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July 27, 2011

Home at Agape

In my continuing KLOVE quest to find “heaven in 2011,” I decided to check out the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City, near west Los Angeles. Its founder, Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, was a featured speaker in the film The Secret, and I had always been meaning to attend a service there and check it out.

I got to the 11 am meditation on time, but with all of the people leaving the earlier service and arriving for this one, a good fifteen minutes had passed before I parked and found the center. Once the meditation portion of the service begins, doors are closed until it is over (I learned), so I lined up with the other latecomers along the railing outside the door. After my experience the previous week with the twenty-person congregation, I was amazed at how many people filed into the line. I’m terrible with estimating numbers – 100 maybe? The queue snaked back into the upper parking lot and coiled around and around the maze of temporary line dividers.

I struck up a conversation with a fashionably dressed young blonde woman in front of me who said she had been attending services there regularly for a few years. She described it as very nurturing. To celebrate the New Year, she had joined Reverend Michael and his wife Rickie in a meditation retreat which she thoroughly enjoyed and which she believed had really grounded her for the beginning of the year. I was surprised to learn that despite his worldwide fame and busy schedule, Reverend Michael really was present just about every Sunday to lead services.

Meditation ended and we were allowed into the sanctuary. I suppose it was more like an auditorium than a church, a large hall, wider in the back than in the front, with 3 sections of rows – right, left, and center. Behind the back center section was a platform, a media stand of sorts, with video cameras, a sound mixing board, and other equipment. On the sanctuary walls were paintings in what I call Indian yogi style – swirls of sparkles and bright colors in the tree of life motif or nature scenes. The lights were dim and the atmosphere was serene, even with congregational chatter. On the back of the stage up front (I don’t know whether it would be called an altar) were long silken cloths draped down in triangular patterns from the ceiling, the stage lights setting them off in muted colors of blue, pink, and green. Rows of chairs were set up on risers, and people who I assumed were choir members filled them in. Sectioned off in the left corner up on a platform was the house band with a drummer, a few electric guitar players, and someone on keyboard.

The sanctuary was already quite full, but I found a single seat in the left section towards the back. I sat next to an older black couple holding hands. On my right side was a white couple around my age, the man’s arm around the woman’s shoulders and her head leaning low in his chest. I smiled at both of the men, but neither of them looked particularly inclined to chat, so instead I focused on the large video screens on either side of the stage that flipped through PowerPoint slides announcing upcoming activities.

An attractive black woman with long braids, Rickie Byars Beckwith, or Rickie BB, Reverend Michael’s wife and Agape’s musical director, came on stage and sat down at the piano. She welcomed everyone to the service, including the Live Streamers, who I guessed were people watching online, and began singing. The congregation sprang into life – most people stood up, sang along, clapped and swayed to the music. Some people stayed sitting, so I did for a little bit too, but then I decided I’d be able to see better if I got up. The video screens displayed the words to the songs over live footage of the action on the stage, more like a concert than a traditional religious service. I forced myself to loosen up, to unwind, clapping along, albeit very stiffly. I wondered what my very Catholic grandmothers were thinking as they looked down at me.

I loved the music and movement, full of celebration and emotion. So fun! The featured performer was Niki Haris – it was like seeing Patti LaBelle sing in church! I suppose the closest I could compare the music to was black gospel music, and although the congregation did have a good proportion of African-Americans, it was very diverse. Niki spoke briefly about how she had been a regular member of Agape until she moved to Georgia, Augusta I think. She said she hadn’t really wanted to leave, but it was the best thing to do; that she had been scared, but Reverend Michael had encouraged her which gave her the strength to do it. I teared up as she choked up with gratitude, and several people grabbed tissues from the boxes being passed around. The talent, the love, the spirit flowing through her songs was absolutely incredible.

When Reverend Michael (“the Rev” as he was affectionately called during the announcements of upcoming events) came on stage to begin his sermon, he started by asking anyone at service for the first time to stand up. So I stood, along with several others. Everyone in the congregation held their hands up and prayed for us. It took a long time, forever, and I was extremely uncomfortable, not knowing where to look. An Agape volunteer gave me a “love note,” a welcome from Reverend Michael and the congregation. When I sat down, the man to my right shook my hand and patted my shoulder to welcome me again. It was a little overwhelming. Then the Reverend asked everyone in the congregation to look into someone’s eyes and say some affirmations. Great! I’m here by myself sitting between two couples! I was staring stonily ahead in extreme discomfort, wishing for a rock to crawl under, when the man to my right tapped me on the shoulder and said the affirmations to me. (His significant other had her head down and was breathing deeply which made him available for eye contact with me.) Aarrgghh! Eye contact is hard! I looked away from him several times but made myself come back. I really had a lot of unwinding to do.

In his sermon, Reverend Michael talked about living with vision, creativity, compassion; about oneness with God and being wholly holy. He encouraged us to expand ourselves and our awareness to be all that we could be. He emphasized that our lives were not to be ruled by “once upon a time” but “once upon a choice,” that we could choose to think differently. He warned us that people who follow their dreams were not always popular. He explained the concept of agape – Greek for unconditional love. This didn’t mean that we had to like everyone; he sometimes even found himself thinking, “Heal! Now get out of my face!”

The whole experience was very nurturing and inspirational, spiritual without being from one particular religious denomination. I determined it would be good for me, all of that unwinding and loosening up of my tightly held muscles. I never even smile at strangers! I’m so uncomfortable with any eye contact, smiling, touching, any kind of genuine connection. Time to open up and trust; to get out of my comfort zone. I had thought that I would explore different churches around LA, but I decided to stop with Agape. I found my home.


Agape Spiritual Center on Trazzler


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