Welcome, Outcasts : The New Wine Church Ministers to Bikers, Ex-Convicts and Others

By way of introduction, Pastor Robert E. Nixon nods to a ponytailed man in black jeans and a biker’s vest with a big tattooed cross on his right forearm.

“That’s Die Hard,” said Nixon, 48, a ponytailed biker himself, his voice rising over the thundering electric guitars downstairs. “He’s our chaplain.”

And here, at fast-growing New Wine Church, there is also C-leggs and Cat and Scooter, volunteers with street-hip names and sensibilities.

Here, the bikers have their own ministry, along with the ex-witches, the ex-convicts, the ex-addicts. Here, no one expects baptisms in a marble font (people are dunked in someone’s backyard pool) or the ministry meetings to put kids to sleep (the rap group calls Jesus “Big Papa”).

Anybody is welcome at New Wine, members say, but the church particularly attracts outcasts who don’t feel at home in a conservative environment.

“[We] are reaching out to people who the world has thrown away,” said congregant Sly Hannsz, 32.

This is a church that knows something about fresh starts.

New Wine is a spinoff of a controversial church, the former Set Free Christian Fellowship in Anaheim, known for its biker ministry and flashy, Harley-riding pastor, Phil Aguilar.

In September 1993, Aguilar, an ex-heroin user who served a year in prison for beating a child, left the church amid allegations of wrongdoing. At the time, Aguilar, who was under intense media scrutiny, said only that he had made “bad decisions” and moved to Visalia to start a new ministry.

Other charges dogged the 4,000-member church, which was one of the fastest-growing in Orange County. Some ex-members had alleged that Set Free was a cult that forced congregants to turn over all their possessions.

A former pastor also was put on two years’ probation after pleading no contest to felony assault on a congregant.

The church fell apart in late 1993 after Aguilar’s departure. In October 1993, Nixon and about 300 former Set Free members founded New Wine Church in Anaheim. In July, New Wine moved to Fullerton. Nixon said the name is symbolic of how born-again Christians are renewed; several congregants said the name denotes the church’s new start.

Police have logged no complaints against the church, and no lawsuits are pending against New Wine in Orange County Superior Court.

Nixon, who is Aguilar’s handpicked successor, said New Wine is a different church from Set Free. None of New Wine’s 10 directors was part of Set Free’s leadership, Nixon said, adding that he was not involved in the past controversies.

“We’re completely independent,” said Nixon, who was a deacon at Set Free but not among the top leaders. “New Wine has no problems.”

At New Wine, there are 40 ministries, including “Out of the Dark & Into the Light,” a Bible study group for former occultists, including people who believe they are ex-witches. The group’s leader, Irene Brinkman, declined comment.

Almost every day, the rappers, the hip-hoppers, the low riders or members of another ministry meet at the plain, two-story church on a busy stretch of Brookhurst Street, near a trailer park and some fast-food restaurants.

At a recent rap ministry meeting, seven young men finished their Bible study and then formed their chairs in a semicircle. Group leader Steve Bradford popped a cassette into a boombox, and a pulsing beat began. He started a rap, toes tapping, fingers pointing.

“Fellas,” he rapped, “are you with me? And the Trinity? Is that right?”

The men, several dressed in oversized T-shirts, baggy pants and backward baseball caps, took turns rapping, dancing and head-spinning on the floor.

The church is open around the clock. Kids drop by at all hours to play arcade games in the recreation room. Volunteers visit prisoners, take donated supplies to a Mexican orphanage and ship boxes of clothing to the Philippines.

As a public service, the church puts on free weddings for those who can’t afford to pay, even loaning the bride a satin-and-sequined gown. Volunteers string twinkling lights on the trees in the church’s frontyard and erect a lattice canopy for the ceremony. Afterward, someone will fire up a grill for the carne asada.

At a recent Thursday night service, there was not a suit-and-tie in sight among the 150 congregants, and only a couple of skirts. But there was a balding man with three earring studs in the shape of small crosses, and a young woman cradling a baby in a flowery dress. A hard rock band played; so did a gospel group.

Nixon, known as “Pastor Bob,” wore jeans, an untucked plaid shirt and black boots. His sermon, which focused on the dangers of pride, used his own misdeeds as an example.

“I don’t know about you,” he said, from behind a black pulpit, “but my life was a mess.”

More than 20 years ago, Nixon said, he spent time in jail for selling and using drugs. He declined to elaborate.

“I had my brief scrapes . . . but nothing real, real critical,” Nixon said. “It only took a couple visits [to jail] for me to realize this is not a place to stay.”

So he turned to the church and pulled his life together for the sake of his wife, Sharon, and three daughters. Nixon was a telephone company cable splicer before he became the church’s lay pastor.

Nixon’s amiable, shoot-from-the-hip style has endeared him to hundreds of people who do not feel at home in traditional churches.

“Our pastor is just like me,” said Joe Cervantez, 36, a machinist. “The words he speaks are pretty much the same [as mine]. . . . When I came here, he was a working man.

“I could come as I was here. Other churches, you have to come clean-cut,” he added, grabbing his long ponytail.

Others come to New Wine because, they say, it is fun.

“It’s different,” said Anthony Berglund, 15, who used to get bored attending a Catholic church with his grandmother. “Here, you can jump around and stuff and praise God. . . . In that [Catholic] church, you just sit there . . . and it’s like serious.”

Jessica Magaro, 17, dances in the girls’ rap group, something she would not have had the opportunity to do in her former Southern Baptist church.

New Wine, she said, “sends a message to me that being Christian . . . you don’t have to throw away all the fun.”