s Club. When he brought back the news, though, his colleague sprung a surprise on him: He and his wife had been praying, the assistant pastor said, and God had told them that Pedick was the man to start the Sunset Beach church.

The Pedicks summoned their friends to help and, on May 18, 2003, held their first service at the Women’s Club.

The couple posted fliers around the community, and though about 50 people showed up for the first service, attendance dropped to about two dozen after that.

“It was new,” Kathleen Pedick said. “It was like a baby beginning to walk.”

A space awaits

Over the next few years, that walk turned to a stride.

As word of mouth spread, the Sunset Beach congregation grew to more than 200 people. The Pedicks purchased comfortable chairs to replace the hard metal ones and bought a sound system for the worship team that leads hymns on Sunday.

It was a lot to pack into a small room, but Carolyn Caslin, the Women’s Club’s director of rentals and leases, was happy to play host. And she said she’ll miss the congregation if it moves.

“They’ve been great tenants,” Caslin said. “They’re really, really good people.”

The change may be bittersweet for Sunset Beach, but the management at Peter’s Landing is keen on getting the church. Doug Shea, a representative for the landlord, has seen a number of tenants come and go in the space Calvary Chapel hopes to occupy. The two-story building in the back of the marina housed the popular Red Onion Restaurant two decades ago, but the restaurants that have moved in since then have all folded.

A church, Shea said, would bring hundreds of new customers to the restaurants and other businesses in Peter’s Landing.

“You just need energy,” he said. “I think the church will bring a lot of energy to it.”

The Pedicks have already leased the former Red Onion space and made extensive plans to restore it, from repainting the mustard-yellow exterior to putting in a sanctuary and seven classrooms for the children’s ministry. Although they can’t predict how long the process will take, they hope to be in by Easter.

Hoping for leg room

Sunday morning, Amber Zaky took her usual seat at the end of the hall in the Women’s Club. Her daughter is in the children’s ministry, and she sits by the playroom door to help supervise. When other churchgoers inch sideways down the narrow hall, Zaky and others draw their legs in to make room.

Zaky, the director of Marley’s Preschool in Sunset Beach, has started gathering materials in her garage in anticipation of the big move. She’s amassed tables to fill the new children’s ministry, and she buys items off the clearance rack if they look useful. Her hope is that, if the church moves to Peter’s Landing, there will be enough classrooms to break up the kids and teach age-specific lessons.

Also seated at the end of the hall were Lori Givot and her mother, Lynn, who have driven in from Irvine the last few months to attend services. Because the main room fills up quickly, Lori said, they rarely arrive in time for a seat. And a home at Peter’s Landing, she added, would have another advantage.

“I want to bring people,” Lori said. “But there doesn’t seem to be that much space.”