Our Life Together

I joined the First Baptist Church of Chula Vista in April, 1967. At that time, I had no idea that I would become the Pastor of the church (in 1980) or that there was anything of "special" about the church. I was in the Navy at the time and actually figured that Linda and I would be moving on in a couple of years. How wrong I was -- on all counts.

First of all, we didn't move on. Because of the Navy and the Viet Nam war, I moved on (always to the Far East), but my family stayed in Chula Vista. When I was in town, I got more active in the church. I even became the choir director; there were three of us who were Naval Officers that traded off as choir directors, depending on who was not at sea.

Secondly, the church became very significant for two reasons. The first was the Charismatic Movement which started in the early 60's. Those of us who were a part of the Charismatic Movement believed that the miraculous events of the New Testament were still in operation today; this includes such gifts as healing, prophecy and speaking in tongues. The avenue toward appropriating these gifts was through the Baptism of the Spirit. Essentially this just means that we submitted ourselves to God in such a way that we were open to any manifestation that He wanted to exhibit through us. Ken Pagard, our pastor was one of the leaders of this movement among Baptists. He really was the force behind and the leader of the American Baptist Charismatic Fellowship. The second thing that made our ministry significant is that there was a large "revival" among young "hippies" called the Jesus People movement. Our church became a center for these young people who came to believe in Jesus. They came with a lot of energy as well as a lot of problems, such as drug addiction. To help combat this, our church members started taking young people in to live with them. Soon, we had a number of communal households.

Both of these issues made us very well known in certain circles. People from all over the world came to visit us. Of course people from all of the States came, but also people from England, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Zaire. Why these countries? Rev Pagard spoke in all of these places.

The major unifying force for this ministry was our church newsletter, "Our Life Together". This was published from 1973-1982. The circulation was close to 5,000 copies at it's peak. Most of the years it was published weekly. Each issue was usually 8-12 pages. There aren't many complete sets still in existence, but, I have one of those sets on loan. The Editor has loaned his set to me. I am in the process of scanning it onto my computer. I intend to use them to give some of the history of the movements that it celebrates. I will try to upload some of the copies and provide commentary. It reports on an exciting time to be a part of this church.