Hispanic Ministries (1)
Another Friday Night in Los Angeles
Steve Dennie
October 1995
Note: The church in Baldwin Hills closed. However, you may be interested in this story as part of the history of our Hispanic work in Southern California.
I'm a naive Hoosier in Watts on a Friday night. Thanks to the Rodney King
riots and stereotypes spawned by too many LA cop shows, I have certain expectations.
Maybe I'll see a drug bust. Hear automatic gunfire. Watch a car filled with
gang members cruise slowly by. Maybe a gun-toting teen, police in pursuit,
will run up the church steps.
Bingo on that last one.
Four of us have come to Los Angeles to shoot a video, coming soon to your
United Brethren church. There is UB Missions director Kyle McQuillen. Huntington
College Communications prof Lance Clark. Senior student Ryan Groves. And
me.
A year ago, we all traveled to the Big Apple to do a video on our cross-cultural
churches in Chinatown and the Bronx. Now the team is reunited in La La Land.
We have seven Hispanic congregations in the Los Angeles area. Six function
under the umbrella of Latin American Ministries, which the Department of
Missions oversees. It's an exciting, thriving ministry, and we want to capture
glimpses on film. (The church at Burbank, the oldest of the seven, is part
of California Conference.)
Denis Casco, a Honduran who is director of Latin American Ministries, picks
us up at the Burbank airport. We make a quick stop at our motel in Pasadena,
then rush off. Any night of the week in LA, you can attend a UB church service.
Tonight, we're heading for the Baldwin Hills church, a good half-hour away.
I ride with Denis, speeding along what he says is the first freeway built
in California.
"I'd have a hard time getting used to the heavy traffic in LA," I tell
Denis.
"For me, it's normal," he replies. Many days he travels hundreds of miles,
meeting with his churches and pastors, visiting prospects, and scouting
sites for new churches. His goal is to start two churches a year.
Los Angeles is a seamless patchwork of cities. As we drive along, Denis
points them out to me, usually describing them simply as "good" or "bad." Pasadena
is good--quiet, safe. Highland Park, mostly Hispanic, is bad.
When we stop at an intersection a few miles from the church, Denis tells
me, "This area, very dangerous. It looks good now, but is dangerous to
walk here. People will kill you for a dollar. Especially after 9 o'clock."
This is where the riots erupted. He says the area is 60% black, 40% Hispanic,
and the two don't get along.
We take a turn. "Here in this area live drug people. Right now, is quiet...." The
implication is clear: wait until the sun goes down, and things change.
The sun is quickly going down.
Time for church.
Our congregation rents a large room in a school attached to Mt. Calvary
Church of God in Christ. Across the street is a Marie Callendar's pie shop.
Yum yum. Further back is a shopping center where the police, trying to crack
down, just opened a substation.
Denis parks on the street, avoiding the church parking lot--"Is dangerous." One
night during a service, thieves broke a window and hot-wired his van.
Police found it a week later, stripped. Throughout services, someone watches
the
vehicles.
Inside, a large number of people are sitting on folding chairs. They're
dressed very nice, in shirts and ties. It may be Friday night, but they've
come to worship.
At 7:30, starting time, I count 51 people, nearly 30 of them children and
teens. Soon's I jot down that number, 20 more stream in the door, followed
by another group of 10. They fill the room. More chairs are set up.
A lady comes in by herself and finds a seat near me. She's 40ish, black
hair, nice white blouse, flowery long skirt, short white heels. Before sitting
down, she kneels on the floor, hands grabbing the back of the chair in front,
her head lowered between her arms, and she prays for several minutes. Others
do the same. It's beautiful. To these people, preparing for worship means
more than being quiet during the prelude.
At 7:45, Pastor Hugo Hernandez opens the service, and people clap vigorously.
Kyle tells me that in addition to welcoming the regulars and visitors, they
always welcome Jesus to the service. That's when they clap.
They love to sing, and get right to it. Hugo plays a mean electric guitar,
while his eight-year-old son plays the drums. This kid is good. At a previous
church, Hugo had all the instruments covered, but needed a drummer, so he
prayed that God would send him one. Suddenly, his son discovered drumsticks.
The kid can play.
Hugo's bro-ther, Ezra, leads the singing, backed by a worship team of three
girls at one mike and four guys at another. He starts a chorus which begins
slow, speeds up with each repetition, and ends really cranking. I love it.
So do some delightful spectators. The room's right side is open to the outside,
and 20 feet away stand some apartments. Five or six black children are watching
the service from a patio. They probably don't understand Spanish, but they
do understand music, and they clearly enjoy what they're hearing. A couple
of the younger kids are jumping around. Real cute.
Ezra Hernandez, I quickly realize, is a gifted songleader. He involves people
not only in singing, but in worship. There's a difference. Very few UB churches
have someone of Ezra's caliber.
