My Dad and I’s home
It’s been about a year and a half since God called my family and I to West Los Angeles. We came quite unexpectedly to Culver City and our journey here has been very difficult, but also amazing at the same time. I remember my first month as senior pastor was like a bomb went off. I met with our third-party bookkeeper and we looked over the finances of the church and things were looking very, very bad. I remember panicking and asking her what I should do to fix the church. She said, “I would not pastor this church. This church is a sinking-ship and it's been this way for several years. Get out while you still can!” This is the last thing you want to hear after you just moved your whole family down to your new city and church. We then helplessly watched most of the church and leadership abandon-ship. Everything was pointing to the fact that we made a mistake coming here to West Los Angeles. Almost nothing made sense in our worldly understanding. But my wife and I knew in our knower that God called us here. We knew that it was God's will for us to be here even if our world was falling apart. We knew this was our God-given home.
Now fast forward to a year and a half later and I had an amazing epiphany. A local pastor, less than a mile from our church, reached out to me and wanted to meet up. He was recently called to the historic Vineyard LA church. His church is the first Vineyard church that was established fifty years ago this year (2024). It was great hearing his story and how God called him here to the West Side.
As I sat there talking to the lead pastor of the Vineyard, I shared about my fun connections to the Vineyard Church. Believe it or not, my father was the second ever Vineyard youth pastor. My Dad was baptized at Venice Beach by Kenn Gulliksen (founder of the Vineyard). My Dad was radically saved during the Jesus People Movement in 1976. If you watched the movie, Jesus Revolution, you would see the same time period my Dad got saved. The Jesus People Movement started in the San Francisco area, but its second home was in Venice Beach. Out of West Los Angeles the Vineyard church and many other movements would start.
I remember my Dad talking about having church services at Venice Beach and then surfing aftwards. He would talk about how Keith Green would lead worship for the churches Bible studies and how hundreds of people were coming to Jesus weekly during this special time. My Dad was a lost and hurting 19 year old surfer who Jesus called and then was ordained in the Vineyard Church.
As I was recounting all of this, I realized why West Los Angeles felt so much like home for my family and I. This is where my Dad started his ministry and interesting enough my Mom, right outside of High School, worked and lived on a boat in Marina Del Rey. For the first time, I put it all together. West Los Angeles is my Spiritual home and inheritance. This is where I belonged and this is home. What's wild is that the church my wife and I now pastor is ½ mile from Venice High School and 2 miles from Venice Beach. I am now pastoring the area that was my parents old stomping grounds.
My Mom ended up leaving Marina Del Rey on a boat and then sailing around the world. Her story is extraordinary and deserves another blog post dedicated to her journey. My Mom would end up also getting saved during the Jesus People Movement and then be discipled at the Church on the Way under Jack and Anna Hayford.
My Dad actually got married, to a different women than my mother, and was pastoring the youth at the Vineyard. He was living his dream and then all of a sudden his life became a nightmare. His newlywed wife would relapse again and again and end up cheating on my Dad, ending their marriage and subsequently ending his Vineyard Church ministry. My Dad never actually spoke to me about this extremely painful and shameful season of his life. I only have heard it second hand from my Mom and others.
My Dad’s life was suddenly and tragically destroyed. He never got to fully live out his call of being the surfing pastor at Venice Beach. But if you knew my Dad… that's where he belonged. He would end up reading a radio-shack copier manual and interviewing at Canon to be a technician to fix copiers. He got the job and he paid his own way through Life Bible College and would minister on the streets on the weekend. My parents met on the streets preaching the gospel together. They got married and served at a church together until they planted our house-church. For 3 years all the neighbor kids would pile in the garage and my Mom would teach kids church and my Dad would preach to the adults. My parents were amazing examples of what it meant to follow and serve Jesus. After the church plant did not fully take off my Dad served as interim pastor and then was offered a church in Oxnard or Mojave, CA. We all bought our surf-boards and board-shorts because God was obviously calling my Dad and us to Oxnard!! But my Dad heard God say… “Mojave”. We all cried and reluctantly followed my Dad to the sand… the sand without any water! My Dad would minister in the desert and stay in the desert for the rest of his life until his untimely death from cancer in 2013.
From 2013 to 2023, I felt distant from my father and my home. When my Dad died my Mom sold their home and I had to find a new place to live. I moved down to Ventura County to take on a denominational job serving kids, youth and young adults in SoCal. My ministry was great and it was what God wanted for me, but something was missing. I knew God had called me to the local church as a pastor. I thought that was going to be in Santa Clarita. It was half-way from the desert where I grew up and to the heart of Los Angeles, where I felt called. But that didn't work out. That's when we get the unexpected call to pastor Vintage Faith in Culver City. After a lot of prayer and insane confirmation, I accepted the position in June, 2023 to be the lead pastor.
Now as 2024 is coming to a close, I am full of gratitude and amazement looking at what God has done. I am realizing that this was all a set up. As soon as I got here, I felt at home. Even with the horrible adversity my wife and I faced when we got here, we knew God was with us and that he called us here. Just this year (2024) 140 people have come to Christ in our church. We are in a mini-Jesus people movement revival!! The Holy Spirit led us to start a Community Center at our second church campus. We saw 10,000 people fed there just this year. THAT IS NOT A TYPO. Ten-thousand people have been fed through our little church that a year before was on life-support. All glory to God!
What has been beautifully strange has been the sense of destiny I have felt since my family and I have come here to West Los Angeles. It’s like people have been waiting for us and we have been waiting for them. My church family is now beautiful and thriving. My church is my people. But it's not just inside the church's four walls. I can’t count how many people I have met in the city that I immediately felt a kindred spirit with. I can try compare this sacred connection to how a second generation immigrant feels when they go back to their home country for the first time. I have heard many say that they finally feel at home and sense that they finally belong. That is how my family and I feel in West Los Angeles. We are finally home. We belong here.
Today, I began to weep thinking about how faithful God has been to my family and I. I have been blown away at the sovereignty of God and how he has orchestrated our move and ministry here. Now there are three generations of the Fish Family that have had the privilege to serve Jesus and the city (My Dad, myself and my kids). Even through all the tragedy and brokenness God has fulfilled his promises. I have felt so much closer to my heavenly father and earthly father ever since I have moved here.
It’s been amazing to see God's strong hand and his supernatural favor. Let me give you a few instances of God's extreme presence and provision. Just this year, on my Dads birthday (January 11th), I was randomly called by Sony Studios to have a private tour of the lot and was able to pray with staff that had been “waiting for a pastor for 20+ years to come on site.” Sony gave us 90 couches, 40 tables and 100 chairs to pass out to the community. Then the Mayor of our city recognized the opening of our community center and has shown us unwavering support. Also, Adam Schiff, our US senator, gave our community center a top 100 Southern California non-profit award. Our church and partner, Food Cycle, was given $185,000 refrigerated truck. Spectrum News dediced to give me a local hero award and do a story on me. You can see that here. I have a hundred more stories like that just from this year alone. I call these moments “Rob Fish moments”. Experiencing these Rob Fish moments is a conflict of emotions for me. I am honored and overjoyed I get to experience these whimsical moments my Dad was famous for. But also I wish my Dad was here and I grieve at his physical absence. I wish that I could talk to my Dad one more time on this side of heaven. I wish that he could show me all of his surfing spots and share about how God started the Jesus people movement. I wish we could grab a burger and share stories of God's faithfulness. I have so many questions for my Dad. But somehow, I feel like I'm getting to live out his answers.
“The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent (2 Peter 3:9).”
My Dad being Ordained in the Vineyard Church