Nobody Told Them They’re Losers

A tiny Mountain Church in California

While hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail this past summer I passed through a tiny mountain town in California and dropped in on the morning worship at Hillside Community Church.

Outside the Church

Since there was no sign announcing the services so I snuck in the unlocked door around 9 AM and got the time off a bulletin. Returning to the tiny church at 10:15 I was surprised to see the “Corner of Third and C Street” packed with cars. Apparently some folk knew when the service began.

At the door

At the door I was greeted by a stout smiling usher with facial hair (all the ushers had facial hair). I asked, “Ok to come in these?” pointing to my hiking shorts. Laughing he waved his hand toward the people milling about and said, “You can dress any way you want in our church and fit in.” (He was right—there was everything form shorts to ties.)

I took a seat near the back and was soon given a hearty greeting with a pumping handshake from a big man: “My name’s Ernie—and you are…?” (Ernie turned out to be Hillside’s equivalent of a “worship leader.”)

The sanctuary

The “sanctuary” proper of this little church appeared to be about 50’X 30’—maybe the rough equivalent of a 1500 square foot ranch home. On the left were ten pews seating about five people each with another five rows on the right side. When Hillside’s pews were fully packed they might seat 75 people. This morning they had 65 people present, all buzzing in conversation before the service began. Of the 65 about 30 were males—unusual for any church but especially unique for a small church. About 25 of the attendees looked to be under 30 years old—also atypical for smaller churches. (On the other hand, it is easier to look under 30 in California than the Midwest, so I could be off in judging age). Behind the sanctuary there were folding doors (which turned out to hide a 30X30 fellowship hall and more seating which they quietly opened during the service and I thus found myself no longer seated in the back—but they only seated five additional people there—the type of people who seemed to be “perennial late attendees” anyway).

Music

Hand-pumping-Ernie led the music with an accompanying pianist. The worship songs included The Solid Rock, The Joy of the Lord, and My Faith Looks Up to Thee. Ernie excitedly reported that the youth had their first movie night “with nine attending—Praise the Lord.” Hillside’s eight-member choir sang It is Well with my Soul as if they were a professional choir, and several folk affirmed them with a quiet “Amen” as they finished.

Announcements

In print and verbally the Hillside church life included a challenge to help Larry and Pat start a new puppet ministry for children, the youth Bible study on Tuesdays, the reinstatement of a nursery during worship, and regular attendees were urged to meet with Grace after the service to get their picture taken for the new directory. It all telegraphed a feeling of an active church life.

Media Ministry

Ernie then turned the service over to pastor Rick who introduced a video of the church’s recent missions trip to Mexico to carry out a food distribution program and to hold services. The video projector was stacked on eight hymnals as Ernie assembled a 4’X4’ home screen in the front of the church. For the next four minutes we watched a single car of men in Mexico Pastor Rick closed with a challenge: “We’re going to be doing lots more of this kind of thing—we want to be a missions church here.”

Mentoring Program

The man running the sound was obviously mentoring a teen in doing sound who dependably missed the uptake on each speaker. The mentor, however did not rescue the teen but let the boy learn from his mistakes, smiling and nodding encouragement.

The Pastor

After the scripture reading Pastor Rick preached his 11^th sermon in his series of James, this one on “Active Faith.” Pastor Rick is a middle aged balding bellied preacher formerly on staff at a larger church. He was dressed in tan slacks and a pullover with a match-anything tweed jacket. Constantly smiling as he preached, he delivered a classic expositional sermon from James 2 offering practical instruction on how to live. The people followed with nods as they took notes on a typical fill-in-the-blank bulletin insert. The sermon visited Romans, Ephesians, Joshua, and Titus, accompanied by much rustling of pages as the people followed along listening to this forty minute sermon of biblical instruction. This was the sort of church where the people carry their own Bible, some with paste-on tabs making finding books easier for new Christians. Two people in front of me even had Bibles repaired with duct tape. The two teens sitting near me were even taking notes (though they used twice as much ink on their accompanying doodles as on actual notes).

The closing

Like most evangelical churches the service seemed to end abruptly. After a gospel presentation (encouraging interested people to come forward after the service to meet with Pastor Rick) the service ended with prayer and miraculously cookies, coffee and punch managed to appear in the rear hall to accompany fellowship and relationship building.

Nobody’s told them they’re losers

Hillside church is not famous. They don’t host an annual conference for other pastors. They have no sprawling complex or giant parking lot—they have no parking lot at all—they park on the street. Their Pastor Rick could never measure up to California’s more famous Pastor Rick. He probably gets little attention from his denomination and don’t expect Christianity Today to publish a feature article on him or this church. This church trying to be famous. All they’re trying to do is be is the church.

By Keith Drury

Associate Professor of Religion

Indiana Wesleyan University

Keith.drury@indwes.edu

Other article in the “Loser Church” series:

A Little Thriving Church in Oregon