The Identity of The Hollywood Church, Part 5
“Love the City”

September, 2008

by: Chriss Barksdale

• Hollywood Church

We are not interested in just building a great church but also a great city! When I say “love the city” I mean many things: Caring for the people in very tangible ways—especially the poor and marginalized (Showing mercy to the city) and doing good in the city as not only an evangelistic means to an end but as an end in and of itself to the glory of God (Strengthening the fabric of the city).

Being a mercy-minded church is not anything new for church history reveals to us an enormous amount of people who were committed to such ministry. Martin Luther was one of the only pastors who stayed back during the greatest plague ever to ravage the human race. He housed those who were sick and took care of them, thus risking his own life. John Calvin founded one of the first hospitals specifically for the poor. Jonathan Edwards spent the last years of his life teaching English to Indians. George Whitefield started an orphanage in Georgia that still exists today. At the funeral of J.C. Ryle the majority of those who attended were poor and homeless. Spurgeon started orphanages as well and worked tirelessly to help the poor and destitute. One secular reporter even said “no one but the nonconformist minister (Spurgeon) was their friend.” Finally there was George Mueller who gave his entire life to helping orphans.

It wasn’t until the last 100 years that the church abandoned its calling and either rejected theology and simply did social justice or abandoned social justice for theology. It was around the turn of the century that the church realized what it had done in neglecting the poor (the result of Social Darwinism) so they abandoned theology and the Gospel resulting in the Social Gospel. The conservative church then reacted with the movement called Fundamentalism which brought back theology and the Gospel but then neglected the poor. Thus what we have today is a church that is split as either liberal/democratic/helping the poor or conservative/republican/reaching the lost. Unless we are more committed to the Gospel than the most conservative church and at the same time more committed to mercy ministry and social justice than the most liberal church we won’t make an impact in Hollywood! We want to break the mold of the “conservative/republican” label and the “liberal/democratic” label and just be Biblical!

You may say, “what does the Bible say about this?” To which I say, “everything”. Space does not allow me to write out all the verses but if you have time here are some references to look up: Deut 10:17-19; Job 29:11-16; Psa 10:14, 41:1-3, 146:6-9; Prov 3:27-28, 14:21, 14:31, 19:17, 31:8-9, 31:20; Isa 1:15-17, 3:14-15, 11:4, 58:6-7, 58:10, 59:15-16 61:1-3; Jer 7:5-7, 22:16, 29:4-7; Ezek 16:49-50; Amos 5:11-15; Micah 6:6-8; Matt 9:10-13, 10:42, 11:19, 25:41-46; Luke 6:35, 10:30-37, 14:13-14, 15:2, 19:7; John 4:27, 5:1-9; Acts 10:38, 20:35; Gal 2:9-10, 6:10; Eph 4:28; I Thess 5:15, I Tim 6:17-19, Titus 3:14; James 1:27, 2:5-8.

The city is looking for something that doesn’t fit the paradigm. Typically the liberal church is pegged as those who are doing acts of mercy while the conservatives are pegged as those who are into evangelism. What we have today in the cities is a delta effect where each denomination gets into their cove and throws rocks at the others for not doing what they do. Baptists pride themselves in evangelism, Presbyterians with theology, Charismatics with worship, main line churches with mercy, and home churches with community. If you want a church that the world hasn’t seen and longs for, one where the Spirit is at work as well as Satan opposing it: have all these under one banner!

Our city lends itself to such ministry. Hollywood is not all glitz and glamour as you well know. The true Hollywood is broken and downtrodden. Over ¼ of the residents are under the poverty line (1/2 of children ages 6-11 are poor). On any given night there are as many as 2000 young people ages 13-24 living on the streets of Hollywood. Not only that but 50 people a day leave drug rehab in Hollywood and without intervention 90% will be back on drugs within six months.

This is a hard balance to hold for the tendency is to lean to one side or the other. To either preach the Gospel, hold firmly to sound theology, and neglect the marginalized or abandon the Bible, be laissez-faire about theology and help the marginalized. The great thing about being committed to mercy ministry is that it naturally leads right into the Gospel. We have found that our greatest places of impact for the Gospel have been ministries we are involved with in the city. Pray for us as we work with the poor, homeless, abused women and children, those in transitional homes, teenage runaways, elderly, pregnant women, and those caught in drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and human trafficking.