LA Riots and Church Arsons- A Good Thing?

 

                When I was a child, we lived near Los Angeles, and in the early 1990s, when racial tensions were painfully high, there were many riots. Those who were most badly hurt by the riots were the ethnic groups (Black, Asian, Hispanic, etc.,) small business owners, and the poorest of the poor.

 

    At the time, my father was the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Norwalk. During the 1990s, First Baptist Church Norwalk was a predominately White church in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood. We shared space with a like-minded Hispanic Mission Church. 

One night, an individual (most likely not actually from the neighborhood around the church) made a decision to hurl a homemade incendiary device (A milk bottle with gasoline and a lighted rag) into one of our church windows. It is possible they targeted us simply because we were a White church.

My father got the call that the church was on fire. We arrived, stood across the street, and watched the smoke and the flames as our church burned.  After it was safe, we would go inside and see the melted avocado-green partitions, the destroyed golden pews, the pervasive water damage from the sprinklers. 

In that moment, standing in the darkness across the street, watching the fire fighters chop into the roof with axes, I could not believe what I was seeing, and my 8-year-old-self had no experience with which to draw from in how to handle this situation.

My father looked at the three of his children- me, Carolyn, and Grant, as the tears shone in our eyes, and unanswerable questions beat in our hearts.

And he smiled.

“You’ll see,” my father said, “God will use this to bring people to Jesus. Someone meant this for harm, and we forgive that person. And we know God will use this for good. This is a good thing- You will see.”  

And he was right. Some church members left, but many stayed. And over the next year, we rebuilt. There was enough money from our insurance, and enough of our church members who were contractors and skilled professionals, that we had the resources to rebuild, redecorate, and renew not only the sanctuary, but the education building and the nursery.

Most importantly, people got saved. Because of the unusual and difficult circumstances, people heard the Gospel and responded who might not have otherwise.

The fire really was a blessing. And this family story continues to be a blessing.

In April of 2020, when I had to explain to my 7-year-old why he couldn’t go to school anymore, or church, or why he couldn’t see his friends for playdates for a while, and I saw the confusion and despair in his eyes-

I smiled. 

And I said the same thing my father said to me, “You’ll see. God will use this for good.” 

It was hard for me to say this, and harder still to believe it. But I knew that my response would color his entire view of the whole situation. He needed my faith, just as I had needed my father’s faith during a painful time.   

And, somehow, all this has been good. We know from our own church’s experience and the experiences of churches all over the state, even all over the world, that people have accepted Jesus because of Coronavirus, because of racial unrest, perhaps even because of the 2020 elections and ensuing chaos.

In Genesis 50:20, Joseph forgives his brothers who threw him into a pit, and sold him into slavery many years before. He says to them, “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.”

God is still in the business of taking evil actions, and even infectious viruses, and redeeming them for His purposes.