What is City Beautiful-LA?

Los Angeles First United Methodist Church has been a resident of downtown since 1853.

This congregation was founded in the Eldorado Saloon 164 years ago. In the first 50 years of its existence, First UMC fought to abolish slavery, helped to start the University of Southern California (whose original mascot was the Fighting Methodists!), Goodwill Industries, Methodist Hospital, the Chinese Mission, the Children's Learning Center, Los Angeles Urban Foundation and affordable housing facilities for seniors and families.

But, today, if you look for Los Angeles First United Methodist Church, you won’t find a building.

We have a home in the heart of South Park. Our home is a surface parking lot. Our property has no walls or borders, just a simple invitation to come to worship with us on the First Sunday of each month outside in this beautiful city.

That’s because Los Angeles First United Methodist Church is committed to ministry in the best way we can envision: as a church focused on our community, not on our own needs. This is a congregation that seeks to serve, not to be served.

We are doing something new. Coming soon, we will be launching City Beautiful-LA: the worship ministry of Los Angeles First UMC. City Beautiful is named, not just for the place in which we reside, but for the place that God has promised. 

Revelation 21:1-7 makes reference to the new Jerusalem, a city beautiful like none other. This is the kingdom which God invites all of us into, the mansion with many rooms, the place in which there is no more weeping or crying. We believe it is our job to help create on earth what God has promised in heaven. City Beautiful is the awareness of the already, and the not yet. 

As Downtown Los Angeles changes and grows, we are committed to growing along with you. We want to grow in how we love and how we serve.

On the corner of Flower and Olympic, you’ll find a sign welcoming you to something intangible. That’s because we are open to the possibility of what we can become, as a church and as a community, diverse in all ways.

Here’s to all Downtown Los Angeles is becoming, dear friends. Here’s to what we all hope to grow here: life, community, love.  Our mission is to deepen our faith in God, and to live it out with meaning and purpose. We are Christians who believe deeply in the command to love God and love our neighbors – gay and straight, housed and unhoused, rich and poor, documented and documented, those with certainties and those with doubts. If you’ve been seeking a church home, we invite you to ours, which is truly open to all. Welcome to City Beautiful. 

At this church
No borders divide, no walls exclude.
We meet to serve, not to be served.
Grace is our guide, and love is our goal.
Everyone is welcomed, everyone is loved.

Worship - First Sundays at 10:30 am
1020 South Flower Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015

When we open our hearts with grace for one and all
Then we open our hearts to the City Beautiful.