I had never intended being a pastor or having a church membership gathered about me.  I was an Evangelist, my heart and soul were wrapped up in evangelistic work.  I thought as an Evangelist, preached as an Evangelist and conducted all my work along evangelistic lines.

However, among the thousands who thronged Angelus Temple day and night, there came to be a certain group of believers who came regularly, who worshiped in no other place, who had no other church home.  They had been converted and filled with the spirit and now wanted to enter the service; but where, in an evangelistic organization such as the Echo Park Evangelistic Association, could they find a place to work?  They enjoyed the meetings and did personal work at the altar, but with no church departments in which to participate, their efforts stopped there.

Insistent, and yet more insistent came the popular demand of this group of people, that they be allowed to work and worship as a church body.

Thus far there had been only the audiences of the Echo Park Evangelistic Association, meeting in the Temple belonging to that Association.  Now, in the midst of that audience, there appeared a group of Christians who made Angelus Temple their church home and wanted to meet as a body in its auditorium in conjunction with the regular meeting of the Echo Park Evangelistic  Association, but be ministered to as a church body.

We had no thought of forming a church, but felt that these people should be cared for. In accordance with their requests we opened church books and had the elders and other officers of the Echo Park Evangelistic Association minister to those who signed them, as an unorganized group of people known as the Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

For almost six years now this arrangement has continued.  The revival fires are still burning brightly, the Bible School is filled with students, the branch churches are growing in size and number almost daily--and it seems to be the will of the Lord that a church now be organized and incorporated.  The work is growing and broadening to such an extent, that the work of the officers of the Echo Park Evangelistic Association is greater than they can carry.  Their time is completely taken up with the duties of caring for the audiences of the Echo Park Evangelistic Association, that body of people who meet and worship in the Angelus Temple but who are not Identified with any group--and feel that the church of the Foursquare Gospel should be organized and have its own officers to minister to its members.