music
So, Brother Mejia, are you originally from California?
I am.
I was born in Hollywood.
Believe it or not.
Really?
Not the good part of Hollywood.
Or the nice part.
I didn't know there was a good part.
Yeah.
Not the nice part.
I was born in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital.
But I grew up in Anaheim.
Actually, my toddler years, I guess you could say, was in Anaheim.
And then my teenage years were in Long Beach, California.
I would say, if someone were to ask me, where are you from, I would say Long Beach, California.
Because that's where all my memories are stored.
Gotcha.
From that city there.
So, did you grow up in a Christian home?
No.
I grew up in a home that didn't really emphasize religion a whole lot.
My mom was Catholic, and she would take me to a Catholic church every once in a while.
But it wasn't something we talked about in the home.
My brother wasn't religious.
My sister wasn't religious.
My dad wasn't in the home.
And God was mentioned every once in a while, but it wasn't the focal point of our family.
I did go to Catholic school.
Really?
In junior high.
Yeah.
Only because my mom's boss, we were really good friends with them, and I was really good
friends with their son.
And he went to Catholic school, so they persuaded my mom to put me into Catholic school as well.
It was the worst school I could ever go to.
Really?
It's worse than a public school, actually.
So, you went to public school in elementary, then you went to this Catholic junior high.
So, what was it like being in the Catholic junior high?
What was so bad about it?
It was just really bad.
I think that's where I met a lot of bad influences.
I think it's because, I don't know, it's like a religious institution, but you have people
who think they're religious or think they have God.
I remember literally going to confession with my friends, and then as soon as we walked
out of confession, the F-bombs would start and the S-bombs would start from my friends
and the dirty jokes.
It just felt like they were just coming to the Catholic confessional to just release
and then go fill up again or something.
But it was really bad.
I don't have too many memories of it.
I just remember not liking it at all.
So, did you find that a lot of the students there were maybe thrown out of the public
school and so now their parents have put them there because they were thrown out of public
school?
Because that was my experience in Christian school.
There were kids getting expelled from the public school, and then they would send them
to the Christian school to reform them, so you'd get some of the worst kids.
Did you see any of that or not really?
We would see some pretty bad kids, but obviously I wasn't saved back then, so there wasn't
really a standard I can measure that by.
But I will say this.
Some of those kids who were in the junior high and Catholic school were almost just
as bad, if not worse, than the ones that I met in high school in the public school.
They did drugs and they smoked and they did a lot of bad stuff, and so it wasn't really
much of a difference.
So why did your mom switch you back to public school?
Financial reasons.
Because it would just cost a lot of money.
Yeah.
I remember when I graduated from junior high, I was supposed to go to another Catholic high
school, but it was way too expensive, so I ended up going to this high school called
Woodrow Wilson High School, and it was in Long Beach, and that was a really bad school
as well.
Public school just in general.
I remember at that school, a teacher murdered a student.
Like stabbed her to death.
And the kids still wouldn't behave.
Yeah.
It was a Spanish teacher, and he was having a relationship with a student, and he ended
up murdering her.
It was all over the news.
That's horrible.
But one of the worst experiences that I had when I was there was there was a bunch of
guys, they were jumping this guy, I don't know, for whatever reason.
They jumped him, and an adult came, and he tried to stop it.
And they ended up jumping him.
So they jumped him into the street, and a car hit him.
Oh no.
But it didn't end there.
As soon as it hit him, they jumped him some more.
It was really bad.
Man.
Wow.
There was a lot of violence at that school.
So this is like a really ghetto school?
Is that how you characterize it?
It's weird, because for me it was ghetto, but there are schools there that are far more
ghetto than that.
They had a high school called Poly High, which is where Snoop Dogg's from, and that one that
has metal detectors, and they have gas, what do you call those, those bombs that they would
throw.
Like tear gas?
Tear gas, yeah.
And they had police going in there all the time.
They didn't really have that at our school, but we had a lot of violence at our school.
So yours was bad, but it wasn't the worst in Long Beach.
It wasn't the worst, yeah.
So were you kind of into the hip-hop culture at that time, just kind of being Hispanic,
being in Long Beach?
I basically grew up with hip-hop, not just from high school, that was introduced to me
at a very young age, so that was part of our culture.
Hip-hop, rap, a little bit of rock, but mostly hip-hop and rap, that was just part of it.
But it probably was induced far more when I got into high school, because you had rappers
there, you had people making albums, you had groups and stuff like that that would do that
with clicks.
So that was definitely a big part of the scene there.
So what were you like in high school?
Which crowd did you roll with?
The cool crowd.
So were you a pretty popular student, or did you kind of keep to yourself, have a small
group of friends?
Well, I had a small group of friends.
You had your friends that were like 10 friends, and then you had friends outside of that that
were more like people that you would associate with.
But my close friends were mostly black and Hispanics, I grew up with them mostly, and
it was kind of like a hip-hop crew kind of thing, like a clique or something.
They had a lot of party crews back in those days, and hip-hop crews, that's what I was
a part of, like the scene that I was a part of there.
And we like hip-hop, we like rap, and we used to rap ourselves, believe it or not.
Don't ask me to kick any flows, because I don't remember any of them.
Well, it comes out you're preaching a little bit.
It does, okay.
Well, I guess that gave it away then.
So how did you end up getting saved?
Well, so the way I got saved was when I was 20, 21, I was working at a telemarketing company,
and I remember I was going, I might have the sequence a little off, but I remember going
to Guatemala on a trip to go visit my family out there, because my dad and my mom's family
are from Guatemala.
And we went there, and we're going to an area that was pretty dangerous, which is where
my dad's from.
And it was really dangerous, like it was very violent.
And I remember kind of being afraid of that.
And I was thinking to myself, I hope I come back, like I'm able to come back.
And I remember thinking to myself, I kind of prayed thus within myself, and just said,
Lord, can you bring me back?
Even though you weren't really religious, you just kind of called out to God, keep me
safe.
And I even said, if you keep me safe, you bring me back safely, I'm going to get into
church, I'm going to look for you.
I don't remember the exact words, but it was like, I'm going to make an effort to seek
God out, basically.
