LA Pastors' Bottom Line: We Want to Help the City That We Live In

In conclusion of TogetherLA’s 4-part series on LA pastors who participated in a panel, we ask again: Is there hope for the City of Angels even though it often appears so broken, so filled with spiritual poverty among its people that a diagnosis may very well be — beyond repair?The answer as expressed by the four pastors that met at the beginning of this summer for a TogetherLA pop-up held at Metropolis Santa Monica during its Philosopher’s Cafe Night was a resounding: “Yes, there is hope!”The LA pastors on the panel were Steve Snook of Santa Monica, Michael Mata of Koreatown, Cedric Nelms of Long Beach, and Brannin Pitre of Pasadena, all sharing their heart for the city they not only minister to but reside in.

LA PASTORS FINAL - BRANNIN PITRE ON PASADENA

 “We have a context in which we are divided racially. We’re divided economically. We are divided by educational bounds. We’re divided by political bounds,” said Brannin Pitre, who is the senior pastor at Grace Pasadena. “There’s just a great sense that at any given block in the city of Pasadena you’ll find somebody that’s completely different and aligned differently from you, which can cause a great sense of brokenness.“My joy in that is that it also provides an endless sense of opportunity.”Pastor Steve Snook of Metro Church in Santa Monica, who moderated the panel — Broken City – Is there hope for Los Angeles? — said that there is a lot wrong with the Los Angeles area, but rather than having a negative focus he wanted to share “the hope that is within us.”Pitre agreed with Snook’s statement and said in an interview videotaped before the panel that what he appreciates most as someone who transplanted himself and his family to Pasadena is that “we have multiple voices from different avenues coming together to express a similar theme — we want to help the city that we live in.”When it comes to people trying to address the city’s problems, asking questions such as how can they help, how can they come together, or is there common ground to do so, Christians have an answer, Pitre said.“For Christians, we say that the common baseline is the cross,” he explained. “When we see injustice we look back to the cross and say that Jesus is the solution. When we see economic poverty issues [in] our city we look back at the cross and say that Jesus has an answer to that.”Whether someone is of a certain denomination or no denomination is not the issue when it comes to providing a solution, he said.“The common bond that we share as brothers and sisters in Christ is that we can look at the cross together and say Jesus did it all for me,” Pitre said. “When that humbles us, when that makes us soft, then we can look at our brother or sister who’s walking next to us, they might not look like us, act like us, dress like us, think like us and say I’ll walk with you.”He added, “That is the joy that I find in our city. That is the joy that I find in the folks who come into the city, the folks who have lived here for so long, the folks who have said, ‘This is my town, walk with me.’ It’s a very open, very encouraging place to be if you just embrace it and say, ‘This is mine, too.”Editor’s note: This article is the final in a four-part series about the LA pastors' panel discussion hosted by Philosopher’s Cafe and TogetherLA.net on June 15, 2017. The full panel discussion can be viewed on Facebook by clicking on Part 1 and Part 2.Video and photos by One Ten Pictures.Read Pitre's discussion about how the Together LA conference, held more than two years ago, happened in a two part series at the Christian Post here: Interview Church Planter Brannin Pitre: Los Angeles Is on the 'Cusp' of a New Mov't; How Tim Keller's Church Supported Vision LA (Pt. 1) and here: 'Together LA' Organizers: There's More to Loving a City Than Planting Churches (Pt. 2)Finally, we'd love to hear from you! Please join the conversation in the Comments section below. Thank you!>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<< 4 Pastors Get Real About the City – Together LA Pop-Up Part 1 (Michael Mata)Urban Church Planter: First, What Does the City Need? Part 2 (Cedric Nelms)‘Beautiful’ Westside Striken with Spiritual Poverty a Unified Church Can Cure – Part 3 (Steve Snook)LA Pastors’ Bottom Line: We Want to Help the City That We Live In - FINAL (Brannin Pitre)

'Beautiful' Westside Striken with Spiritual Poverty a Unified Church Can Cure

From outward appearances it looks as though people on the Westside have everything they need to capture happiness. However, there is a spiritual poverty, especially among the young, that a unified Church can cure, says a longtime Santa Monica pastor.

