The House of Abba

This is a small note from our third issue of Our Life Together that really surprised me. As I read through these old newsletters, I find that the way I remember it doesn't always match with reality. What was it that surprised me? Two things; 1) I don't remember the House of Abba meeting in the sanctuary and 2) I thought that the attendance at the coffee house was beginning to dwindle by 1973.

The House of Abba, which was our coffee house; no coffee, just music, teaching and Christian fellowship, started in 1970. The start of this ministry coincided with the beginnings of the Jesus People Movement. We were fortunate to have some very talented you people. They were talented in music, drama, art and in teaching. They began to reach people that our church had never reached before. Soon our church was filled with young "hippies". Many of these you people were really on the street and strung out on drugs. This is why we started our community households; how could you lead someone to the Lord and then send them out on the streets. This was a great time. During the 18 month period of Jan 1970 - June 1971, 750 people were baptized at our relatively small church -- we were certainly no mega-church.

When the coffee house started, they met in our old "Scout House". This was a small structure in our parking lot that had been used by the boy scouts. The room was pretty small. They used to keep the doors and windows open so that people in the parking lot could hear what was going on. Very soon they moved into the main building. Our "fellowship room" (which actually had been our first sanctuary) was converted for coffee house use. The walls were soon crowded with art. A patchwork carpet was placed in the building. People would sit on the floor. I do remember that even this room became so crowded that people were standing outside the room, and even out the front door of the church. An interesting side light was that we (early on) had to have a ministry that we called the floaters. There job was to circulate around the property -- particularly the dark places to see that no drugs were being used on the premises. These young "floaters" were also wonderful witnesses and would present the gospel to the person in the shadows.

I just don't remember the next step of moving into the sanctuary. I also thought the movement was losing steam in late 73 -- but it seems that they were still expanding. This was a great time. Ah yes, I remember it well.