Jesus gave the commandment to love God and love one another.

Our commitment to compassion and care for our neighbors is our response to this commandment. 

We believe in God. We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in the Holy Spirit.
We believe church is a verb, not a noun.

Church is not a place. Church is not even the people.

Church is the Body of Christ, at work in the world.  

Church is worship, it is the community in which we share our joys and concerns, and the center of our spiritual formation.

Church is sharing in the sacraments of baptism and communion
as the ways in which we use common elements to recognize God’s loving grace, given to us.

If you’ve been looking for a church that embraces radical love of God, and the radical acceptance of all people,
then we pray God leads you to us. We have a lot of work to do together.

At Los Angeles First United Methodist Church,
we believe that God is with us, that God is for us, and that God refuses to be God without us.

Church is not a place. Church is the Body of Christ. At our church, all are welcomed. All are loved.

We are a church that is Creative

We believe that God created the world, and invited us to share our gifts as creative people. We recognize the movement of the Holy Spirit as we express our faith in a variety of creative ways - visual, musical, and theatrical. This is true in our worship, our work, and our mission.

Pictured is our Feminist Nativity, which features Mary as a non-caucasian, houseless, pregnant, unmarried teenager. This is the truth of her story, the truth of non-white Jesus, and the truth of our salvation history.  

We are a church that is Courageous

We courageously claim our belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Christ's commandment to courageously love God and love one another.

We are courageous in our activism, our outreach, and our empowerment of others.

This value leads us to be radically inclusive, social-justice oriented, LGBTQIA affirming, anti-racist, and open to all questions and doubts. 

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Los Angeles First UMC is a proud member of the Reconciling Ministries Network. Below is the statement adopted in 2015, upon the congregation’s vote to affiliate with RMN:

The people of Los Angeles First United Methodist Church have long advocated for those who have been outcast from society. We carry the same legacy today, by continually expanding our welcome to all of who we believe Jesus loved.

We come together from different backgrounds to celebrate God’s love for the world while still working to make our community a better place. As we do so, we explicitly welcome and honor our community’s diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, race and ethnic background, age, faith history, marital status, socioeconomic status, immigration status, physical and mental ability, and education. We welcome the full inclusion of all people as children of God within the life and ministries of First UMC of Los Angeles. Further, we will model reconciliation to others, so that every day new people may come to understand the full extent of God’s love and inclusion.

We are a church that is Compassionate

 
We believe that the Holy Spirit remains with us as a comforting, advocating force in the world. Because of this, we are a church who values service to our neighbors, outreach to the lost, and care for the world. We listen with love, because we are called to be a voice to the voiceless. We work with dignity, because we are called to fight for the marginalized.

We are a houseless church. Until we can create a solution to DTLA’s homelessness crisis, we will remain in solidarity with our houseless neighbors.

LA FIRST UMC LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - authored by Tom Grode, affirmed by LA First UMC’s Church Council on July 13, 2021

We Acknowledge the Tongva people as original caretakers of this land and their ancient village Yaangna, what we call Downtown Los Angeles.

We Acknowledge the many Native Americans who moved Downtown to Bunker Hill due to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 as “the 'old' Bunker Hill was effectively scalped by urban renewal in the 1960’s.”   

We Acknowledge the work of Skid Row Housing Justice activists in the 1960's and 70's to keep the low income hotel housing in Skid Row from suffering the Urban Renewal fate of Bunker Hill.

We Acknowledge the Native Indigenous peoples of Los Angeles, their special relationship to Mother Earth, and their hospitality, inviting us into that special relationship.

We Acknowledge the patience, kindness, and compassion of Mother Earth.

We Acknowledge our beginnings as a church in 1853 when Methodist leader Adam Bland was sent to evangelize the "rowdy and incorrigible” Southland.

We Acknowledge our relationship with Biddy Mason, one of the Matriarchs of early Los Angeles, and a member of Fort Street Methodist Episcopal Church (the first name our church bore) before she began First African Methodist Episcopal (FAME) out of her home, one of the spiritual pillars in Los Angeles for many decades.

We Acknowledge Biddy Mason as the Patron Saint of Downtown Los Angeles, an enslaved woman who fought for the freedom of all who were enslaved. She utilized her training as a midwife to buy land and used her wealth to help others in need.

We Acknowledge the words of Jesus "to whom much is given much is required" as a blessing for us to live out: the legacy and reality of owning the largest piece of undeveloped property in South Park.

We Acknowledge the land of Downtown Los Angeles - more than a dozen unique and dynamic neighborhoods - as land the eyes of the world look towards for leadership and solutions to the challenges facing all humanity.

We Acknowledge the mission of the United Methodist Church as founded by John Wesley: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Learn more about your land’s history by visiting Native Land Digital. Native Land Digital creates spaces where non-Indigenous people can be invited and challenged to learn more about the lands they inhabit, the history of those lands, and how to actively be part of a better future going forward together.