PART THREE – STEVE SNOOK ON THE WESTSIDE

“Being on the Westside, you see some things differently,” Steve Snook, lead pastor of Metro Church, told Together LA (SEE VIDEO BELOW). “We live in a big city, but when I look at the Westside and see our brokenness I think about our spiritual poverty because it seems like we have everything — you have the beach, you have the hills, you have the beautiful houses, you have the cars, you have the beautiful people, you have all the industry ... even Silicon Beach right here in Santa Monica.“And yet, when you think of spiritual poverty, you think of people, you think that they have everything, that they’ve figured it all out — that they’ve figured out how to live and to enjoy what they have… but it’s that brokenness that breaks my heart… because I see the children of this community.“The over-privileged that seem to have everything yet they are crying out for their fathers who are so busy making a life for themselves that they have forgotten their children.”Snook gave his observations prior to a panel he moderated and co-hosted with Together LA last month. The panel — Broken City – Is there hope for Los Angeles? — began with him giving a heads up to the direction the discussion will go.“I’m going to tell you right now, there’s hope all the way across this panel,” he said. “You’re going to hear us being really honest about the brokenness that we see, but not spending much time on the brokenness without getting to a place where we talk about some of what we see happening even now and what is coming based upon the hope that is within us.”Joining Snook were Michael Mata of Koreatown, Cedric Nelms of Long Beach, and Brannin Pitre of Pasadena, all sharing their heart for LA.The importance of strong Christian-based leadership from fathers within families developed into one of the major themes of the panel.“When I see the brokenness of the Westside I see the young child who has everything and yet no one has ever told them the hope of Christ,” Snook told TLA. “There’s no parent, there’s no grandparent. They’re finding that they are going to have to figure it out on their own.“But on this corner, we have a coffeehouse [Metropolis Cafe Santa Monica] where we open our arms to the community and ask, ‘What can we do?’ The hope that I find in this brokenness is that there is one who has gone before us, one who understands brokenness.”The Church“When I look at who Christ is and I look to the hope of the Gospel I realize that one of the places of brokenness that I want to see change is in the Church — to see a united Church, to see that the Church is not about any one individual congregation, that it’s about the Church that Christ laid down his life for… that he says he loves this world that is turning away from him,” Snook said.He would like Christians to “be in a place” where God’s Church is united so that together they can realize that “we’ve been given the answers.”“We’ve been given the cure,” Snook explained. Therefore, we should be “willing to serve one another, to lay our lives down for a greater cause, to lay our empires down for the sake of the Kingdom.“My eyes have been open to the brokenness of the Westside so I can understand how we can be a part of the cure.”This article is the third in a four-part series about the panel discussion hosted by Philosopher’s Cafe and TogetherLA.net on June 15, 2017. The full panel discussion can be viewed on Facebook by clicking on Part 1 and Part 2.Video and photos by One Ten Pictures.4 Pastors Get Real About the City – Together LA Pop-Up Part 1 (Michael Mata)Urban Church Planter: First, What Does the City Need? Part 2 (Cedric Nelms)‘Beautiful’ Westside Striken with Spiritual Poverty a Unified Church Can Cure - Part 3 (Steve Snook)LA Pastors’ Bottom Line: We Want to Help the City That We Live In – FINAL (Brannin Pitre)

Urban Church Planter: First, What Does the City Need?

To truly be an urban pastor planting an urban church one must first get to know the broken parts of the city, said Pastor Cedric Nelms of Chosen Generation Church in Long Beach, during a panel discussion about Los Angeles.

