Fire Damages First AME Zion Church

This is the substance of faith:

A charred sanctuary, the air thick with the smell of burned pews and charred Bibles. A congregation determined to believe--even in the face of its loss--that good and beauty will come.

“All things work together for the good for those who love the Lord,” said the Rev. Windle Tucker, pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, standing near the door of his office in the church. “We must keep the faith. We must be strong.”

The church on Adams Boulevard near Vermont Avenue suffered $600,000 in damage in the early Monday morning fire, fire officials said.

The blaze, which seriously damaged the church’s main sanctuary, raised concerns about a possible link to a rash of church burnings across the country over the past two years. At least 162 African American churches have been burned in the string of fires.

But fire officials, saying Monday they were still investigating the cause of the blaze, did not indicate a connection between it and others.

Any significant fires in places of worship are investigated by the House of Worship Arson Task Force, a joint effort including the city fire and police departments, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said Brian Humphrey, a Fire Department spokesman.

First AME Zion officials said the church, near USC, had not received any threats.

“At this time we’re just hoping that this was not something deliberately started or motivated by hate,” Tucker said. “[Investigators] have indicated that it does look suspicious, but they haven’t given us all of the facts yet.”

Whether started deliberately or accidentally, whether an act of hate or of fate, the fire has transformed what would have been a time of celebration into a time of reflection and rebuilding.

Less than six months ago, the church was renovated at a cost of $200,000, and members were looking forward to a rededication. Church officials now say it may be months before the congregation can use the main sanctuary again.

“We were planning to have a dedication service the second week in September,” Tucker said. “To have this happen is certainly a blow to this congregation.”

But when a church is damaged, he said, the blow is felt not only by members, but by all those whose lives are touched by it: the youths who show up for community basketball games, the homeless and hungry who line up for food giveaways, the Latino members of a Spanish-speaking congregation that shares the church.

“We consider ourselves very friendly in this community,” Tucker said.

And in times of difficulty, that love and friendship is often returned--and multiplied.

“The outpouring of sympathy has been tremendous,” Tucker said.

The AME Zion Church is separate from First AME Church. Founded in 1796, the denomination has nearly 2 million members and congregations around the world. The Los Angeles area has 14 AME Zion congregations, said Eugene Harvey, presiding elder of the church’s Los Angeles district.

Tuskegee University in Alabama, one of the nation’s most prestigious black colleges, was an outgrowth of the AME Zion Church, Harvey said.

On Monday, as news of the fire spread, calls began pouring in to the offices of First AME Zion.

Father Bill Delaney of St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church across the street stopped by to express his concern.

A call came from the pastor of the Southern Missionary Baptist Church, whose congregation worshiped in the sanctuary of First AME Zion after its building was damaged in the Northridge quake.

The Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray, pastor of First AME Church, and other pastors also offered support and encouragement.

“All of these pastors have offered to take us in and house us,” Tucker said.

On Sunday, Tucker had delivered a sermon on humility.

“We had a beautiful service, and then we get a call that the church is on fire,” Harvey said.

The fire is at least the second blaze investigated by the task force this month.

On July 10, it investigated a fire at the Fountain of Hope Fellowship Cathedral on Pico Boulevard. The fire, which caused $150,000 in damage, was determined to have been caused by an electrical malfunction, Humphrey said.

Already Tucker sees valuable lessons in an otherwise painful experience.

“The No. 1 lesson that we must learn is that we are not exempt [from tragedy] because we are Christians and because we practice our faith,” he said. “We have to learn from our experiences.”