In 1902 the Board of Trustees of the Haven Methodist Church approved a plan to build a new church across the street from it's present location at 27th and Paloma. The artist rendering bears the signature of the architect, the renowned John C. Austin, whose works include the Shrine Auditorium, the Griffith Park Observatory, the Los Angeles City Hall, Los Angeles High School, St. Vincent Medical Center, the California Hospital, the Hancock Mansion in Hancock Park, the Web House, the Hollywood Masonic Temple, many other schools, hospitals, and numerous Methodist churches, including the Holliston Avenue Methodist Church, in Pasadena.
On Tuesday morning, October 8, 2013, during the 9:00 a.m. prayer, a fire started from a wall heater in the Mother L. O. Hale Prayer Room and quickly spread up the wall and into the attic. By the time the fire was extinguished the ceiling and the roof were completely destroyed but the exterior walls and the floor were yet standing. News of the fire spread throughout the country and to the national headquarters of the Church Of God In Christ. Instructions were immediately given to Pastor Magee by Presiding Bishop Charles E. Blake that the church should be restored. After an engineering assessment was completed it was determined by the HPOZ Planning Department that there was enough left to restore the building.
The new building was completed and dedicated on December 17, 1905, at a cost of $15,000. In 1922 the congregation moved to the west side and sold the property to a black congregation. In the early forty's the property was acquired by Elder Henry and Evangelist Emma Cotton, whose Christian journey began at the Azusa Street Revival. Around 1950 the property was donated by the Cottons' to the late Bishop Samuel Crouch and the Southern California First Jurisdiction of the Church of God in Christ. During his time the church hosted several Jurisdictional Convocations, and many great speakers including the founder of the Church of God in Christ, Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, Bishop Samuel Crouch, Bishop J. A. Blake, Mother Lillian B. Coffee, Mother L. O. Hale, Mother Cora Berry, and many other local and national leaders of the Church Of God In Christ.
Plans to restore the Historic church are in the hands of the Los Angeles City Planning Department and the approval process is in the final stage to restore the building to it's original architecture. Pastor Magee and the Crouch Memorial congregation believes that restoring the church is an assignment from God, and are fully persuaded that He will provide the resources to complete the job. "Being confident of this very thing that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6)
TO GOD BE THE GLORY