And a month later, I came back, and I was actually, I kind of credit that to God.
And then at that point, I said, well, I'm going to start looking for a church to go
to.
I never heard of an independent fundamental Baptist church, I've only heard of missionary
Baptist churches.
So I started going to different churches, none of them really worked out.
And I was working at this telemarketing company, and I remember there was this lady who used
to go to my old church, called Pacific Baptist Church, and she basically heard me talking
about God to someone else, like asking a question or something.
And she just pulled out an invite and said, hey, I want to invite you to my church.
Now, mind you, she was like a white lady, right?
And I got the invite, and it said, Baptist, and I said, you go to a Baptist church?
Because in my mind, like Baptist churches are all made up of black people.
You thought of black churches that are called missionary Baptist, everybody's black, yeah.
And I was like, you go to a Baptist church, and she was just like, well, yeah, you know,
I'm an independent fundamental Baptist.
And so it kind of struck me as odd, but then I was looking at the invite, and I had the
plan of salvation, I read it through, and I thought to myself, wow, this is a lot different
from what I was used to, what I visited, because I visited like Pentecostal churches, I visited
Calvary Chapel, and they all just seemed odd to me, and I didn't really like them.
So she said, this is like on a Friday, and then she said, hey, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
she said, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we have a youth conference, maybe you can come
to that.
And I was like, okay, you know, I'll try it out.
So Monday came around, and I ended up not going.
And the reason why is because my friends were inviting me to go to the beach at night.
So I went with my friends to the beach instead, and I think she called me, she said, hey,
are you coming?
I said, no, I'm gonna go hang out with my friends instead, which was a huge mistake,
but it was used in a great way to actually get me in the church where I ended up getting
saved, because we had this like contest, and we wanted to see who can swim out the furthest,
right?
And this is like at night, 10 o'clock at night.
And we're swimming out, it was me and two friends, we're swimming, we were swimming,
but we didn't really think, because we're young and we're dumb, like what happens when
we get tired?
Like, how are we gonna make it back?
Well, my friends ended up beating me, they went further than I did, and my arms were
really tired, my lungs were burning, and I remember looking behind me to the shore, and
the lights were really dim, and I thought to myself, I'm gonna drown.
And so what I did was, because I was so tired, I went underwater, and I started like kind
of trying to touch the sea floor, so I can like bounce back up, and you know, don't have
to work as hard to tread water, and I was going down, I was going down, and I just didn't
feel anything but cold water.
It was like, the deeper you got, the colder it was.
And so, and then I expanded on my-
Now were you 100% sober?
Yeah, I was sober.
Yeah.
Believe it or not, I was sober.
Wow.
Yeah.
And I got back up to the top, and I was gasping for air, and I was like, I gotta try to make
it back, because you know, I can't.
And I would call out to my friends, and I couldn't hear them, so I don't know if something
bad was happening to them, or if they had drowned or something.
So I swam back, and I was swallowing all kinds of water, and by the time I got back, I was
literally like crawling on the sand, my arms were burning, and I'm coughing.
You just took everything to get back.
I took everything to get back.
But I remember being out in the ocean, and thinking to myself, I should have gone to
church.
Like, why didn't I go to church?
I'm gonna die here.
This is what I get for not going to church.
I'm like, I could have died.
And I made it back, my lungs were just on fire, and I thought to myself, when my friends
got back, I said, this is so stupid.
I said, I should have gone to church tonight.
So the next day I went to church, which is on a Tuesday, and if I got the dates correctly,
it was July 22nd, 2007.
That's the November of the day, and I might be off by a day or so, but I went to that
youth conference, and Bob Gray Jr., not senior, Bob Gray Jr. was preaching, and he gave the
plan of salvation, and I got saved.
And so, really thankful for him, really thankful for the lady who invited me to church.
And luckily, it was an independent, fundamental Baptist church.
It was King James only.
They emphasized so many greatly, separation, just all those key points, and that church
was used in a great way to teach me.
Pastor Joe Esposito.
Pastor Joe Esposito, yeah.
And I heard him preach in person when I was at House Anderson.
Yeah, I'm really thankful for him.
And so, that's where I got plugged in, I got baptized there, and that's where I learned
how to, just basically, that's where I learned ministry, how to serve and everything.
Everything I learned that I know today, as far as ministry is concerned, I learned from
that church.
And how long were you there total?
I was there from 2007 up until 2015, I think, right, 2016, when we started the church over
in El Monte.
So, I was there for quite some time.
Wow.
So, and then you ended up marrying the pastor's daughter.
I got to have that happen.
Yeah.
Well, it was kind of like a Leah and Rachel type story.
It took me like seven years to marry her.
But it's funny because I went to my father, he was my father-in-law then, but he was like
my discipler.
He invested a lot of my life, so we had a good relationship.
And he would always talk about, marry a godly wife, and he would always give the qualities
of a wife that you should be looking for.
And I'm thinking, well, that's your daughter.
Hey, how about her?
Yeah, it's like, well, I'm just doing what you told me to do, right?
So one day I went to his office and I said, hey, I need to talk to you.
I said, I'm interested in marrying your daughter.
And he said, oh man, you got good taste.
He said, but no.
So I was just like, well, there goes that.
And he said, he goes, you're a great guy.
I need to know you for a couple more years.
I don't really know you.
And so I thought it was just no.
But then he said, but if you still think it's God's will, come back and see me in six months.
And it was kind of like his testing to see how serious I was.
So I said, all right.
Well, if he said six months, I'll come back in six months.
He probably didn't think I was going to come back, but I came back and I said, hey, six
months ago, you said if I still think it's God's will to come back and I'm here.
And he said no again.
And that continued on for like, I don't know, like two years or so.
Every six months.
Finally, he just realized that this guy's pretty persistent and he had me go through
like an array of loops and go through fire and all that because he really wanted to make
sure because I got saved later on in life.
His daughter grew up in church.
Well, you can see his apprehension because you're coming from a rough background and
his daughter grew up in a Christian home and he doesn't know if you might revert back to
some of those things that you came out of.
So he wanted to test you and make sure.
