Following the dedication of Angelus Temple, McPherson had amassed such a large following that the building was filled three times a day, seven days a week. According to Church records, the Temple received over 40 million visitors within the first seven years of its existence. In 1927, McPherson opened a commissary at Angelus Temple offering food, clothing, and blankets, and she also created soup kitchens, free clinics, and other charitable activities during the Great Depression.
In 1926, McPherson disappeared from the beach in Santa Monica and was believed dead. However, about a month later she stumbled out of the desert in a Mexican town claiming to have been kidnapped and tortured. There was speculation that the kidnapping story wasn’t true, and that McPherson had either run away with a lover or disappeared as a publicity stunt. When she returned to LA she was greeted by an estimated 30,000-50,000 people. A grand jury trial could not determine whether the kidnapping story was true or not.
Following all of this, McPherson continued her ministry for many years. Unfortunately, she died of an accidental overdose in 1944. Over 45,000 people waited to see her body which lay in state for three days at the Temple. She was later buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in nearby Glendale, CA. Today, Foursquare Church has over 8.8 million members in over 90,000 churches across 146 nations.
