Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

402 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 1

East Shatto did not seem like a community as much as Hollywood or Long Beach. It did have some churches, a YMCA, and a park, but there was a disjointed feel to the whole area, a random smattering of commercial, industrial, and residential, but no definable boundaries or flavor. Hollywood, on the other hand, where my heart was pulling, had the unique combination of being incredibly unchurched, a strong community feeling and culture, fairly populous and diverse, and urban poor. The only caveat with this area was being careful exactly where to minister. There is an interesting intermixing of rich and poor here which skews the statistical data. There is a huge urban poor population here, with an especially high concentration of homeless, runaways, addicts, prostitutes, and ex-cons in transitional housing. There are also many urban poor families here, but around each corner are also financially well-off households. The stigma of Hollywood as a rich area and very glitzy to outsiders is certainly one presupposition which will have to be addressed, but the stark reality is that much of what is considered Hollywood proper is as broken and poor as any area we have worked in within the South Central area, without the negative reputation. Four things happened in the same week, however, that nailed down the choice for me. At one meeting for “The Call” taking place at Lake Avenue Congregational Church, a man came up to me afterwards and asked if I worked for World Impact. After I said yes, he said that he felt God wanted him to talk to me. In the midst of that conversation, he told me about a new church plant which was going on right in the area where I had been focusing my prayerwalks and exploration, one which had a similar vision to mine regarding the use of media and the arts, one which not only welcomed the homeless and prostitutes of the neighborhood, but actively sought out the broken. The second thing was the visit I had with that same church – Gateway City Center. This talk with them was encouraging in learning that they were so like-minded with me, they had a heart for the community of Hollywood, and they stressed the need that there was absolutely a need for more churches in the area – I was in no way intruding. In fact, they said that in their opinion there could be a church on every single block and it still would not be enough. This was confirmed to me by another pastor in the area of a first-generation Korean church, who both welcomed me and another church plant, and affirmed that there were plenty of urban poor in the area. The third significant confirmation was the meeting I had with some Biola students I was hooked up with via a connection through Jim Parker and Dr. Judith Lingenfelter, the intercultural studies professor