Based on an interview conducted on March 9, 2020, in Santa Barbara, California:
My name is Lynn and I was raised in St. Petersburg, Florida. There, my sister, Cathy , and I shared our church upbringing, but took different paths once we moved to Santa Barbara. We went to church with my mom when children, so had a Bible teaching background. When I was age fourteen, my sister and her friends, having become Christians, invited me to go to a baptism on the beach. While we were there at the baptism, the pastor, while praying, asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. If so, raise your hand. I kind of peeked around and was too embarrassed. That night in bed, I prayed that prayer and talked to God by myself -starting my personal relationship with the Lord.
Cathy and I started going to a Calvary Four-Square church, which was very exciting during that time. There was a “Jesus Freak” movement in the early 70s with lots of young people – high school, college age, teenagers. An exciting time.
My church life experience changed when we decided to go to one of the guys’ house to meet. We continued to meet in a home environment, and the man who led our group ( the Beach Assembly) was John Bradley.
My experiences during my first years as a Christian (especially in the Beach Assembly) were incredible. That was probably my favorite Christian experience of my life. In the beginning of my life as a Christian, I was 14, so that would have been 9th grade. By the time I was in 10th grade, Cathy and I had found a nice Christian group of people that went to high school with us. We had a really fun time in high school with the Christians, going out and witnessing on Friday nights to different places on the beach. It was a fun time. Then, later, when the Beach Assembly first started with just a few people meeting at John Bradley’s house -just a few people doing a home group type of thing. It grew a little bit more, and it turned into a “Let’s be a full-fledged church together.” So, our group left the Four-Square church we were going to and started meeting at John’s. We had Sunday mornings for everybody – you could invite friends, and we always cooked and shared meals together afterward. We’d get together on Saturday nights or Sunday morning early and make food to serve for Sunday after church. Sunday night meetings were only the people that were “committed” to our church group – the members of the Beach Assembly. Those who were committed to the Beach Assembly would gather that night and felt free and comfortable to share as the Lord moved. Sunday morning and Wednesday night were open to other people to bring them in and give them the opportunity to see what we were doing.
Time with the Beach Assembly members was precious. It was really close knit. For example, the girls would get up and ride our bicycles in the morning before the sun came up to go to a park and watch the sun rise and pray together. Things like that. Or, having breakfast with each other or dinner with each other – it was a really loving, fun, caring, special time. We all met in a house and we were writing songs together. There were several guys who loved writing songs with their guitar playing. It was a unique, loving, giving time. But it was an unusual time, because it was high school and early college age, with a few mothers sprinkled in and a couple of older people. It wasn’t like a club; it really was a church. It was a church experience.
We were there for maybe 1-1/2 years, and then John Bradley read a book called The Early Church by Gene Edwards. He was really excited about that. He found out that Gene had started a church similar to those in the book of Acts, in Isla Vista, California. Early that summer, John decided to go out and visit that church to see what it was about. Our church was getting to be about 50 people, and he wanted guidance on what to do with a larger church. We met in a house, and it was getting crowded, plus it was a lot on him. So, he just wanted to go and see how someone else did it.
During that summer after High School graduation, my friend Susie and I went up to Michigan. We were gone for a few weeks. During that time, John came back from Santa Barbara/Isla Vista and reported to the Beach Assembly that he was moving to Isla Vista. It was quite a shock to all, but especially for Susie and me as we heard this from phone calls and letters from our friends, who were trying to decide whether to go with him, while being removed from all the discussion going on. Susie and I started praying. I decided that I couldn’t go as soon as everybody else in August; I had to wait until my first semester of college was over, so I wouldn’t miss a semester of college.
The move at the end of summer was a big event and an exciting time for those who chose to move with John. After caravanning across the country, they arrived and the church lovingly welcomed them. I kind of slipped in quietly in January, which was a bit of a different experience. I never quite got in sync with what was going on in the church. Soon thereafter – I think it was the first summer I was there – was the summer of “Weltblick,” which was Gene’s worldview conference. Gene was talking about taking this Isla Vista style church around the world. It was kind of exciting to see what was going on, but I always felt a bit of an observer. I was a “newie,” and there were the “oldies” and the “middies.” And when the oldies were getting ready to move, that summer of 1976, my then-boyfriend moved out to join the church as well. We felt a little bit out of it, both of us not really in step with the others. The church was all excited about these people leaving, and the energy was focused on that.