And he tested me like it was, I remember he did like a credit score check on me and stuff.
He even had me go take an HIV test just in case and he was like, go take an STD test
for all these right here.
You know?
He's like, cause I don't know you.
Yeah.
And he goes, and if, if you know, if you're really serious, you'll just take it and not
be offended by it.
You know?
I said, sure.
So I went and I did all that.
I got the fingerprints, live scan.
I mean, people think that he was a little extreme, but you know what?
It's his daughter.
It makes sense.
Yeah.
So I passed that.
This is the stuff I'm going to do with my daughter.
Yeah.
Taking notes.
Hey, it worked out great.
And then he said, well, you passed my test.
I was like, wait, there's more.
He said, but wait, there's more.
Cause he was thinking, I approve you, but I don't know if my daughter likes you though.
So if she says no, he used to say, doc, he said, she says, no, then doc, I'm sorry.
You know, who's like, I can't force her to like you.
So then he talked to her and fortunately she was already interested in me and, and then
it worked out after that.
And then, you know, we did some court, a courtship process.
And then seven years later we got, we ended up getting married.
So, but you know, it was worth it.
It was definitely worth it.
So you have a lot of patience.
Yeah.
Well, let, I let patience have her perfect work, so put it that way, but it was definitely
worth it because, you know, I'm really thankful for my wife and, and she's a big help to me
in ministry.
She supports me a lot and you know, she, she allows me in a sense to lead well, you know
what I mean?
Cause she follows well.
So that's a big help in ministry.
I mean, I was having a woman who follows you.
You've been married now for almost four years.
We have two children.
We have another one on the way.
My oldest son, his name is Bruce.
My daughter's name is Kyla.
And then if we have a son, his name is going to be Isaias, but you're not sure yet if it's
a boy or girl.
We're not sure yet.
We'll find out in a couple of weeks.
So cool.
Yeah.
So you mentioned earlier that when you were growing up, your dad wasn't in the home.
So what was that like?
Well, it wasn't good because I think like having a father in a home is very much important
and I definitely experience what it's like growing up without a dad.
And I did have my brother there who was about 13 years older and he was like the best example
that I can, I can get in a sense like of a father figure.
And I, obviously I grew up with my mom, my brother and my sister, but my brother kind
of helped level out the absence of my father.
Some good and some bad stuff, you know, but I'm really just thankful for my mom because
of the fact that, you know, even though she was a woman and it was just my mom there,
she did a really good job in a sense of like protecting me from like a lot of bad stuff.
When a lot of my cousins and friends were getting into gangs and drugs and just violence,
she, not that she protected me from it in a sense, but she kind of like, she whooped
me so that I wouldn't get involved in those things, even to the point where like she would
move us.
If she felt like we were getting around like the wrong people, she had no problem with
just like taking the whole family and just moving to a different city, like far away
from like those influences.
And she didn't have a Bible, but she just had a lot of common sense and a lot of experience
and just the wisdom that I guess God gives a parent to protect her child from those things.
And I remember like specifically my mom instilling within us just to not necessarily be suspicious
of everyone, but just not trusting everyone at the same time.
And you know, you don't just trust any male person who's a stranger, even from our family,
you know, just, she would always tell us like, Hey, keep an eye out, be alert, be aware of
what's going on.
And honestly, that helped me a lot because I remember like years ago when I was about
12, maybe we lived in Long Beach at that time.
And at the time we didn't know, but there's like a child molester who lived like who was
our neighbor.
And this neighbor always wanted to play with the kids.
You know, he would, we would be playing basketball and he would always come and play basketball
with us.
But every time he came, I'm like, I don't want to play anymore.
You know?
And the kids are like, why?
And he'd kind of like get on me, like why come play and stuff.
And I would say, I don't know, I just don't want to play, I'm uncomfortable.
But within me, I just knew something was wrong with him.
And I think it's just like the, the, the suspicion that my mom instilled within me of not to
trust anybody.
And sure enough, I mean, he ended up molesting his own daughter and he went to jail for that.
But my mom was really thankful that she had instilled that with, cause she, she even came
to me, she goes, why don't you go play?
Like he's, you're being rude.
And I'm just like, cause I don't like him, you know, I just, I get this weird vibe.
It's funny that you bring that up because remember that video that the LAPD put out
like back in the fifties, boys beware and it's warning you, the guy is playing basketball
with the kid.
Do you remember that?
Yeah, that's right.
Before he had done something he was playing basketball with.
He's wearing like a tuxedo and fighting basketball.
Maybe that's like their, their sport or something.
I don't know.
Or maybe it was just based on some true stories and you know, that's just a typical modus
operandi.
Right.
Yeah.
So we're really thankful for that because if it wasn't for that, you know, that guy
could have destroyed my life.
So your, but your mom now is saved.
She's saved now.
Yes.
She's saved and she's been to, she's been in my old church, but she's also been to our
church here.
I've met her a few times.
She loves your preaching.
She loves you and, and she's just really thankful for just the Baptist in general.
She loves my father-in-law.
She was really thankful for the influences of my life and you know, again, she, she didn't
grow up in a Christian home, but she's, she had a lot of common sense and, and you know,
that helped me a lot throughout my life to just keep me out of trouble.
I have cousins who got into like MS 13 and they're either reprobates or they're dead.
Right.
You know, and I'm, I'm neither.
So I'm really thankful for that.
That's a big accomplishment for someone who's not saved, raising kids by herself without
a dad, just to keep your kids alive is like one thing or even keep them out of, out of
prison and stuff.
So I think, uh, in a sense, the Lord rewarded her by allowing godly influences come in and
then we got saved and what she got and she got saved because you know, he that do with
truth cometh to the light.
So when she heard the gospel, she responded to it because she had a sincere heart.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm really thankful for that.
So anyway, so you know, you grew up in that home, you, you got saved out of that.
Uh, your coworker got you to church, you heard the preaching, you got saved, you got plugged
in.
So, uh, you spent a lot of time at Pacific Baptist about, it sounds like you were there
for about nine years or so.
So what was that like?
You know, it was great.
Like a month after I got saved, I actually ended up going to Bible college cause they
had like an onsite Bible college there.
