There's nothing quite as awkward as walking into Church late, but that's just what I found myself doing. A man brought me a chair in the middle of worship. The shirt in front of me was sticking to its owner's back.
La Casa de Oracion is a bi-lingual Church family who openly joke about their lack of air-conditioning. It's a group, and building, that has an undeniable magnetism. It's a message of hope and positivity that lifts the negativity heaped upon our shoulders throughout the week. It has a magnetic quality that keeps bringing people back long after they have moved out of the neighborhood.
"A lot of these people don't live around here anymore, but it's where we grew up so we keep coming back," said speaker Frank Arenda. "Here, it might not be people who are highly educated, but our passion is in God and in each other." Even though the congregation doesn't always bring a lot to the offering plate, Arenda openly jokes he saved only one dollar last month during the sermon, they bring family. "People leave, they move away, but they come back. And they send their family even when they don't make it back" he says.
In Los Angeles, Church has a way of being all about establishing membership. It's signing a card and checking a box, sending an email or going to classes meant to prove you belong.
But the House of Prayer doesn't ask for any of those things. Instead, tucked into a little cul-de-sac next to the 60, they want to be a place for people like me. The people who happen to be walking around East Los Angeles on a warm October Sunday morning who can't help but follow the music filtering from the open doors.
We don't ask for any kind of official membership. We don't need addresses or anything like that," says Arenda. Instead of asking about anyone's home, they seek to provide another one. "We want to be a safe place," he says. With service every Tuesday, Thursday and twice on Sundays it offers that safety week round. It's also a Church that gives those who seek it a chance to teach as well as listen.
With Pastor Marco Santos doing extensive work in the community, he gives everyone a chance to lead. "He's been offered the mega Churches and a lot more money" says Arenda, "but he's always told us this is where he feels God wants him to be." "This" is the local community. Part of Santos' call has included pushing some of the sheep to become shepherds themselves after a year of intensive study.
"Everyone should be a pastor," says Arenda, "because we're all accountable to each other. So many of us have known each other since we were 18, younger, and now I'm 40. It's all part of encouraging each other." That is how Arenda finds himself behind the pulpit this Sunday morning.
He's teaching about the rapture. Or, he's doing half the teaching.
Everything Arenda says is in Spanish, and everything he says is followed by a pause. Some speaker's pause to let an argument breathe, he pauses to let his counterpart translate the message for those who claim English as their native tongue, occasionally helping to translate a particularly difficult word. While jarring at first, it creates an almost musical call and response. The fans buzz, the heat settles somewhere around a damp spot on your lower back and the rhythm of a language you don't know permeates the part of your brain not thinking about another cup of coffee.
"We always preach far from hate. If you're an alcoholic, a prostitute, whatever it is, we want you to know that you're in the right place" he says. They'll never criticize another religion, although they will mention why they believe Christianity to be the truth.
La Casa de Oracion is built on inclusion, which to hear them tell it, is to say it is built on Christ. "We want to be inclusive, but we want being included to be something everyone decides on their own. They take the offering at the end of every service, a decision they made very purposefully. "Some churches, they want their money right at the start. But for us, if you want to give, that's on you. We're not here to force anything.
Most Churches say they accept their members' scars and weaknesses when they walk in the door. But La Casa de Oracion proves it, mainly by doing everything they can to expose those scars
"The first six months? Oh they were horrible" Arenda says about their predominantly high school worship group. But that's okay by the congregation. "The life of a Church is the young ones," Arenda says, "I used to say, 'I know they may not sound great, but they will some day.'"
Service ends and the twenty or so "young ones" dash outside to play tag in what little extra space La Casa de Oracion can offer. Service ends and a man comes to take the chair he had previously brought when he saw me standing. Leaving quickly becomes impossible as seemingly everyone comes to offer a handshake or a "God bless you."
Service ends and finally there's daylight in the direction of the car. I was never asked for my information or a donation. They didn't even ask me to come back. I left having been treated as family anyway. La Casa de Oracion didn't need me to attend anything that said "I belong here" to know I did.
They just saw a sweat stain of my own and opened their arms. As if to say, "you don't look great now, but we're used to loving people like that."