Los Angeles Dream Center

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Dream Center. I knew it was one of the fastest growing churches in America. Browsing their webpage, after seeing a picture of their pastor, Matthew Barnett, I found myself still wondering who the real pastor was. He looked younger than me!

It is in fact a father son duo leading the church, but it’s astonishing what God can do through what those we may at a glance view as inadequate. I attended the Thursday night service, in the Angeles Temple site. Angeles Temple was built in 1923, where Aimee Semple McPherson would preach to a full capacity of 5,300 people, three times a day, seven days a week. Today they reach the physical and spiritual needs of over 30,000 every week, feeding and housing people. They have a highly community oriented approach to ministry, they call adopt-a-block, and from what I’ve read over 80% of their congregation live within two miles of the church unlike most scattered metropolitan churches today.

How was the experience? Walking towards the church in it’s fairly ghetto neighborhood, you could hear the church / stadium rocking out. It was like rumblings of hope in a place where the poverty was obvious. The spirit and energy of the people there were amazing. Its Pentecostal flavor reminded me of an amped-up version of a church I attended while I lived in Hamilton, Living Hope. The message was powerful, and there was a time of healing / repentance after. Yvz and I left blown away.

This was my first time taking a picture during a church service. I felt a bit odd, butI tried to take solace in the fact that I was a tourist.