The Church That Cracked Its Own Walls
Pastor John Molina sighed as he hung up the phone. It happened again. In 2006, break-ins and robberies were frequent at Centro Christiano Espano on West 36th Street in Little Rock. “We were known as ‘the Hispanic church’ on the African-American block,” John says. “Back in those days, the African-American community was like, ‘You guys are strangers. We don’t want you here doing nothing.’” Their words stung, but they were true.
“That was really a wake-up call for us,” John says. The church was great at attracting Hispanics in the community but not others. Church services were in Spanish with no translation. Even the church’s name felt exclusive. John and other church members saw a problem. They were in the community but not part of it. It wasn’t until they met Mo that things started to change.
Mo (short for Moses) was a former gang member in the 80s who lived nearby. When some church members tried to reach out to him, he challenged them. “Are you guys doing anything for the community? Look at the park across the street from the church. If you do something there, people will come. You gotta do something to meet people in the community.” For Centro Christiano Espano, it was a giant step outside its comfort zone.
“Are we going to be the Hispanic church, or are we going to be the Church? That was the challenge,” John says. Mo’s words proved prophetic when the church did an outreach event at the park. People showed up. The following Sunday, people came to the church’s worship service. John asked one of the second-generation youth in the church to translate his sermon into English. It was a small gesture that told everyone: “This is a church for the community.”
That one outreach event “changed completely the perspective for us, plus the community,” John says. People outside the Hispanic community started attending the church. The church did more outreach in the community. Neighbors began looking out for the church. “We haven’t had a break-in or robbery since,” he says.
Planting Hispanic Churches in Arkansas
Between 1990 and 2000, Arkansas’s Hispanic population surged from 19,876 (0.8%) in 1990 to 284,127 (9.2%) in 2000 (U.S. Census Bureau). Seeing an opportunity to reach Hispanics, the Assemblies of God denomination launched Hispanic Project 2000 to plant Spanish-speaking churches for first-generation Hispanics immigrating to Arkansas. One of the key figures in this project was Janie Wead Mobley, a missionary within the denomination.
Janie served in Spain for years before God called her to Juarez, Mexico, to teach at a Bible school. At a missions conference in Bentonville in 1993, a pastor told her about Hispanic Project 2000. The project excited her, and she tried to recruit students at her Bible school, but no one said, “Yes, I’ll go.” That’s when God told her, “It’s not them. I’m calling you to Arkansas.” So, Janie, a single mom, moved her and her kids to Arkansas and began planting churches.
Hispanic Project 2000’s first church plant was in Siloam Springs. From there, the project planted churches in Fayetteville, Rogers, Springdale, Fort Smith, and Van Buren. John Molina moved to Arkansas in 1990 to be part of a church plant in Van Buren. Early on, church plants were in Northwest Arkansas. Later, the project identified Central Arkansas as a focus for future church plants. In 1998, Centro Christiano Espano (Spanish for ‘Hispanic Christian Center’) was planted in Little Rock with David Gomez as pastor.
Arturo Rosado is the church’s current youth pastor. He came to the U.S. in 1998 from Mexico. “We were part of the church where David Gomez pastored in Reynosa near the border,” Arturo says. “When my parents decided to come to the U.S., they were following a group of people who used to be members of [that] church. When we came here, we came directly to this church.”
The church began meeting at an Assemblies of God church on 65th Street before moving to its current location. “There were only two or three families,” Arturo says. “I remember we used to sit in the front of the church in the first pews. But they were very passionate about church planting. So, they made the church grow to an extent.”
Growing Pains
Centro Christiano Espano became a gathering place for the Spanish-speaking community. “If you were able to find a Hispanic person on the street, it was like finding a needle in a stack of hay,” Arturo says. “There were only two Mexican stores. It was very rare to go to a place where people speak your language. So, the church was very important for Hispanics.” The church gave Spanish-speaking people a place to worship. It gave them community. It gave them access to resources they couldn’t find elsewhere.
In 2006, David Gomez left to pastor another church in Texas, and John Molina became the church’s pastor. By the time John took over, things had changed at the church. “We were mainly Hispanics, but we were representing first-, second-, and third-generation Hispanics. Plus a lot of mixed marriages,” John says. “I came here when I was 10,” Arturo says. “So, I know more of the American culture than Mexican culture. I speak Spanish because my parents forced us to learn. But these generations, they’re born here. English is their first language. Some of our youth were not connecting.” John noticed the generational differences while watching his kids argue at the dinner table. “They were fighting in English, talking to us in Spanish, and switching back to English.”