And the reason I went is because when I got saved, I thought to myself, I saw the example
of pastor Esposito, but I also saw the example of Bob Gray Jr.
And he was just a really fiery preacher.
And I thought to myself, I want to do that.
You know, I want to preach the word of God, but I just don't know the Bible.
And you know, the old IFP, their, their remedy to that is just go to Bible college.
So I went to Bible college a year after and you know, I learned a lot.
There's good things that I learned, especially for someone who got saved at the age of 21.
It was good for me because it taught me character, you know, punctuality, deadlines, certain
character flaws that I had that Bible college actually helped me with.
And the biblical stuff.
I mean, it was almost all new to you.
Right.
Oh yeah.
I mean, they'd tell the story of Jonah and I'm just like, I'm made.
And I look at my friends and they're just like, yeah, we've heard this already.
You know, they're like cold to like the stories.
And I'm just like, this actually happened because I didn't even heard any of the stories.
Right.
Yeah.
So we would go through like old Testament survey and I'm just eating it up with fork
and spoon.
Just like, I can't believe this is amazing.
You know?
And it was good for me in the very beginning, you know, just to learn those basics, right?
And obviously the ministry training that we got was good too.
But I got a funny story.
I remember one time we had started a church plant in a neighboring city called Monterey
Park and I was kind of like the help there.
And I was helping my pastor with a lot of things with Sunday school class and just leaving
the church.
And one of the things that I had to do obviously was aside from soul when he was visit people
and there's a guy in our church who actually went to the hospital and he's, he's, he went
home to be with the Lord already.
But he had gone to the hospital, he got injured, I don't remember exactly what.
So I took one of my friends, his name was Carlos and I said, well, let's go visit him
in the hospital.
You know, it was like a Saturday.
So we're driving down, I think it was a 60 freeway and literally, so we're driving around
or excuse me, we're driving on the 60 freeway and I'm just like looking out the window and
there's a vehicle there and there's a man and a woman by the tire on the other side
of the vehicle and they're kind of like hunched over.
So immediately, what do you think when you see that?
Like they're changing a tire?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
It was like they're changing a tire and the car was, I mean the, the traffic wasn't really
fast.
It was going like moderate, just kind of moderate and I'm, but I was like looking at them thinking
about something else.
It wasn't really, they didn't really call my attention other than just cause I was looking
outside the window until she turns around and she has blood all over her face.
Oh wow.
It was just like a older Mexican lady with like blonde hair and I couldn't hear her because
my window was up, but she caught eyes with me and she was basically said, help me.
And immediately I thought, well she, this guy's like robbing her or he's trying to rape
her.
I don't know what he's doing, but she has blood on her face.
You know, he's like injuring her.
So I told Carlos, I was like, Carlos, pull over, pull over, pull over.
And just keep in mind, like I have my suit on, I have a shirt and tie and so does he.
So he pulls over, I get out of the car and he's, he has her purse and she was pulled
over, I don't know the whole story, but she was pulled over to the side and there was
like a little ledge and then over that ledge there was like grassy area and trees and stuff.
And he just yanks the purse from her and just kind of like shoves her and she like falls
and I just go running after him.
I was like, let's go Carlos, let's go, let's go get, let's go get him.
And he looks at me, he jumps over the ledge and I jump over too and I go chase him.
So I chase him through these, through these trees and then there's like this, this concrete
slope that leads to like this, this flood where they, collects rainwater or something
like that.
Almost like a canal.
Like a canal, yeah, it was like a small canal.
But it was like a sewer, you know, it was really like, it smelled and there's like a
bunch of junk in there.
So he's running on that slope and I'm running after him and like I'm thinking to myself,
what am I going to do when I catch him though?
Like what do you do, like, you know what?
So is Carlos with you?
I don't know where he's at.
He's somewhere behind me.
But later on I found out, yeah, he was kind of like, he was trailing along.
But I just yelled stop, right?
Because it works in the movies and like he turned around, he literally slips and he falls
into that canal.
Oh, because by turning around it made him lose his equilibrium or something.
He slips and he falls and he just, when he heard stop, he might think you have a gun
or something.
Right.
And he falls and he goes into the canal and just splashes in it.
But then I fall too.
Because I had like church shoes and you know, it's really like, those church shoes, they're
like really slippery.
And I slip and I fall into the canal too.
Into the sludge?
Into the sludge.
So I get up though and he's like face down on the sludge with the person hand.
Oh wow.
And he goes, he looks at me and he goes, okay, I give up.
And I'm like, why is he putting his hands up like that?
Because he thought you were a cop because you're in a suit.
Exactly.
He probably thought you were like an FBI agent or some kind of a...
I look at my suit and I'm like, oh, he thinks I'm a police officer.
Well, that's perfect then.
And so I put my hand behind my back and I said, don't move.
I'm not grabbing anything.
I'm just acting like it.
He's like, okay, just don't shoot.
You know?
I'm like, don't move.
You know?
That's funny.
And then Carlos finally comes and he like, he slides down.
Well, you called for backup.
Yeah.
And Carlos goes, he's like...
And he's wearing a suit too?
Yeah.
And he's like, you got him.
I'm like, I got him.
And I said, call the police.
He said, I left the phone in the car.
You don't have your phone?
I was like, no, I left mine in the car.
And, you know, we're talking and then the guy's looking, he's just like looking at Carlos.
He's looking at me like...
And he goes, hey, you're not a cop.
And I said, don't move.
He goes, okay.
So he like gives up the purse.
And at that point, like a lot of people had seen what was happening on the freeway and
they pulled over.
And fortunately, like one of the guys who pulled over was like a security guard and
they had called the police or whatever.
So we brought the guy up and I took the purse and I was just like a mess, like I had sludge
all over me.
And I got up and I just, and I told the security guard, I said, can you keep an eye on him
until the police come?
You know, he assaulted this woman.
I guess he stole her purse or whatever.
And he's like, yeah, the police are on their way.
We'll make sure he doesn't get away.
So I gave her the purse.
I was out of breath.
So I didn't preach the gospel to her, but I gave her, I did a track drop.