Five Hernandez brothers grew up in Guatemala, where their father pastored
for 45 years. One was abducted, a political victim; they never learned his
fate. The other four now live in the States. And they ooze music. Hugo plays
the guitar, bass, and accordion. Jose plays keyboard and guitar, while Abigail
plays keyboard and bass; both are part of the worship team at the Glendale
church. And Hugo's son, I should add, is quite a drummer.
Ezra expertly guides the congregation from song to song. There are no hymnals,
songsheets, or slides. They just sing from memory. And sing their hearts
out.
Everyone's standing. Most are clapping. Some raise their hands (the very
idea can scare the daylights out of staid mid-western UBs!). Several shake
tambourines. Lots of life.
The lady sitting near me sings most of the time with her eyes closed, her
hands either half-raised or clasped under her chin. She doesn't realize it,
but she's teaching me a lot about worship.
Denis leans over and tells me that a large number of the people in this
church don't yet have legal residency. I realize that would bother some people.
But the fact is that they're here, and someone needs to be ministering to
them. I'm delighted that God has given us such a boothold among them.
They've been singing for a good 20 minutes now. Lance and Ryan have shot
a lot of film already. Now they're outside, and I decide to check up on them.
In front of the church, a police car, lights flashing, is parked at an angle
to the curb. Just down the street sits a second squad car. Hmmm. Lance and
Ryan fill me in.
Seems a couple teens fired a gun across the street in a parking garage,
then ran toward the church. One got away. The other, pistol in hand,
ran up the church steps and hid in the brick stairway. But the police were
right
on him. A squad car pulled up to the curb and a blonde policewoman ("Hard
as nails," Lance described her), one hand on the wheel and the other pointing
her pistol out the window, ordered the kid, "Get down!" He got down.
Lance, in the line of fire, started filming.
One man and one woman officer were in each car. The women got out to cuff
the guy.
After everything is under control, the officers (the men) fill us in. Evidently,
the kid was just carrying a starter pistol...though they didn't know that,
and were ready to blow him away. It's not the kind of thing they inquire
about first. Anyway, they hold the kid in the back seat for a while, give
him a good talking-to, and let him go.
Another Friday night in LA.
We landed just three hours ago.
Back inside, Ezra pauses in the singing to pray. Everyone prays aloud at
the same time, making their own direct contact with the Almighty. Then they
resume singing. Hugo's still going at it on the guitar. And I'd be remiss
if I didn't mention somewhere in this article that Hugo's eight-year-old
son can really bang those drums.
Hugo felt called to the ministry at age 17, in 1979. He enrolled in Bible
school and began pastoring a seven-member church. Hugo has lived in the States
since 1989. Attending at Glendale, he expressed his interest in becoming
a member, and later told of his desire to be a pastor.
"I have looked in different places for the opportunity to go into a ministry,
but nobody gave me the opportunity until Denis Casco," he told me.
Now, Hugo pastors two growing churches (well, all of our Hispanic churches
are growing, so nothing unusual there). Baldwin Hills is located in the heart
of LA; Oxnard is 80 miles away in an agricultural area northeast of the city.
"I don't see any difference in the churches," he told me of two very different
churches. "I see that both churches have a great desire to work, to do God's
will." That, to Hugo, is what counts.
Denis leans to me again and explains that their custom is to stand throughout
the singing and Scripture reading. "They believe it's not good for God if
they sit during worship." Indeed, they don't sit down until 8:30, when
Kyle is introduced to preach.
Speaking through a translator, Kyle tells about spending January in Costa
Rica studying Spanish. He said he learned a lot, but doesn't have anyone
to practice with in Indiana. Consequently, he understands most of what he
hears, but he can't speak Spanish well enough to preach it.
"Many of you experience this--you can understand English, but can't speak
it." All over the building, heads nod. "I look forward to the day I can stand
here and preach to you in Spanish." With that, they clap.
Kyle gives his testimony of finding Christ at age 17 "in a service like
this one," after not going to church in 17 years. He said that 5 of the
28 people at the altar that night entered the ministry. And within five
years,
Kyle's parents and sister gave their lives to Christ.
Everyone claps.
They've seen this happen.
The service closes at 9:30 with a rousing chorus. Then it's time to eat.
I'm given a plate with two chicken drumsticks, salad, beans, rice, and bread.
Good stuff. Later, a lady brings me a pudding dessert. Ditto.
An Assemblies of God minister attended the service. He told Kyle, "This
church is so much needed in this community. I think the reason God has
blessed this congregation is that it didn't go elsewhere, but went right
where the
people are."
As we eat, we notice that several blacks have returned to the patio overlooking
the Hispanic worshipers. Lance's eyes widen. "Those are the kids the
police were chasing!"
One got away, the other almost got blown away. Now they are watching the
people of the Baldwin Hills congregation.
They probably don't understand Spanish, but I'm sure they sense the warmth
and happiness of these people. And maybe, at some level, they are wondering
what this is all about, and why so many people are smiling in Watts on a
Friday night.
Next: The Jehovah Temple Church
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