Many congregations look to a Sunday without a house of faith in LA County’s fire-ravaged areas

Rev. Paul Tellstrom, pastor of Altadena Community Church, announced his retirement two days before the Eaton Fire reduced the church to rubble. To lose their leader and their church in a whirlwind of days is tragic, said Tellstrom, 69, of Pasadena.

So even though he will be flying by the hem of his ministerial robes, Tellstrom will tend to the flock.

“I love these people, and if not for my health, I would rethink retirement,” he said. “So even though I’ll be as unprepared as I have ever been, and it will be a disjointed service,” the people of Altadena Community Church will gather.

All are welcome to a meeting and service at 10 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 12, at Montebello Plymouth Congregational Church, 144 S. Greenwood Ave., in Montebello. YouTube livestream will also be available through montebelloucc.org.

One question they will pray over is “where is God when terrible things happen?” Tellstrom said.

Officials from the United Church of Christ conference will also be on hand to talk about what happens next to the historic church, which was founded in 1940.

“They need to feel like they are valued and that they’re not going it alone,” Tellstrom said. “We will discern where do they go next, what to do with the property, do they rebuild to the scale it was, and what kind of outreach would be most helpful to the community.”

In a social media post on Thursday, Sen. Adam Schiff mourned the loss of the church where he married his wife Eve in 1995. Altadena Community was founded as an open and affirming (ONA) church, making a public covenant to welcome people of all sexual orientations and identities. It’s always been a renegade, in that sense, but even rebels can do with a vote of confidence, Tellstrom said.

“I think everyone will be attuned to needing a word of hope.”

There is no official tally on how many places of worship and faith communities were lost in Tuesday’s fire. But among the confirmed churches burned to the ground in Altadena and Pasadena are:

–St. Mark’s Episcopal Church;

–GM Ministries;

–Hillside Tabernacle Church of God in Christ;

–Pasadena Church of Christ;

–Altadena United Methodist Church; and

–Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center and the mosque Masjid Al-Taqwa.

Confirmed burned in the raging Pacific Palisades fire are:

–St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, which has scheduled online prayer services via its Facebook and Instagram pages;

Church of the Palisades; and

Community United Methodist Church (CUMC).

Its pastor Rev. John Shaver returned to the church on Via De a Paz on Friday. Shaver and his family were in tears as they got out of their car to see their church, and what they called their first home, burned to the ground due to the Palisades Fire.

Shaver and his family along with two friends stood in front of the church to share a message.

“I wanted to shared with everyone, there’s hope.”

Of the approximately 100 churchgoers, only three houses of families remain, said Ross Chitwood, director of worship arts and music at CUMC.It was the church that started the town, Shaver said, and many people in the area attended such as actresses Jamie Lee Curtis and Jennifer Garner.

“I’m seeing people trying to point fingers right now and they’re sharing this is a town of just multimillion dollar people,” Shaver said. “But I’m just a regular guy who lives in the church- owned home that worked really hard for our clothes  and other belongings. But there are also many people who work for nonprofits but even the people who have means, they love this town.”

“There is still hope,” Shaver said. “We will rebuild.”

Chitwood and his husband Zachary Kemper lived in the back left corner apartment of the church.

“There is just nothing left that is identifiable,” Chitwood said.

“L.A. is a hard place to comprehend if you don’t live here you don’t realize that it’s 200 small towns, this was the smallest town,” Chitwood said. “This is the closest community I’ve ever been a part of.”

Reeling from the loss of their church and many homes among its parishioners, many from Corpus Christi Church in Pacific Palisades celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and met with Archbishop Jose Gomez and their pastor Msgr. Liam Kidney on Thursday.

Maria Hurtado, spokesperson for the archdiocese, said Masses will continue to be celebrated in other parishes, with central liturgies held at the cathedral.

The congregation of Altadena Baptist Church on Calaveras Street had hoped to meet on church grounds. They will instead hold service at 11 a.m. Sunday at Highlands Church, 4441 La Crescenta Ave., in La Crescenta.

Former pastor George Van Alstine led the church from 1971 to 2017 and said they have never been through something like this.

“But we haven’t given up,” he said.

Pastor Brian Majors of Pasadena Foursquare Church opened his church as a day shelter on Friday, offering free Wifi, snacks and light meals, clothes, toiletries and other supplies. Tending to people’s physical needs allows them to focus on what matters most, Majors said.

At this Sunday’s 10 a.m. service, he said he will not act like the devastating fires did not happen.

“We’re going to wrap our arms around the pastors who lost their churches and their homes, anyone who has been affected, and we will still worship, we will still believe that our God is a faithful God,” Majors said.

Esprit Jones of Pasadena dropped off clothes and shoes to Pasadena Foursquare Church, where four generations of her family have worshipped. Numerous cousins, aunts and uncles lost their homes in Altadena, where many of them settled in the 1950s.

The catalog of her family’s losses is geographic: one aunt’s home on Harriet Street and Fair Oaks Avenue; another aunt’s house on Manor Street; yet another aunt’s home on Wapello Street was the last one to burn on that block; her mother-in-law’s house on Cannon. All of Las Flores Avenue. Gone.

But Jones, already clued in to relief efforts and donation drives, said generations of Altadenan and Pasadenan ancestors have taught her what to do.

“One, we’re just gonna keep showing up because God put it in our hearts to do that,” she said. “We’re gonna stay invested in our cities and our hometown and show up with love and compassion for the folks who have lost a lot.”

The Community Clergy Coalition in Pasadena is meeting to see how it can help, Jones said. She is going to help the Dena Relief Drive led by Brandon Lamar, president of the Pasadena NAACP and pastor at Victory Bible Church in Pasadena.

“I think it’s really important to gather to draw strength from each other, to lean on each other and hold each other up,” Jones said. “What remains after the fire is us. It’s gotta be the people.”