The History of the Love Of God Program

The History of the Love Of God Program

L.O.G. is one of many adaptations of the Roman Catholic Cursillo (pronounced cur-SEE-o) Movement which originated in Spain in 1949.  Cursillo de Christiandad means "little course in Christianity."

Cursillo crossed the ocean to American Catholics in the 1950's and since that time, many different expressions of the program have been established in Protestant churches around the country.  These programs include Walk to Emmaus and Chrysalis (Methodist); Great Banquet and Awakening (Presbyterian) and many more.  Visit www.3dayol.org for more information.

In the mid 1980's, the senior high youth group of Novato Presbyterian Church in Novato, California attended a "Search" retreat sponsored by a Cursillo community in the Reno, Nevada area.  They returned home with the intention of starting a similar program only to find that a local Catholic church was already using "Search" as the name for one of their programs.  The Novato group decided to call their new program "Love Of God."

In 1988, while I was serving as associate pastor of the Goleta Presbyterian Church in Goleta, California, we were invited to send a team of four youth and an adult leader to experience the Novato group's L.O.G. #5.  The following spring, Novato sent a team to give the gift of L.O.G. to the Goleta church.

Since 1989, L.O.G. communities have been planted in Carpinteria, CA; Bellevue, WA; Los Gatos, CA.  The Novato L.O.G. is now based in St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Walnut Creek, CA and they planted a L.O.G. in a church in Gig Harbor, WA in 2010.

In 1997, the Goleta Church planted L.O.G. at First Presbyterian Church in South Bend where I was serving as associate pastor. For the first eight years, we had two L.O.G. weekends each year.

Michiana Youth Ministries was formed in 2005 and immediately began sponsoring two L.O.G. weekends each fall and two more in the spring.  That has now increased to three weekends in the fall and spring with one or two more weekends in the summer.  

Over 1000 youth have participated in L.O.G. weekends here in Michiana.