Here’s what I really love about Facebook: You can keep track of so many lives and as a newsman it helps me stay connected to my local newsmakers. I’ve been trailing Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s campaign to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer — getting every detail as it unfolds because Chuck’s a frequent poster.

But last week I got a note from one of our “In Theory” contributors, Ric Olsen. He was giving me a heads up that he was running late with his response to the weekly question because he was having trouble with his church. He didn’t have time to get into what was going on, but he directed me to his Facebook page. I added him as a friend and saw that the city of Orange was moving to evict The Beacon, his church, over some code enforcement issue.

Here’s what happened: Someone in the city complained to the city about a church meeting on public property. The Beacon meets at 10 a.m. Sundays for church at El Modena High School in Orange since January 2008. Now, all of a sudden, someone complains and there’s some urgency on the city’s part to get them out of there.

The congregation grew ever more nervous as Sunday approached since they were told if they held a service Ric might get arrested or at least cited.

“Last Thursday we got a call from the principal of the school. He said he received a call from the police department saying we didn’t have a conditional use permit to use the school and so they were given a cease-and-desist order and we weren’t allowed on the property,” Olsen said.

He called the city’s code enforcement department and the representative who answered the phone “was very rude,” so Olsen went down to City Hall to talk to her in person. “I find it harder for people to be rude when they have to look you in the eye,” he said.

He waited for some time before the code enforcement officer met with him. He was told the school would have to apply for the permit, which would take 5 months to process and cost $1,000. But Easter’s almost here, he explained. Can’t we straighten it out after that?

What a fix. It was too late to even try for a permit to meet in the park. A supervisor might be able to make an exception but the supervisor was on vacation. The second-in-command said as long as school officials apply for a permit they won’t shut the church down.

Olsen found an attorney from the Liberty Counsel organization, a nonprofit that represents religious organizations in legal disputes. The attorney told Ric to have church no matter what. Force the issue to bring it into the courts. He said they were on solid legal ground because precedence allows for public institutions to host private organizations like churches or the Boy Scouts. If they didn’t have church it would mean the congregation was capitulating the legal point.

So Ric and his 150 congregants met on Palm Sunday as usual and they weren’t shut down. The next showdown is Good Friday. So far, school officials are backing them, but what if they decide at some point it’s not worth it, Olsen wondered. The Beacon pays about $25,000 to $30,000 annually for rent. With a few other churches meeting there that’s a big chunk of change in these troubled times.

“I’m not sure what we’d do” if the Beacon could no longer meet at El Modeno. “We’re trying to find a VFW Hall that’s big enough. We’d probably have to find a hotel ballroom or something. That’s my fear at this point. This works for us and not much else does. It works for us because it’s a good location in the area where we’re trying to serve on the East side of Orange, which is kind of like the Westside of Costa Mesa.” It has parking and it’s in a more remote area so the congregants don’t have to worry about disturbing the neighbors.

I couldn’t help but think of how this coincides with Easter week. Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus’ triumphant visit to Jerusalem before the Passion. So the Beacon is bearing its own cross during Holy Week. If they do get shut down we’ll have to pray for a resurrection, so to speak.

I’ve put in a call to Orange officials and was told I’d have to speak to Alice Angus, the director of community development. When I get their side of the story I’ll update you.

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