With less than 400 undergrads, Life Pacific University, a small Pentecostal Christian Bible college in the Los Angeles County suburb of San Dimas, is only a small fraction of the size of even most religious schools in Southern California. Many people confuse it with the much larger Azusa Pacific University a few miles away.
But over the past century, the alumni of Life Pacific University (known throughout most of its history as LIFE Bible College, an acronym for Lighthouse of International Foursquare Evangelism) have had an outsized role in the spiritual development of millions of lives and countless congregations in the U.S. and beyond.
Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel movement that boasts 1,800 congregations worldwide and hundreds of thousands of weekly congregants and Bible teacher of The Word for Today radio program; Jack Hayford, longtime senior pastor of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys; African American actor, pastor and academic Otis Young; and countless figures in the Assemblies of God and Vineyard movements earned their degrees at Life Pacific.
One of the First People to Drive Across the Country Founds a Denomination and Bible College
The Life Pacific story began in 1921, when Aimee Simple McPherson, a Pentecostal evangelist, arrived in Southern California after a transcontinental trip.
In the early days of the automobile, McPherson was one of the first Americans to travel across the country by car.
Also among the first to make use of the new medium of radio for Bible teaching and evangelization, McPherson founded the Foursquare Church, which emphasized the continued operation of spiritual gifts in addition to traditional Protestant Christian beliefs.
As early as 1923, the Foursquare movement began ministerial training at a location in Echo Park near Downtown Los Angeles.
By the 1940s, LIFE Bible College, as it had become known, was offering four-year degrees and began participating in intercollegiate varsity basketball and baseball.
Life Pacific Today
Like many Southland ministries, LIFE Bible College relocated from Downtown Los Angeles in the late 20th century, establishing its present campus in San Dimas, some 40 miles east of downtown, in 1989.
By the 2000s, the university had rebranded as Life Pacific and had become a university in 2019, with full accreditation from regional bodies such as the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
There is an East Coast satellite campus in Virginia.
While Life Pacific University isn’t a major visitor’s attraction, the campus can still be explored by taking in a basketball or volleyball game at Mehl Court or enjoying a meal at the on-campus cafe.
The campus is also home to Lifehouse Foursquare Church, the Sunday morning chapel services for residential students that are also open to the general community.
A visit to Life Pacific University can easily be combined with a visit to Claremont, Frank G. Bonnelli Regional Park or Cal Poly Pomona.
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