With about 6,500 members, Loma Linda University Church is the largest Seventh-day Adventist congregation in North America, according to its website. But when the church decided to form in 1928, it had just 284 members.
At the time, it was called the College Church, and the members met in the chapel of West Hall. (This was not the West Hall of today, but rather the first Loma Linda Hospital, renamed West Hall after it ceased to function as a medical facility. Torn down in 1942, it stood where the Centennial Globe is today.)
Even from early days, the growing congregation needed a bigger facility. Relief came in the form of a new building on campus in 1934. It was multipurpose, housing college chapel programs, scientific lectures and community programs in addition to the College Church. And the college library was in the basement.
The College Church would outgrow that building as well. By the mid 1950s, even two church services couldn’t accommodate all the members. Thus were laid plans for the church building used today on the campus mall.
Last week’s trivia challenge was to name both the building in which the College Church had been meeting and the date that members marched from that building to today’s University Church for their first Sabbath there.
The answers are Burden Hall and Sept. 10, 1960, and the random winners are Bonnie Quishenberry, Amelia Maeda and Francis Chan. Please email pr@llu.edu to claim your prize, which must be picked up within 60 days.
Loma Linda University Church is one of two churches on campus, the other being the Campus Hill Church of Seventh-day Adventists.
Did you know that they started out as one church in 1906? It was formed Jan. 6 of that year with 16 charter members, and it was called the Loma Linda Seventh-day Adventist Church.
The new church met in the parlor of the original sanitarium, which, prior to the founding of Loma Linda University in 1905, had been a hotel. Services then moved to a log assembly building until the first church building, called Loma Linda Chapel, opened in 1910.
While the Loma Linda Chapel no longer stands today, an heirloom from it is on display in the university’s Heritage Research Center. What is this artifact?
Email the answer to pr@llu.edu by midnight Tuesday, March 10, for the chance to be selected a random winner. One answer per person.