Here's my good deed for the day kind of thing.
I gave her the track and she was just real thankful.
But yeah, it was pretty crazy.
That's a pretty wild story.
Yeah.
Citizens arrest, huh?
Citizens arrest.
But that's not the last time something like that happened.
You know, when I was in Bible college, I used to be in the dorms, but the dorms was like
a makeshift dorm.
Like it was like behind the pastor's house.
It was like a house behind the house.
And one day, like I was, I was the dorm supervisor at that time and there's a guy, his name is
Marco Sanchez.
In fact, he's from our church plant over at Faithful World Baptist Church, LA.
And he was out jogging.
This is at night.
And all of a sudden he runs to the back and he's screaming, he's on the roof, he's on
the roof, he's on the roof.
And I'm inside reading.
I'm like, what is he talking about?
So I'm sharing this room with another guy and we both run out and Marco just runs across
and I'm like, what are you talking about?
He's like, he's on the roof.
And I go out and I look and there's, there's this black guy who's on the roof with the
hospital gown on.
Only a hospital gown on.
Whoa.
And I look at him and I say, what are you doing on my roof?
And he looks at me and he says, I'm looking for the beach.
Oh wow.
This is in Long Beach and I said, that's not where the beach is, you know?
And I'm like sitting.
Well he wanted to get up high so he could see far away.
Where it's at.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
I should have, I should have figured that out.
Yeah.
Poor guy.
Can't you understand where the guy's coming from?
He's looking for a viewpoint.
I mean, who, who doesn't go to the beach with a hospital gown on, right?
Yeah.
And I signaled to one of the guys to give me a knife because I have a knife.
Cause I don't know if this guy was crazy or whatever.
So he jumps off to the other side of the roof and because there's like a roof like this
and then there's one like that and he jumps on that one and then he just takes off and
all the guys start chasing him.
Well, we had a bus parked out.
This was before parkour was a big thing.
Oh yeah.
He's jumping from roof to roof.
Oh yeah.
And we had like a church bus outside and he, he, he like runs in there and he barricades
himself and he's on drugs.
In the, in the bus.
In the bus.
And we found out later, this guy had like escaped from like an insane asylum or something
and the police had been chasing him for like five hours, but he was going from like roof
to roof.
You know, we go from house to house.
He went from roof to roof.
Wow.
So he goes inside and he grabs like this broom, this cheap broom that we had.
It was like made out of like some cheap metal or something and he shoves it on the door
and he just like twist it so no one gets in.
Oh wow.
So he's on drugs or something.
And we call the police and then this lady police comes up, right?
And she's like, yeah, I'll take care of it.
I'm like, no, you're going to need some backup.
And then she, she's like, no, I got this.
And she looks at the guy and then she goes, all right, I'm going to need backup.
And then the police come and there's like helicopters, tons of police and like the helicopters
like shining on us in the dorm guys were like, it's not us, you know, it's the guy in there.
So the police finally come and then they, they break open the back door and they, they
hit him with like those bags.
Doesn't do anything to him.
He just like takes those bean bags.
Yeah.
But then they get the taser.
Okay.
And they shoot him with the taser and he's just like, ah, he just falls.
Yeah.
Cause those that, that'll paralyze you.
Yeah.
Anybody.
Yeah.
And they go in and they run, they bum rush him and he comes out without the hospital
gown on.
And.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
I forgot.
So there's one part before all that happens.
He, he, he, you know, like at the top of the bus, there's like a, like a little opening
that you can open up with air gets in.
It's like an, is it an emergency exit?
Yeah.
It's like an emergency exit.
He comes out, like there's all, there's all kinds of police, right?
And he comes out of there and like, oh man, what is he going to do?
And he looks over, he looks around and he brings out the fire extinguisher.
He just trashes all the police cars.
They're all like, why?
And he just wastes the entire fire extinguisher on all the police cars.
It was funny.
And uh, well, but they ended up taking them away.
But this is all normal for LA.
I mean, when you live in Long Beach, this is just like another day at the office.
It's another day at the office.
We had tons of stories like that.
Stuff like this just happened all the time.
Oh man.
Cause we had like the LA river, the riverbed was there and there's like a bunch of people
who like live there and they'd come, always come and transients and they'd come use the
restroom and the buses and like crazy stuff.
But yeah, that was life in Bible college.
Wow.
So how big was the church there?
The church at the time, if you would include the church in Long Beach and the church in
Monterey Park, which was still a satellite church, it was about 1300, 1200 to 1300 around
there.
You would include bus ministry with that as well.
But it was a fairly large church.
And how many students were in the Bible college?
Probably about 50, not less than that, maybe 40 to 50 students.
So it was very, they would call it intimate.
You know, you, you could have the teachers to yourself in a sense and have a closer relationship
with them and stuff.
It was good.
You know, I learned a lot there.
Obviously I learned a lot of bad stuff too, as far as like doctrine is concerned.
Cause you know, they're dispensationalist, they were Zionist and they taught the pre-tribulation
rapture, but not in depth.
So, but I learned a lot of good characters.
More good than bad though.
Yeah.
More good than bad.
I definitely learned a lot of character there and I'm really thankful for it.
Cool.
Yeah.
So you mentioned earlier that you were helping out at that church plant in Monterey Park.
And if I remember right, I think eventually you were kind of heading that up or spearheading
that.
Right.
And of course that's where I met you when I visited that church plant when my wife was
at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, the hospital you were born at.
Wow.
That's crazy.
I've always thought that was a funny name.
I'm an oxymoron cause the Presbyterians are so kind of stuffy and Puritan like, you know,
Hollywood Presbyterian.
I always thought it was a funny name, but anyway, so how did that happen?
How did you end up, you know, running that church plant?
What was it like running that church plant?
Well, you know, the interesting thing is like the way we started Faithful Word Elmani was
kind of similar in a sense of like just pulling the trigger because like my, my pastor, pastor
Joe Spazito, he had a heart for church planting and he wanted to start churches specifically
in California and like he had like cities on his radar, like Fresno.
He had like Modesto places that were a little further away, but one thing he always had
on his mind was Los Angeles.