After the outreach event in the park in 2006, the church made all its services bilingual. “Some of our worship team members who don’t speak English had to start learning songs in English and singing by faith,” Arturo says. Someone always translated the sermon. “Translation has become a huge part of the church culture now,” he says. “I think that if one day we don’t translate, I think people will feel weird. Even Hispanics will be like, ‘Man, why is nobody translating to me?’”
Tensions rose when the church changed its name to Revive Christian Center. First-generation members objected. “How can you take the Hispanic out of our name? That’s who we are.” “It was a huge process of people adapting, people changing,” Arturo says. “Our name was a blessing when the church began, but then it became a problem for people who didn’t want to come to the church because that name was not allowing people to feel that they’re going to be received.”
“We have people in our church from all over the place—Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico,” Arturo says. “This church has become very multicultural. There are a lot of things that you create and stereotype about other people. But when they come to the same building, and you get to spend years with them, you realize they’re no different than you are. Part of the transition was knowing we cannot simply be a Hispanic church because even the people in our church are part of a different culture.”
“One of the advantages we have as a church opening up to an entire community is that we get to know the other side of other cultures,” Arturo says. “We get to see the good and the amazing things that the white culture brings. We get to meet people, extraordinary African Americans, who are doing amazing things in their communities. If you’re willing to open up, you’re going to see that every other culture has something to contribute to your church.”
Arturo remembers Lee Kitchen, a black man who started attending the church years ago. “When he came, I was like, ‘Okay. We have a black person coming to church. That’s different.’ The thing is, he studied in Guadalajara, Mexico, and speaks Spanish. He had very sophisticated Spanish, which connected with Pastor John because Columbians are known for having sophisticated Spanish. He was one of our first translators. It was a powerful experience to have a Colombian pastor preaching in Spanish with someone translating who wasn’t Hispanic but was an African American speaking Spanish.”
Give It All Away
“If there’s a moment in which the Church has to be effective, it’s in the moment of need,” Arturo says. “If you don’t function as a church when the moment of need comes, you are not doing something right.” For Revive Christian Center, the pandemic presented such a moment. “There are a lot of kids in the public school system, and the only place where they can have breakfast and lunch is school. For some kids, the only meals they eat are at school,” Arturo says. With schools moving to online classes, kids had no access to meals. That’s when John got a call asking if the church could do a drive-thru to give out meals. John answered, “Yes, definitely.”
The church received $3,000 to buy groceries and make meal packages for 100 kids. John remembers the first day well. “It was a Monday. The parking lot was completely full. We gave away everything.” The next day, the church passed out 300 packages. Soon, the church became a hub for food coming in and going out. “I received a call from Northwest Arkansas,” John says. “They said, ‘Somebody gave me your number. We have an 18-wheeler that was going to a church but they couldn’t receive it. Did you guys want it?’” Even though they gave away everything, the church never ran out of food. A phone call or connection would always lead to more. By the end of 2020, the church had given away nearly half a million dollars worth of food.
“It was the principle that when you give what God gave you, He gives you more,” John says. “It changed our hearts and our desire to give and use those moments to connect with people. When the connection is there, people are open to you. I think that put us in the position we’re at now because we’re seeing growth. God gives that growth. We have two services on Sundays now, and the place is packed.”
“What was most impressive is you had a generation of young people running this operation,” Arturo says. “And it was not in Spanish. It was in English. And it’s because they’ve been used to adapting, changing, and giving to all the generations in the church that they’re the ones running this entire thing.” “What a beautiful picture to see all the young people willing to serve and doing it with joy,” John says.
Being a Blessing to the Community
“We are the Church, and the Church is here to influence communities,” John says. “I feel that every church has a purpose in the community where they are. It’s like when the people of God went into exile in Babylon. They wanted to get out of exile, and the Lord spoke to them through Jeremiah: ‘After 70 years, I’m going to bless you guys. But now you need to build your houses. You need to pray for the peace of the city.’
“The kingdom of God is what the kingdom of God does. We know that God brought us with a purpose here so we can be a blessing to our community. That has completely changed the picture [for us] because we are expanding as a church. Are we here for the community? Are we here to be the Church or not? Let’s unite ourselves and let’s do something. Let’s get in unity and bring change to the community.”
We are grateful for the exceptional work of Revive Christian Center and other churches in our cities that are a blessing to their communities. They are helping the whole Church grow.
Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:15-16