The middies were responsible for taking over the entire church as all the oldies left, and they were not focused on the newies at all. It was a hard time for me, not feeling like I fit in initially, not feeling like I fit in when all the oldies left, and learning how to live away from home. I respected everything everyone was going through, but I didn’t feel like I was pulled in. They were so busy trying to run the church when the oldies that had run it left that I found them kind of inwardly focused as a group. I think at that time there were quite a few newies that kind of fell by the wayside and went away.
When reflecting on things about the “Church of IV/Church of SB,” I recall that it was a powerful experience to be part of. My experience was not all negative; there were a lot of fun, happy times. The worship was amazing. Gene Edwards always talked way too long – but, I think he was known for that. He talked three or four times longer than a normal person would. So it was hard to stay awake. But the worship was amazing, and what he was talking about was amazing. So that part never really bothered me.
My boyfriend and I got married at the end of 1976, in December. We chose to stay in Santa Barbara until the next summer. At that time, the oldies were gone, the newies were just hanging out, and the middies were scrambling to make this whole transition happen and keep the church going. It was a really intense year. We just decided the best thing for the two of us ( it was just cheaper) was to go back to Florida and go to school there. So, we decided to leave. My sister, Cathy, decided to stay. She was very involved with everybody. She was living in a major house and was very involved with all her single friends. And, I had just gotten married. It just didn’t make sense for us, so we left.
I spent the next three years in reflection of my Santa Barbara time talking with the other leader that worked with John Bradley at the Beach Assembly, Bob Moore, and his wife, Peggy. Bob went for a very short time to Santa Barbara to check it out, then moved back to Florida right before we moved back to Florida where my husband and Bob worked together. Peggy and I spent a lot of time talking about the church – the what and the why and the how. We just went round and round. She was really highly disappointed, and I was perplexed: Should we have left? Should we have stayed? How is it important to us? Did we feel like we fit in? Did we not fit in? How do we now go on with life?
We just stopped going to church. I was too confused. Because of my confusion, when I was in Florida, I didn’t talk about my experience. It was just such a major thing to move to California, then move back. I had a fellow student during my next two college years telling me, “You need to go to church.” Repeatedly. I thought, “Lady, you don’t even have a clue about it. I moved across country twice for church. No.” She said, “You have to get a church.” She was hounding me. So, I just stopped talking about being a Christian. I was not sure where to go or how to fit in after the Beach Assembly and CA experience. That decision turned into 20 years. I just didn’t tell people I was a Christian. I had too much, too intense, while so young, that I didn’t know how to just ‘fit into’ a church. I didn’t know how or where. From traditional Pentecostal style church to home meetings to early church style… then, what?
It wasn’t until my daughter was born and I was 43 that I decided to get her involved in a church. I found myself living once again living in Santa Barbara and chose Calvary Chapel here in Santa Barbara. I moved back into the world of daily walking with the Lord instead of just tucking him away.
Santa Barbara became Cathy’s world and I kept up with the church through her. Later on, reconnecting with people from the church, I was always known as “Cathy’s sister” until the last 15 years or so. These past years, I’ve come to know some of the oldies, which is interesting. The irony there is that I get along really well with the “old oldies.” And, they are extremely loving and extremely welcoming. I just happened to catch them at a wrong time, the first time around, when they were focused on their move.
That early experience in Santa Barbara was really an impactful time for me when I look back on it. After leaving the SB/IV church I was sour and sad about my experience – that it didn’t work out the way I had wished. And, it was very disruptive for me to move to California. I do understand why John felt he just couldn’t lead anymore. And I never, ever think of the California move as having been a bad or a wrong thing. My life changed so dramatically for having lived out here. I met my now-husband in Santa Barbara, I’ve had many experiences out here and I love where I live. We never would have known Santa Barbara if it wasn’t for Gene Edwards. So, I never look negatively on that time. I just kind of look back and ponder it. What was it? What was it to me? But, I do know it changed my life dramatically. I know it changed my sister. So – it was a good time.