And I remember like Los Angeles is kind of like on the back burner, but it was like a
matter of like someone mentioned, Hey, there's a building.
And I think like a month later or two months later, we just started it and he's like, you
know what, we're just going to start a church.
And we had some sitters there and we found the building there.
It was in Monterey Park, which is like two cities away from where we're at currently
at right now.
But that's basically what we did.
And then during that month or month and a half, we're just doing like a lot of soul
winning and gaining contact information, which none of those people ended up coming, but
we have 300 people on the first day, believe it or not.
And I feel it was like the Lord just kind of like, kind of like filling in the gap or
something like for the work that we've been, the prayers that we had and everything.
And so I was there for that time and we helped start that church and my father-in-law was
basically, he was the, he was the pastor there, but he wasn't necessarily there all the time.
So he would preach on Sunday mornings, but he wouldn't preach the other services.
He kind of left myself and another man in charge and we're basically in charge of making
sure that the church plan was successful.
Okay.
So Sunday mornings, he would preach at his own church and the church plan, right?
And then you guys covered the evening services.
We would cover the, yeah, the other services because we, he would, he would preach in Long
Beach and then it was like 18 or 20 minutes away, you know, to Monterey Park.
So he would drive there.
So we just moved the times a little bit and then he would preach there and then, you know,
fellowship with the people.
But he let us know right off the bat, like you guys are gonna be like boots on the ground.
You guys are gonna be the one doing all the work, soul winning, heading all the ministries
up, Sunday school classes, song leading, everything that the church was about there.
We basically were spearheading that and that was great training for us.
Like I honestly felt like I learned more at the church plant than I did in Bible college
because you're just like on the job training.
You're actually doing the work.
Yeah.
And I made a lot of mistakes there too, which is good though because it's like it was, it
was a good place to make mistakes, you know, because I still had an authority over me who
would, you know, rebuke me or, you know, train me and yeah, fix things.
It was under his umbrella.
So it was very helpful for me.
You know, I was young at the time, so I didn't, I didn't have a lot of wisdom.
I didn't have any experience.
And so it was a good place to be trained to, to have those things.
So it was good.
We ended up losing that building.
So then my father-in-law said, well, you have to find a new building, you know?
And so I looked and I looked and we found a building that was in Maywood and that was
a couple of minutes away from where we're at.
Not the best situation, but we needed something like immediate because we were, we just didn't
have a building anymore.
And so we went to that place there and it was, it was very heavily Hispanic city and
it was good for a time.
Is that the one I visited?
That's the one you visited.
Yeah.
And that's when, that's when I met you and that's kind of how we kind of first became
friends and everything.
But yeah, it was good experience.
It was, it taught me a lot.
I made a lot of mistakes that I feel like are helping me today, you know, to make sure
we don't make those mistakes now.
So what are some of the differences between what you were doing in Maywood and Monterey
Park and what you're doing now in El Monte?
Cause it's almost the same thing where you're basically running a church plant, right?
And you know, you got a pastor that's over you.
And then except obviously you're almost independent because the plan is for you to be ordained
in just a couple months this August.
That's coming up fast and then the church is going to be totally independent.
But what are some of the kind of differences between running a church plant at Pacific
Baptist versus running it with Faithful Word?
I'm sure there's a lot of things that are similar.
Yeah.
It's definitely great training that you had back there.
You know, it's obviously different just in the sense of how the ministry was done there
than here.
And of course, one of the biggest ones is like there's no Sunday school, which you think
about like old IFB, it's hard for them to find a building.
And the reason for that is because when you find a building or when you look for a building,
you have to take Sunday school classes into consideration, not just children's Sunday
school classes, but adult Sunday school classes.
So they need an auditorium, but then they need a whole bunch of rooms to break up with
the small groups.
So that's stressful.
That's one of the reasons it was hard for us to find, that's why we would have Sunday
school class outside.
You know, we just try to make up for that.
I remember going to Sunday school classes like on a bus.
Yeah.
We had that too.
And then it's not just the adult Sunday school class, it's not just the children's Sunday
school class, but then you have the Sunday school class for the bus ministry.
You know, and so you have like a lot of rooms where people, obviously they separate the
people and they put them in different centers.
You need a more major facility.
Right.
So that's a major difference.
And it's, obviously I like it better the way we do it at Faithful Word because of the fact
that you don't have to worry about all that.
You know, you don't really have to take that into consideration.
Yeah, you need rooms for like mother, baby rooms and storage, but it's, you know, you're
not putting people necessarily into a storage room.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You mainly just need a good auditorium.
Yeah.
A good auditorium.
It's all family integrated.
Everybody's there.
Right.
Which is a big difference and I think that's really good.
Another difference is, you know, the old IFB, they would often like emphasize making
sure that you're like in a nice neighborhood, you know, and I'm not against that 100%,
but I like the kind of, I like the fact that we can just, we just need a building anywhere,
you know, as long as it's in the immediate area where we're at, where we live.
And the people who come to our church don't really care.
Now, Faithful Word, Omani, it's not like the nicest area, but it's not like the worst area
either.
It's kind of like somewhere in between, maybe closer to the bad, you know?
Yeah.
It's a little rough.
There are a lot of kind of rough characters that sort of hang out on that corner over
FWBCLA.
Oh yeah.
We've had a couple.
But you know, even Faithful Word in Tempe is in, you know, an area that's not great.
Yeah.
It's kind of right across the street from, you know, a check cashing place, you know,
pawn shop.
Right.
I kind of like that though, because it's like, one, the people who come to our church, obviously
they don't come for the looks.
Right.
They come for the substance of the preaching, the fellowship, and what they're going to
get.
The church is us.
The sowing.
Yeah, the sowing.
And two, I like it because of the fact that the reprobates stay away.
They don't like going into ghetto neighborhoods and stuff like that.
So we haven't really had a whole lot of trouble with that, you know?
So I think that's a big difference there.
Another difference would be, and this is not necessarily old IFP to new IFP, just from
my experience because I was younger, I feel like my pastor felt like he had to be more
hands-on because I was young.
You know, the younger they are, the more you have to keep a hand on them.
Well, I'm just a pretty hands-off guy.
