Pastor of Set Free Christian Fellowship Unfairly Portrayed by Ex-Members

I’ve known Set Free’s pastor, the Rev. Phil Aguilar, for nearly four years. Phil and his team’s main problem is that they put some of us clergy under conviction to be better Christians.

Here is a pastor who has 30 needy people sharing his family’s personal home. Other churches, organizations and individuals gladly send him the druggies, drunks, pimps and prostitutes--as well as the poor and the broken. Phil Aguilar and Set Free take them all in because they don’t know how to say no to a cry for help. Aguilar says simply that he has the “gift of inconvenience.”

Here’s a church that could rightly be called Orange County’s spiritual recycling center, where thousands of people are finding new life and hope and contributing as productive citizens. They even made time to be my best allies in fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry in Southern California.

No sex scandals. No financial skimming. Just a church with a magnificent Mexican pastor full of people doing all they can to practice the love of Jesus. Like all of us, they will make their mistakes. And among 4,000 satisfied customers, you’ll always find a few of the disgruntled.

THE REV. FRANK EIKLOR, President, Shalom International