PART TWO – CEDRIC NELMS

“We are very diverse here in our city and I think the best way for us to come together is to be able to plant transformational communities … so that means we are walking into the community asking the questions about what are the needs of the community,” said Nelms, who was recently named City Director for World Impact Los Angeles.He told TogetherLA that Jesus assessed the needs of every situation he came upon “before he actually brought the solution.”“That’s how you begin to transform a community because now you are getting into the dirty part, the grimy part of what it actually means to be an urban pastor planting an urban church,” he said.

4 Pastors Get Real About Los Angeles – Part 1

It may seem like a daunting task to figure out what’s broken in Los Angeles then offer a way to fix everything, but that’s not what four Christian leaders from various parts of L.A. set out to do during a panel discussion at Philosopher’s Cafe (Thursdays at Metropolis) in Santa Monica last month.Co-hosted by Together LA, the panel — Broken City – Is there hope for Los Angeles? — began with moderator Steve Snook of Metro Church giving a heads up to the direction the discussion will go.“I’m going to tell you right now, there’s hope all the way across this panel,” said Snook, a longtime pastor in Santa Monica. “You’re going to hear us being really honest about the brokenness that we see, but not spending much time on the brokenness without getting to a place where we talk about some of what we see happening even now and what is coming based upon the hope that is within us.”Nelms is certainly on the same page.“We have to get unified in understanding that yes, we can be a different color, we can be a different culture, we can be a different race, we can even have a different creed, but we also have to understand that there is only one gospel and one Lord,” he said.The demographics of the community Nelms ministers in includes a population that is 60 percent Hispanic, 40 percent African American, he said. “In that context, three of their top four things on their list community-wise (needs and desires) were job training, youth engagement, and most of all, unification.”Nelms recently described the work of World Impact.“World Impact is a Christian missions organization committed to facilitating church-planting movements by evangelizing, equipping and empowering the unchurched urban poor,” he said. “World Impact’s purpose is to honor and glorify God and to delight in Him among the unchurched urban poor by knowing God and making Him known.“One of the initiatives that World Impact has for the urban pastor is the Urban Church Association (UCA). It is a coalition of urban church pastors that meet once a month for networking, resourcing, reproduction, and soul care. ...Not only do they collaborate and encourage each other, they seek to bring unity to the Body of Christ while transforming their communities together.”This article is the second in a four-part series about the panel discussion hosted by Philosopher’s Cafe and TogetherLA.net on June 15, 2017. The full panel discussion can be viewed on Facebook by clicking on Part 1 and Part 2.Video and photos by One Ten Pictures.4 Pastors Get Real About the City – Together LA Pop-Up Part 1 (Michael Mata)Urban Church Planter: First, What Does the City Need? Part 2 (Cedric Nelms)‘Beautiful’ Westside Striken with Spiritual Poverty a Unified Church Can Cure – Part 3 (Steve Snook)LA Pastors’ Bottom Line: We Want to Help the City That We Live In – FINAL (Brannin Pitre)

4 Pastors Get Real About the City - Together LA Pop-Up Part 1

It may have seemed like a daunting task to figure out what’s broken in Los Angeles then offer a simple solution.

PART ONE - MICHAEL MATA

But that’s not what four Christian leaders from various parts of L.A. set out to do during a panel discussion at Philosopher’s Cafe (Thursdays at Metropolis) in Santa Monica on a recent June evening. Co-hosted by Together LA, the panel — Broken City - Is there hope for Los Angeles? — began with moderator Steve Snook of Metro Church giving a heads up to the direction the discussion will go.“I’m going to tell you right now, there’s hope all the way across this panel,” said Snook, a longtime pastor in Santa Monica. “You’re going to hear us being really honest about the brokenness that we see, but not spending much time on the brokenness without getting to a place where we talk about some of what we see happening even now and what is coming based upon the hope that is within us.”