Yeah.
You basically have a little more freedom.
Yeah, and I appreciate that a lot.
That kind of helps you be more creative.
It helps you take more initiative.
It helps you kind of take the bull by the horns.
But you got to be responsible on your end, so you can't really do that with a young,
inexperienced guy.
It has to be a guy who's been doing it for a while.
So I definitely understand why he did it though.
Sure, yeah.
It was definitely necessary.
Because you were a different person back then.
Yeah, exactly.
So those are some of the differences.
Going back to when the LA church plant started, it's funny you talked about how it was pulling
a trigger because it happened in like two months or something when you started the one
in Maywood or Monterey Park.
But when we started FWBCLA, it was faster than that.
It wasn't two or three months, it was two or three weeks.
I think from the time that you and I talked about, hey, let's start this church plant.
It was the next week.
I think I was like, you're like, so when are we going to start?
I'm just like, this Sunday.
And you're like, uh, really?
That was a huge difference for me right there.
That's my style.
Yeah.
So what was that like?
I mean, what was it like just those first few weeks?
Nerve-wracking.
So what did you do?
You started in somebody's backyard, right?
Yeah, we started in...
Because it was so fast.
Right.
So when we talked, you basically said, you know, we're going to start that church.
Because the day before is when we were kicked out of our church.
And I remember thinking to myself, or I think I even told my wife, like, wow, I'm not going
to be preaching for a really long time.
Like it's going to be years before I ever preached another sermon.
And I said, well, you know, it is what it is.
But then the next day, it's like, we're starting church next Sunday.
I'm like, oh man, I got to come up with a sermon.
You know, I got to come up with two sermons.
So you know, we didn't have a building.
And luckily we have Dr. Rita Ellithorpe, who was, you know, who's a member of our church.
She opened up her home to us and basically said, you guys can meet at my house until
you guys find a building.
So that was great.
I mean, it was a little far.
It was in Tustin and, um, but she had a beautiful backyard and it was like a great setup.
She was very, very liberal with us too.
Like she, she fed us, you know, she let us use her home twice.
I think it was like for two weeks.
But um, it was very much different in the sense of like, I didn't know anybody, you
know, like the people I met, I met some of the people at the sowing the Thursday before
we started.
But it's just like, you really just don't know anybody, you know?
And it was about what, 40 some people who showed up the first few Sundays, right?
So it was just kind of 40 some people are there, they're ready to roll, but you don't
know anybody.
So you kind of getting to know the people you don't really know necessarily who to,
who to trust or who to put in positions of, uh, uh, responsibility.
Yeah.
It was like that.
And then another thing was like, that was relieving.
It was, excuse me, another thing that was a relief to me was that a lot of the doctrines
that I studied, you know, behind the scenes, I guess you could say, now I could just teach
it.
Now you can pretty much cut loose and preach whatever you want, whereas before you had
to stay off certain topics, just to not be controversial with the church and all that.
But now it's just like, well, this is my home turf now.
Now I can, I can preach the whole truck.
I can unload the whole truck.
So it was great because it was great for me because of the fact that I can do that.
But I think it was also good for the people because they haven't had that, the people
who came, you know, it's like, wow, we're in a church where we're all like-minded now.
And it's all unfiltered.
So then we found a building.
But even like, I remember when you had told me we're going to start this church, I was
super excited, but there's part of me that was like really scared.
I was like terrified and I didn't know why.
And I remember even having conversations with my wife and I would say, I literally would
tell her this, like almost every day, I'd say, fear is gripping my heart and I don't
know why.
And I was like, I don't, I don't, I don't understand why I'm so afraid.
I said, but don't.
And I would tell my wife, we're going through with this.
I'm not backing out.
I'm just telling you that I'm scared and I don't know why.
And it could be, you know, Satan just trying to discourage me just because it all happened
so fast.
Yeah.
You kind of just got swept into it and you're kind of like, and then during that time we're
still receiving like a lot of persecution from our old church.
I was getting emails and text messages and phone calls trying to discourage me from doing
it.
Backstabbing your father and just all kinds of stuff, which you totally weren't doing.
I mean, your, your father-in-law was out of the picture for years before that.
Right.
And he already knew that I believed these things.
Yeah.
Like I had already talked to him about it and he was fine with it.
I mean, his brother-in-law believes it was other leadership at the church that basically
had such a, a hatred or disdain for myself and Faith Forward Baptist Church that led
to you being let go from your job there and everything.
And you know, another thing was like, I was counting the cost because I knew that the
friends and the family that I had for 12 years or 10 years, I was going to lose them all.
And I knew that if I, if I started this church, you know, kiss them all goodbye, because they're
not going to, they're not going to want to keep contact with you.
And then I think it was just like a really, it was, that was a defining moment to realize,
you know what, I'm just going to, I'm willing to lose it all.
Let's just go all in.
And you know, here we are almost 3000 souls later, I'm thankful that I made that decision
in spite of fear, because I was afraid.
And I remember thinking to myself, well, you know, fear is a sin, but I just got to make
sure that I just plow through this season of fearing of losing friends, fearing of losing
family, fearing of what may happen.
Just do it, you know, pull the trigger.
And we did.
And I'm really thankful for it because, you know, I was talking to people in the church
and they were just like, man, we're like this close to moving to Faith Forward.
Like we're going to move next December.
We're going to move like in two weeks, three weeks.
And we're like on that same boat.
So it was like the time.
You were going to move to Arizona.
Yeah.
I was going to move to Arizona.
But this way, people don't have to move.
They can stay in LA, which is way better, obviously.
And it turned out great, not just for the people in the church, but also for the surrounding
cities.
Yeah.
I mean, we're close to 3000, seen 3000 people save.
I think we're like a 2,700.
It's just the beginning.
You know, who would have won those souls if we had not started the church?
So that was like some of the struggles and the trials that my wife and I went through
started in church because of the fact we didn't know anybody.
I had to take on this leadership position.
I was still working a full time job, you know, preaching every Sunday and then dealing with
all that drama.
And then you only worked your full time job for how long?
Because I put you on staff shortly thereafter.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, we started the church in September.
