Building Up the Temple

About the Book

To not surrender. To not avail one’s faith. To believe that God has His hand upon your shoulder when you feel nothing but worry. To see and feel His warmth at the cusp of disparity. This book is the story of how a young and inexperienced pastor got to witness firsthand God manifesting Himself mightily in a small church, how the workings of the Lord on the small but spunky congregation were peculiar yet tremendous, and how the project could not have been carried out without the faith of the many people who couldn’t understand the words give up. This is the story of the church of Mendota and Pastor Richard Meza’s strange but undeniably wonderful experience of God’s power. The congregation of Mendota Church was made up of hardworking families who had a many years’ dream of building a beautiful sanctuary. They dared to believe that with prayer and fasting and a lot of hard work, they could touch God’s heart. With no money and little resources, they had been allowed by God to build a beautiful seven-thousand-square-foot sanctuary in just seven months. In the midst of much turmoil, like the pastor’s wife getting a brain tumor and the contractor getting a stroke, God was able to confound the wisdom of man and demonstrate that He is truly a God of miracles.

About the Author

Richard Meza was raised in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles during the late sixties. He became a minister in 1973 and, eventually, a pastor in 1984. He married Tabitha in 1977, and they had three children: Ashly Elizabeth, Richard Jr. (Richie), and Isaiah Silvestre. Most people call him pastor, which he considers a term of endearment, and after thirty-eight years of marriage to Tabitha, he considers himself the luckiest man in the world. During their years of pastoring, Richard and Tabitha were associate pastors in Escondido, built the church in Mendota, and established a new church in Bonita. They retired in 2012 due to various health issues. His experience in ministry has not been through formal education like the seminary but rather through the school of hard knocks or, in the simplest terms, a lot of trial and error. Richard has felt from God that he should present a blue-collar spiritual approach to life in both his commentaries and memoirs. He asserts that this work is not meant to be fancy or elaborate but instead a practical, no-nonsense, commonsense approach to the challenges of life, both great and small.