Hallelujah! : Silver Lake Evangelical Latino Church Rejoices in Growth Based on Biblical Fundamentalism

As he spoke, the Rev. Moises Sandoval stood on the last traces of El Senorial Bar on Sunset Boulevard.

The tile floors of the demolished bar were about to be covered with asphalt and converted into a parking lot for the Iglesia Evangelica Latina, a rapidly growing 1,000-member church in the Silver Lake district.

“Just imagine, this used to be a center of vice for the young men of Silver Lake,” Sandoval said in Spanish. “But now we’ve made it a wholesome place for the benefit of the community.”

The church has become one of the fastest growing evangelical congregations in Southern California. Begun eight years ago in a small storefront in the Westlake area, the church has leased and refurbished a group of buildings in Silver Lake since 1984, part of the revival of a stretch of Sunset Boulevard where bars, abandoned buildings and clunker-filled auto body shops once dominated the landscape.

The newly renovated church was itself an auto parts store until church members replaced the racks of mufflers and carburetors with upholstered pews and an ample pulpit. Now it is one of the biggest institutions in a community of 32,000 people that prides itself on its diversity.

Making Inroads

Sandoval’s is one of many evangelical churches that have made inroads into the traditionally Roman Catholic Latino population of Los Angeles in recent years. The churches have grown by preaching a biblical fundamentalism, emphasizing respect for family and authority. It is a message that has found its greatest appeal among low-income Latino families, especially those from Guatemala and El Salvador where Christian fundamentalists now make up about 20% of the population.

About 600 worshipers flooded into the streets around the church on a recent Sunday, causing a few local residents to grumble about parking problems. As they waited for the services to begin, the crowd gathered around tables where church members sold Bibles and video cassettes of a Christian pop-music group.

Once inside the church, they were treated to a lively Pentecostal service that sometimes took on the air of a variety show as guitar-carrying singers led the congregation in a series of upbeat hymns. Many called out their approval as one pastor denigrated the Roman Catholic Church.

“The Pope is swimming in money and wealth,” the pastor said. “Even powerful men will perish if they do not recognize their sins.”

“Christ is coming soon!” another preacher yelled from the pulpit. “Christ is coming to save the community!”

Some of the members of Sandoval’s church live nearby in the tenement-like apartment buildings on Sunset Boulevard, but others come from the San Fernando Valley and the Westside. Most of the congregation is made up of Salvadorans, along with a sprinkling of Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and immigrants from other Latin American countries.

“I’ve been to other churches, but here I feel the same warmth of my country and my people,” said Rosa Elba Mendoza, a Salvadoran immigrant and resident of Hollywood.

Mendoza said she has been a member of the church since 1983, when it operated out of a storefront at the corner of Sanborn Avenue and Sunset in East Hollywood. At the time, the church had about 150 members. Today the church claims about 1,100 members.

“It has experienced phenomenal growth, about 200% or 300% growth in the last five years,” said Jess Miranda, district superintendent for the Pacific Latin American District Council of the Assemblies of God, the church’s parent organization and the nation’s largest, predominantly white Pentecostal denomination.

“Normally churches don’t grow that fast,” Miranda said. “It’s unheard of.”

The church has grown so quickly, in fact, that there is not enough room for all those who come to Sunday services.

“Everyone who comes late has to watch the service on television,” Sandoval told those who packed into the church Sunday.

And indeed, video cameras transmitted the service to an adjacent room, where about 150 people clapped and raised their arms in prayer before the fuzzy image of Sandoval on a giant-screen television.

Concern for Community

Miranda credits the church’s growth to its concern for community issues, especially those affecting the church’s Central American immigrant members. “These people come here with a lot of needs and it’s rare that they find a church that addresses those needs,” he said.

Last year, the church opened a referral center for the amnesty program under the new immigration law. The center was certified by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and helped 7,000 people receive temporary residence in this country, including 200 church members, Sandoval said. Since June, the church has offered English and civics classes for those immigrants who must complete the second phase of the amnesty program.

Gays, Dancing Opposed

But church leaders are not as sympathetic to other segments of the community. About 6,000 gay and lesbian men and women live in the community, some of whom congregate in bars on nearby Hyperion Avenue. And at night, clubs catering to the neighborhood’s large Latin American immigrant community play a raucous style of dance music that many church members might find offensive.

“Dancing contaminates the spirit,” said Gilberto Repreza, 50, a worshiper and counselor for the church’s youth camping group.

Sandoval expressed even less tolerance for Silver Lake’s gay population.

“We are struggling against them,” he said. “We try to influence them by living a Christian life . . . and with the example of the normal youth in our church.”

Most of the church’s neighbors do not share the church members’ fervent religious beliefs, and a few even felt annoyed by the church’s presence. Ok Chan Hye, the owner of a small grocery store a few doors down from the church, complained about the church selling food after their services. “They’re taking my customers,” he said. “They’re making business around here more slow.”

Others, however, seem to appreciate the change the congregation has brought to the neighborhood. Jose Bonilla, 37, said church members commuting to the Sunday services caused parking problems until they began to use the playground at Micheltorena Street Elementary School as a temporary parking lot.

“I don’t mind it so much anymore,” Bonilla said as he watched parishioners walk out of the playground and toward the church, many carrying leather-bound Bibles. “I’d prefer there to be a church than a bar.”