Together LA: Passion for a unified Koreatown

Prior to the panel discussion, an upstairs meeting and video taping by TLA (One Ten Pictures) led to some fascinating revelations about Los Angeles, a city that's often associated with big dreams, both fulfilled and broken.Michael Mata, director of the transformational urban leadership program at Azusa Pacific Seminary and a Together LA speaker, is an experienced urban planner and pastor. He has spent over 30 years in leading and equipping others in urban transformation through the creation of community and church-based programs. His work has focused on community transformation, youth leadership development, public health, intercultural outreach, and multiethnic ministry. Mata serves as community transformation specialist for Compassion Creates Change, Inc., and was the director of Tools for Transformation for World Vision’s U.S. programs.Mata lives in and loves his neighborhood — Koreatown.“Even though it’s called Koreatown, 70 percent of the people are not Asian,” Mata told TLA. “Even with this great vitality of humanity it’s broken in that we don’t have the interaction as we should.“We live in close proximity to each other, almost 200,000 people within two-and-a-half square miles, and we bump into each other and we eat in the same places and we hear each other’s music but we’re not necessarily connected. Rarely do we actually know the name of our neighbors — actually I do, but many people don’t.“[Residents] live in high rises, in homes they’ve invested in, they live with multiple families or extended families, and they are struggling to survive because even though there’s a sense of great economic energy there, the per capita is one of the lowest in L.A. County.”

Immigrants and young professionals consumed with ‘making it’

“So, you have a population that’s come to the United States who are contributing and being very productive but it seems their lives are consumed with ‘making it,’ maybe not so much becoming affluent, but certainly surviving,” Mata explained. “In that regard, we need spaces, we need a way to come together. Certainly in 1992, when our community was the second flashpoint in the riots, our community did come together.”Churches in the area and various religious institutions gathered together, he said, and asked “How are we going to rebuild together?”Within less than a year, Koreatown did rebuild, he said.The infusion of energy and “new life and looking for the future” gave way to a retreat of sorts.“We all went back to our regular spaces of work, relationships, and of cultural identity,” Mata said. “So those spaces or that bridge are sorely lacking and that’s where I think the faith community can come in.“We have great historic sanctuaries in K-town. Beautiful French-Gothic structures, some of them thousands of square feet, but on Sunday mornings they are pretty empty because the populations that once populated the pews are no longer living in the area. We have a new influx of not just immigrant people but young professionals and some churches are being more successful at that.“But that’s the space where God calls us to be reconcilers,” he adds. “We need to step up as a faith community to be that person, or that facility, or that body that brings people together and helps us to know one another even though we may not have the same beliefs or traditions. Nonetheless, we are living in the same space so why not move beyond just residing to becoming members or members of a community becoming neighbors to one another.”[gallery type="slideshow" size="full" ids="2949,2952,2953" orderby="rand"]

What does Jesus ask of us?

“I think that’s what Christ asks of us — to find our identity in knowing that we are created in the image of God — that the other person across the street may speak a different language, may be more permanently tan than me, eats exotic foods that I might enjoy, but beyond that, knowing that God really has something more in store for them then just survival. That God sent his only beloved Son that we may have life more abundantly that we can flourish and thrive. I think we have that opportunity and K-town can demonstrate to the world that we can come together. That the faith community, the Christian community can be the vehicle by which we, [and] the relationships [we are in] create a vital tapestry of God’s kingdom here in Koreatown.”This article is the first in a four-part series about the panel discussion hosted by Philosopher’s Cafe and TogetherLA.net on June 15, 2017. The full panel discussion can be viewed on Facebook by clicking on Part 1 and Part 2.Video and photos by One Ten Pictures.4 Pastors Get Real About the City – Together LA Pop-Up Part 1 (Michael Mata)Urban Church Planter: First, What Does the City Need? Part 2 (Cedric Nelms)‘Beautiful’ Westside Striken with Spiritual Poverty a Unified Church Can Cure – Part 3 (Steve Snook)LA Pastors’ Bottom Line: We Want to Help the City That We Live In – FINAL (Brannin Pitre)