{"id":469002,"date":"2025-12-24T14:44:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T14:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469002\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T14:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T14:44:16","slug":"an-orange-county-mega-church-comes-to-las-skid-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469002\/","title":{"rendered":"An Orange County mega-church comes to LA’s skid row"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Union Rescue Mission started 135 years ago, horse-drawn wagons scooped up wayward souls around downtown Los Angeles and delivered them to a nearby haven, where they might get a bowl of soup and a dose of prayer.<\/p>\n

Today, the mission on San Pedro Street in downtown Los Angeles fights to bring a measure of relief in the midst of what\u2019s believed to be the biggest encampment of homeless people in North America. It offers food, shelter and myriad programs to try to lift up those who are struggling.<\/p>\n

You’re reading the Essential California newsletter <\/p>\n

In the midst of such overwhelming need, help has come from an unlikely quarter \u2014 an Orange County mega-church. For the last several Sundays, a busload of congregants from Mariners Church have driven to Union Rescue Mission to offer love, prayers (and the occasional hygiene kit) to people used to being ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a large church like ours, we\u2019re reminded that we are all created in God\u2019s image,\u201d said Jorge Molina, the Mariners Church pastor who helped bring the O.C. to L.A.\u2019s most troubled neighborhood. \u201cWe can\u2019t forget we are here for the whole city, for the whole country,\u201d for everyone.<\/p>\n

OC takes over Sunday services in LA<\/p>\n

Mariners maintains congregations around Orange County. Collectively, the membership ranks among the largest in California. The church\u2019s first venture into Los Angeles began late this fall, when the Union Rescue Mission\u2019s leaders asked whether their southern neighbors would be interested in running Sunday services.<\/p>\n

Molina grew up in El Salvador. He had seen people living in dire circumstances. But the reality of skid row \u2014 block after block of cardboard hovels, with people adrift, many fighting inner demons \u2014 stunned him. \u201cI did not even realize there were places like this in the U.S.,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt safer in a Third World country than I did here.\u201d But he and Mariners\u2019 senior pastor Eric Geiger also felt certain: \u201cThis is where Jesus would come to church.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Mariners members have been venturing to skid row for more than a month. They visit beaten down residential hotels and social service centers, inviting people to join them for services.<\/p>\n

On a recent Sunday, a video connection with the OC allowed Geiger to preach to about 110 people in the Union Rescue Mission chapel. He showed a video of the 60-year-old \u201cA Charlie Brown Christmas\u201d and reminded people how Linus described the true meaning of the holiday. Geiger told them that Linus finally could leave his beloved security blanket, wrapping it around the Christmas tree, when he found true protection in Jesus Christ. That brought a round of \u201cAmens\u201d from the Rescue Mission congregation.<\/p>\n

A few minutes earlier, Steve and Olivia Button, chuch members from Aliso Viejo, had been on the sidewalk when Ernest Fenner came whipping along on a scooter. Fenner stopped to see what all the balloons outside the Union Rescue Mission were about. He stayed to talk to the Buttons, then later huddled with them at the front of the church.<\/p>\n

A Chicago native in the city of angels<\/p>\n

Fenner, 64, said he had left his native Chicago because he didn\u2019t feel welcome. He\u2019s doesn\u2019t trust many of the other tenants at his nearby residential hotel. But at least on this day he appreciated being seen by a couple of strangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I say here in California, they got the name right, the City of Angels,\u201d Fenner said. \u201cBecause, there are angels out here.\u201d He promised that he\u2019d do himself up for the following Sunday, saying, \u201cI guarantee you, I\u2019ll put my teeth in next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Button is a partner in a group of San Diego restaurants called \u201cThe Mission.\u201d A couple years back, the eateries began giving away a couple hundred breakfast burritos a day to homeless people. Button said God directed him to the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to say, God sent me to the minor leagues in San Diego, with their homeless problem, only to promote me two years later to come up here to the big leagues,\u201d Button said. \u201cThere\u2019s no job too big, no miracle too big.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s top stories \"Heavy <\/p>\n

Heavy rains cause flooding in the streets of San Francisco as a storm system pummels Northern California.<\/p>\n

(Jessica Christian\/AP)<\/p>\n

Deadly winter storm arrives in Southern California<\/p>\n