Some Marathon Runners Will Be Using Heavenly Power : Sabbath: Many pastors are unhappy with the scheduling of the race on Sunday morning. Congestion will keep thousands from services and reduce collections.

Many churches along the 26-mile route of the Los Angeles Marathon are bracing for massive traffic jams, skimpy turnouts and shrinking collections Sunday morning as an expected 20,000 runners puff past.

But other church groups are warming up to the fifth edition of the world’s third-largest footrace, figuring that if you can’t fight ‘em, you might as well join ‘em.

Fifty-five priests, sisters and seminarians are running in the event for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, sporting T-shirts that advertise the need for more religious vocations.

Runners for Trinity Baptist Church on Jefferson Boulevard will receive contributions based on the miles they run to be used to set up a scholarship in memory of one-time Trinity member Ronald E. McNair, one of the Challenger astronauts who perished when the space shuttle exploded in 1986.

Other churches along the route, which begins and ends in Exposition Park, will set up cheering sections or wave on the competitors with banners. And the Salvation Army Tabernacle on Hollywood Boulevard plans to hand out cups of lemonade to slake marathon thirsts.

The event, which attracted an estimated crowd of 1 million last year, has been considered a mixed blessing by the 36 churches and temples along the loop, which winds through downtown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Olvera Street, Echo Park, Silver Lake, Hollywood, Hancock Park, Wilshire Center, Koreatown, Country Club Park and Mid-City.

“Why in heaven’s sake,” said the Rev. Alfred Freitag of Trinity Lutheran Church on Gramercy Place, where attendance last year was halved on marathon day, “couldn’t it be on Saturday or else Sunday afternoon? People get disgusted when they can’t get here” because streets are closed off.

Of course, a Saturday marathon wouldn’t please the two Seventh-day Adventist churches or the two Jewish temples along the route; both observe a Saturday Sabbath. And because afternoon weather is typically warmer, a later race could make it tough on runners, marathon organizers say.

As it is, Wilshire Boulevard Temple is canceling its usual Sunday morning religious school. Said Rabbi Harvey J. Fields: “People have difficulty getting through.

“We are caught between what is good for the spirit of the city and what is good for the church or synagogue,” added Fields, who chairs the Mid-Wilshire Parish, an association of religious groups in the center of the marathon activity.

The Rev. Gary Wilburn, pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Catalina Street, is also ambivalent.

On the one hand, Immanuel’s associate pastor, the Rev. Michael Roffina, will be out there running, raising money for the church youth program through sponsors who are each donating up to a dollar for every mile he completes.

And a banner on the side of the 101-year-old church will proclaim: “Immanuel--In the Heart of the City for Good.”

On the other hand, Wilburn predicts that attendance at his church will be off about 25%, and he laments the passing of the time when Sunday was considered a day of worship and rest.

“We’re not going to show Chariots of Fire here as a reaction statement,” Wilburn quipped, “but values have changed over the years.” (The film is about an Olympic runner who wouldn’t compete on Sunday because of his religious convictions.)

Bishop Satoru R. Kawai of the Jodo Shu Buddhist Temple on Jefferson Boulevard thinks he has come up with a good compromise.

At 8 a.m. Sunday, he will help lead a brief interfaith prayer service at the start of the marathon, and cancel his usual morning service at the temple. “I’ve invited anyone who wants, to come to the (Exposition) park,” he said.

Other clergy taking part in the ecumenical service are Father David F. Granadino of St. Francis of Rome Catholic Church in Azusa; the Rev. Dumas Harshaw, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church and president of the Los Angeles Council of Churches, and Rabbi Fields.

Among the serious runners Sunday are Father George Aguilera of St. John Vianney Parish in Hacienda Heights, who finished last year’s marathon in 3 hours, 17 minutes, and Sister Mary Sean Hodges, principal of Santa Teresita School in Los Angeles, who finished in 4 hours, 50 minutes. Sister Juanella Maria Pereya, a fourth-grade teacher at Sacred Heart School in Pomona, has been training every Friday with a dozen of her students, who run with her for the first 2 1/2 miles.

This will be the first marathon for Sister Kathy Bryant, a vocations director for the archdiocese and organizer of the Catholic runners. Rooters will be out in force at the seven Catholic parishes along the route, she said. “But my dad said I should take a flashlight because it’ll be dark by the time I finish.”

One of the best vantage points, at the 14-mile mark on Sunset Boulevard, is the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. The pastor, Jesuit Father Ed Callanan, will be cheering on Father Bob Frambrini, a staff colleague and runner. But Callanan is also singing the blues over an anticipated loss of 1,000 usual Mass-goers and a collection plate that is $1,000 lighter.