West Angeles Church

West Angeles Church. . , Deep Los Angeles Roots , West Angeles Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is a historic black megachurch whose success could hardly have been predicted forty years ago. Founded in 1943 by C.E. Church Sr., the church first operated out of a small storefront on Vermont Avenue in the heart of South Los Angeles. It moved west to Adams Boulevard in 1955. In 1969, 28-year-old Charles E. Blake took over West Angeles as pastor, to the consternation and outright hostility of many in the congregation. Eventually, Blake won over his flock of 50 with the charisma and conviction that became his hallmark. , On The Move , In 1981, with its membership burgeoning, the church moved west again to 3045 Crenshaw Boulevard, the site of a former furniture store. Bishop Blake continued presiding over the church's vibrant growth. Its current congregation (approx. 23,000) makes it not only the largest in the COGIC denomination, but one of the largest Pentecostal congregations in the nation. Locally, Bishop Blake and West Angeles did uch to popularize the largely black Tennessee-based COGIC and other Pentecostal denominations among the black educated and middle class. , Among the church's many operations and ministries are a Christian bookstore, radio, television. web broadcasts, a per forming arts theater. fully licensed counseling center skid row outreach, and a community development corporation that launched after the 1992 civil unrest Partly because of Bishop Blake's involvement in the civil rights move ment as a young pastor partly because of West Angeles' visibility in the Crenshaw area, and partly because that visibility was expanding at the precise moment the civil unrest hit, West Angeles quickly developed a reputation for being a key player in redevelopment and spiritual leadership of a neighborhood poised between deterioration and promise. West Angeles was the first South Los Angeles church to partner with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for the needy in 1993. The Community Development Corporation, the largest landowner in the Crenshaw corridor, has developed 400 new affordable housing units, and secured financing for a 45,000-square-foot commercial complex and more than a hundred new homes over the years. It has also trained youth in mediation and dispute resolution and helped to incubate and launch dozens of minority-owned businesses., As pastor of West Angeles Church and presiding bishop of The Church of God in Christ globally, Bishop Blake maintains a high profile. He served on President Obama's White House Advisory Faith-Based Council, and founded Save Africa's Children, which works with other faith-based organizations in two dozen sub-Saharan countries to aid children whose lives have been impacted by the AIDS crisis. , Building a Legacy , The 65 million West Angeles Cathedral opened in 2001 to house a congregation still experiencing rapid growth. Members contributed steadily to the building fund, often ten to twenty dollars at a time, for many years, which comprised half of the $65 million in funding. Constructed of Karelian granite and stone, and accented with stained glass designed by lowa-based Bovard Studio, the cathedral is built in the shape of a semi-circle , rather like a giant sundial , with a 108-foot-tall stained glass cross tower rising over Crenshaw Boulevard that can be seen from blocks away. The granite facade is six stories high, and the back of the cathedral rises eight stories. The cross tower is among the tallest such towers in the world. The 105,000-square-foot cathedral's seating capacity of 5,000 exceeds that of the Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral by 2,000. It has a state-of-the-art sound system and boasts a lobby that's 485 feet across. The cathedral has been a welcomed addition and an economic catalyst to the Crenshaw corridor. "The West Angeles Cathedral is more than just a building." Bishop Blake told Jet magazine when the cathedral opened its doors in 2001, "I view it as a launching pad to give us a greater ability to impact the future in a positive fashion."