CALIFORNIA Amusement park stands out with Sunday services

The congregation dates to California'sGold Rush.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
BUENA PARK, Calif. -- The story goes that Walter Knott used to teach Sunday school on the train. You know, the train that runs through his park. The train that runs, even on Sundays, rambling past the little Church of Reflections.
The sanctuary was built 127 years ago for a congregation that was founded at the time of the Gold Rush. That also helps to explain why the church is located in the Old West part of Knott's Berry Farm Theme Park.
But there is little but faith to explain why the church has lasted this long and why it remains open for official business every Sunday, the only church of its kind -- in a theme park -- in the world.
The crowd on Palm Sunday numbered around 50. That included old-timers who have worshipped here for decades and a pew of first-timers.
It included four drop-in park-goers from Fresno, a bevy of Job's Daughters from Garden Grove and a guy who flew in from Hawaii.
It included a hiccuping baby, a nursing mother and an organist who plays the piano and the organ at the same time.
Aside from the little hiccups, it is country quiet inside the church, the high redwood beams absorbing a lot of the outside noise. Still, there is the random piercing scream from out there, the high-pitched giggle of happiness, the deep floorboard shudder of big equipment sounding perilously close.
Alice Rumold, 84, is pretty sure God is all right with this proximity. She is also sure He is OK with having people enjoy the weather and each other. He enjoys laughter.
"I like hearing it, too," she says.
More details
Constitutionally, the congregation is evangelical, which means you get a Bible and a hymnal when you walk in the door. Officially, they're interdenominational, which means that the church board of directors includes a Presbyterian, an Episcopalian, a Baptist and a Pentecostal.
"That sounds like the beginning of a joke," says Tom Unfried, smiling church deacon and a Knott's employee. "But it works."
The church itself is multidenominational, built in Downey in 1876 as a Baptist church, then becoming a home for Episcopalian worship. It was in 1955 that the church was rescued from demolition by Walter Knott.
Knott, it is believed, had a relative -- "a mother's cousin or something," a churchgoer said -- who used to be a Methodist minister there. (His daughter, Virginia, once told reporters she had no idea why her father bought the church.)
Still, Knott, who had the desire as well as the resources, had the clapboard church taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt it near his original berry stand in his budding theme park.
It's said he wanted a place for his employees to worship. (It is also obvious he wanted a place to worship, too, as he attended there for years until his death.)
For 17 years, the Rev. Sheldon Perrine enthralled the churchgoers with his old-time religion, but Perrine retired recently and the church committee has been hard at work to find a replacement who is as fiery and as well-suited to this place.
The church traditionally has two services on Sunday, an early 9 a.m. one for employees and a second, at 11 a.m., for the congregation and any visitor.
You don't have to pay a park entrance fee to go to the church.
Here's the procedure
Still, you've got to call ahead to get your name on a list of who's coming to church. You've got to sign in at the park, and you get a half-hour to sign out after services conclude. That's just to make sure the church isn't a front for freeloaders who want to use the rest of the park. Any park-goer is welcome at services.
In the pulpit Sunday was visiting pastor Jerry Gunderson. He remembered aloud when he bought a chicken dinner here in 1949 for $1.50.
He seemed undistracted by the surroundings. Instead, he reveled a bit in the beauty of the day and the setting's lushness.
Henry and Geni Duron, both 84, are regular members. The church's membership numbers around 60. Geni, of North Long Beach, Calif., has made the trip to Buena Park for many years because her sister lives nearby and the two would spent Sundays together.
Henry and Geni married 20 years ago after their respective spouses had died. They met while square dancing and agreed that they belonged here.
They do not mind walking through the park to go to church.
"It's a nice walk," says Henry.
This is the Durons' spiritual home.
God is where you find Him.
XVisit www.knotts.com.