NEWPORT BEACH : Church Finally Gets a Permanent Home

After a year of holding impromptu services at public sites, the Newport Church of Religious Service is preparing to move into its first permanent home, a site its pastor described as a “birthday present from God.”

The 60-member church will be moving into its new home in the Newport Place Planned Community on Feb. 1, one year from the day Juanella Evans took over as pastor.

For the past year, Evans and her congregants have been creating an “instant church” for Sunday services in a community room at Halecrest Park in Costa Mesa.

“We go over to Halecrest to unfold the church, unstack the chairs, put tablecloths on the tables (and) pull the lectern into the middle of the room,” said Evans, sitting in the reception area of the church’s parsonage in Costa Mesa.

Before members began meeting at the park, they moved meetings and services from location to location throughout Costa Mesa, including the park parsonage, until city officials disrupted one Sunday service with an ultimatum--leave or go to jail.

Recently, members were forced out of a space in a commercial building on Dover Street, where they held weekly religious classes, because their neighbors needed additional room to expand.

Faced again with no permanent site for services and classes, Evans approached the Newport Beach Planning Commission with a proposal to lease 1,900 square feet on the first floor of an office building at Newport Place.

Evans had been a pastor at the Religious Science Church of Huntington Park for 24 years before accepting the offer to come to Newport in December, 1989.