Worship group leaves Hollywood Presbyterian
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, May 16, 2005
The leaders of a worship service for seekers, skeptics and mostly young people – including many with tattoos and body-piercings – have decided to leave Hollywood Presbyterian Church in the aftermath of the Presbytery of the Pacific’s vote to have an administrative commission run the congregation.
The service, titled Community Urban Experience (CUE), had grown from a start-up with about 100 people to nearly 400.
CUE’s leaders posted a letter on May 15 on a new Web site announcing their plans to leave the presbytery, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and Hollywood Presbyterian, where they met in warehouse that once served as a nightclub.
“We, the leadership of CUE, feel called and committed to love one another as Christ loves us and to proclaim the inerrant Word of God,” they said. “We feel called and committed to worship God through artistic interaction, and to provide community through the cuecrew teams in the areas of discipleship, prayer, outreach, events, welcome, and cuevision. And finally, we feel called and committed to continue the heart, style, and integrity of what we’ve been doing each week here in Hollywood.
“We believe this will happen best if we are not connected to the Presbytery of the Pacific and the PCUSA. Our desire to continue the CUE service apart from the Presbytery of the Pacific is not a spiteful or hasty reaction. We’ve spent many hours in prayer and discussion and stand unified in this decision to preserve the ministry of CUE.”
The CUE service, featuring a band and singers leading praise songs to a rock beat, had been criticized by the minority faction at Hollywood Presbyterian. Long a bastion of traditional worship style, albeit evangelical, Hollywood had four Sunday worship services under the leadership of its sidelined pastors, Dr. Alan Meenan and Dr. David Manock. They included a traditional service in the sanctuary, a light contemporary service in the sanctuary and a Taize-like meditative service in Wylie Chapel.
Many of the CUE worshipers work in Hollywood’s entertainment industry.