I started working for you in January.
So it was only a couple of months.
So you only had to be bivocational for three months because the church was growing so fast.
It just made sense for you to be full time.
And now the church is running what, over 100 pretty much?
Yeah, we had 104 on Sunday.
So it's been going really well.
And it's only going to continue to grow, in my opinion.
Amen.
You know, the people are excited.
It's growing.
It's thriving.
And we're in an area that's just really fruitful.
Not just a monitor.
You're never going to run out of doors to knock.
Right.
I mean, it's the second largest city in America.
I mean, second only to New York or something.
Yeah.
And it's just massive.
And there's so many areas that are just going to be great soul winning.
Yeah.
I mean, and every time I've gone out there, I've always had a great experience, whether
I was knocking doors in Inland Empire or whether I was knocking doors closer to L.A.
There are a lot of receptive places to go soul winning.
Yeah, for our church, Los Angeles is just a really exciting vision.
You know, every time we cast the vision of Los Angeles, it's just like, it's so big,
but it's just at the same time, it's just a lot of potential.
It can be done.
It's going to take us, it might take us a lifetime, but it can be done.
Amen.
You know, so we're excited about that.
So in addition to preaching over the last couple of years in L.A., you've also done
some video projects.
I know I was pretty surprised when you came out with that Dia de los Muertos video, the
Day of the Dead documentary, because it just kind of came out of nowhere and I was kind
of blown away.
I didn't know that you had that ability.
So how did you learn how to do videography and photography?
Like, where did you learn that?
Well, I was at my old church.
Really?
And basically, my old pastor, not Pastor Esposito, but the one who took over after him, he basically
just gave me a project to do.
And he didn't really know if I did any videography, but he just said, I want you to do this.
I want you to learn.
And so I just learned.
YouTubed it, learned, and I ended up liking it.
So I ended up liking video editing, and I got really into that and just the science
behind it and photography.
But I remember doing that at my old church and thinking to myself, man, I don't like
what I'm doing, or I don't like the projects that I'm doing in a sense.
I like the work, but I don't like the projects that I'm working on.
And obviously, during that time, I was watching, after the tribulation, I was watching a Revelation
series, and I would think to myself, I want to do something like this.
I want to do something that's Bible-based, where it can benefit people biblically.
And that was a goal of mine to do that one day.
And so when we started Faithful Word Baptist Church of Omani, I thought to myself, well,
this is a perfect opportunity to do this.
I don't think you're going to have a problem with me doing movies and stuff.
So I did Dia de los Muertos, and that was actually an idea that my wife gave me.
It was like, I don't know, two, three weeks before the actual Dia de los Muertos.
And she said, you know, I go to this Mexican restaurant, not restaurant, grocery store,
and all I see is Dia de los Muertos stuff.
She's like, you should make a documentary on that, because that's so bad, and just emphasizing
death.
And I started researching it.
I thought to myself, hey, this would make a good little mini movie.
So we just did that, and I was working a full-time job at that time.
So I would come home and just work on that.
And I really liked it.
I just liked working on it.
I liked the fact that it was just biblically based.
Then when I started working for you, we did the Dispensation of Heresy documentary, which
is pretty good success.
We did the vaccination, but we were doing that one.
And right now, I'm currently working on veganism, Doctrine of Devils.
I'm looking forward to that one.
That's a good one.
That's going to be a good one.
So I really enjoy the Bible films.
I feel like that's very beneficial to people.
People like that.
And it's like your entertainment.
So it's really good.
Yeah.
And I mean, it's just a great medium for reaching the youth and reaching young people.
YouTube is just such a great way to reach people.
I mean, you can just reach millions of people, so it's amazing.
And instead of watching Hollywood movies and stuff, you can watch movies that matter.
Yeah.
And even our people, basically, it gives them something to watch.
It gives them something clean to show their kids.
And you just may never, you never know who it's going to reach.
And it'll change their, they'll have like a paradigm shift in their doctrine because
of it or something.
Yeah.
And obviously, those skills are helping you also just week to week when you make little
promo videos or just kind of little advertisements for things that are going on at your church.
You know, video editing and filmography and everything is a great skill to have as a pastor
because, you know, as a pastor, you have to do a little bit of everything.
You know, you have to basically clean the building and you're, you know, you're kind
of a pool man because you're doing the baptisms and the water and everything.
And I mean, you're preaching, you're counseling with people, you're making videos, you're
doing accounting, bookkeeping.
I mean, you kind of have to be a jack of all trades, right?
Right.
And definitely, like, when it comes to videography, it's just like, that's very important today.
That's like, you know, we're on the internet, we're on YouTube, and so.
People aren't reading books.
Right.
You know, I mean, you know, it'd be great if people did more reading, but unfortunately,
people are pretty much glued to a screen.
So we might as well get them watching something edifying instead of the world's garbage.
Yep, absolutely.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to, like, future projects to work on and just getting better
at it.
And I didn't go to school for it, just all YouTube.
Get all your tutorials on YouTube or lynda.com or something.
Now you're giving back to the YouTube community.
I am, yeah.
So now your ordination is, like, three months away and you're going to be pastoring and
you're going to be independent, you're going to be ordained, and the umbilical cord is
going to be cut from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe.
So what are you going to call the church?
Well, we're going to call the church First Works Baptist Church.
We want to keep that acronym there and the FWBC.
That branding.
Yeah, that branding there.
But you know, obviously, when we all got together the first time, you know, doctrine obviously
is the most important, but you know, now that we have the doctrine, the thing that we really
unifies us is the work that we're doing, and the work is preaching the gospel.
You know, we want to make sure that we keep the main thing the main thing, stay doing
the first works, preaching the gospel, doing missions.
Keep the first love.
So that's going to be the name of the church, First Works Baptist Church.
And you're going to be getting a new building, new location, new name, Pastor Bruce Mejia,
and then that'll be the beginning of a new era.
Yeah, amen.
Awesome.
From then on, we just keep doing what we've always been doing, just at a greater scale,
and keep casting that vision and just keep doing the first works.
Amen.
Great.
Iowa, it was great talking to you today.
Likewise.
Thank you.