about us
our story
THE PAST
PARK CHURCH began as two separate churches who made the decision to join forces to create a thriving, Gospel-Centered community of believers with the driving desire to reach the communities of greater Long Beach with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.
Our founding church, El Dorado Park Community Church began in 1957 when God called Reverend Bill Miedema, his wife Dorothy and two daughters to leave Michigan and come to California to plant a church at a drive-in theater. Three hundred fifty people attended that first service at the Los Altos Drive-In Theater in Long Beach. The church was formally organized in 1958 and in 1961 the property on Norwalk Boulevard (the present location) was purchased.
The original church auditorium sat 400 people with room for 300 cars to participate in ‘drive-in’ worship on the front lawn. Seven hundred fifty people were in attendance for the first service at the Norwalk Blvd. campus in 1964. The current auditorium was dedicated in 1970. The Singing Fountain Preschool was opened in 1974 and still serves infants, preschoolers and their families today.
Between the years 1971 and 1981, El Dorado Park Church’s morning worship service was televised and sent to 15 different TV stations around the United States. The television program was named “Sunday Celebration.” During this time period, the church grew and prospered to a weekly attendance of 1800 people.
In early-2003 El Dorado Park Community Church began to explore the possibility of planting a new church in the Long Beach Area. After a great deal of prayer and planning, a launch team began to develop and started meeting in August of that year. As people gathered in this worshipping community, a new church, Revolution Church, was birthed in September 2003.
In 2006 Revolution Church moved from the fellowship hall at El Dorado Park Community Church to hold a ‘grand re-opening’ at their new location, Artesia High School. Over the next two years, Revolution planted two more churches, Revolution Long Beach and Revolution Carson.
From 2009 until 2010, Revolution Church and El Dorado Park Community Church began communication as to what it would look like to have both of these bodies join in a bold movement to begin developing a larger worship community with the desire to see more churches planted to reach more people for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
El Dorado Park Church hired Pastor Jeff Ludington in December of 2010. His leadership in other churches prior to this has been to reconnect churches with their context, and refocus them back on the mission of sharing Jesus to the community they serve.
THE PRESENT
In April of 2011, Revolution moved back onto the campus of El Dorado Park Community Church, and for the remainder of the year both churches began to work toward becoming one family.
Officially on 12/18/2011, both El Dorado Park Community Church and Revolution Church combined into PARK CHURCH.
PARK CHURCH seeks to become the thriving church planting, Gospel sharing, Kingdom minded, Christ worshipping community that Long Beach and the surrounding neighborhoods truly need.
THE FUTURE
At PARK CHURCH it is our heart’s desire to become a thriving, church planting, Gospel sharing, Kingdom minded, Christ worshipping community that loves Long Beach and the surrounding neighborhoods with the love of Jesus.
We dream of one day planting Sunday gatherings in communities throughout the Long Beach area – and wherever else Jesus invites us to join him in bringing hope and healing to the world