Be zealous, have faith in God, encourage one another, and exercise your power to preach
the gospel.
I was thinking today of all the cities that surround LA, there's so many cities here,
so many lost people, and I'm looking forward to seeing hundreds, gay, thousands come to
Christ because the church is starting.
My name is Kelly Franceschini and this is my son Giovanni.
Hello, my name is Marco, this is my wife Ariel.
My name is Chris Carey, this is my wife Nicole, these are my daughters Catherine, Violet,
and Tabitha, this is my son Isaiah.
My name is Maury, Maury Lemons, and my wife's name is Angela.
I got my daughter here Claire, Lila, and Adeline.
My name is Haik, this is my wife Soong Tovmasian.
I'm Rita Elethorpe, I have been a part of the First Works Baptist Church since it started
from the very first days.
My name is Adam, this is my wife Louisa, this is our son James.
My name is Cody, this is my wife Ashley, we're the Houks.
My name is Jose, this is my wife Janelle, these are my four daughters, and we started
today First Works in 2017, we had just moved back from North Carolina.
I actually went to the very first meeting of, I guess at that time it was the satellite
of Faithful Word, and that was back four years ago, and it was at Dr. Rita's house.
I feel like I've been down this road already, I failed so many times, I've done so many,
there's been so many times in my life that I failed God, will we just get back up again?
I mean, you're still alive, right?
I mean, as long as you're breathing, you're in a Bible-believing church, you've got the
Word of God, you still have a second chance to get back up and do that which is right
in the side of the door.
What I love about First Works is that I know I'm going to hear the truth, and I also love
the fact that it feels like a family here.
I would say the thing I love most about First Works is probably the fellowship and the brotherhood.
It's really something that Pastor has like really cultivated, like the culture of fellowship
and the culture of just being a family.
It's like, at least for like the God, it's like a good brotherhood, like I'm really comfortable
with everybody.
And so it's just really awesome just to see everybody just get along and just have fun
and whether that be in church or out of church, so yeah, it's awesome.
What I love about First Works is it is clear about its objectives.
The pastor and the people here understand that this is to be a church that preaches
the full counsel of God.
So I think one of the biggest things I also love about First Works is that whatever we're
being taught through preaching, doctrine, fellowship, whatever, we all know it's really
biblically based, and a lot of Bible is used, so we don't have to just blindly trust whatever
we're being taught.
You know, we can see that's what it says in the Bible, and we know that the church, the
center of the church is the Bible.
I love the preaching and the fellowship and just the leadership of our church and how
it's just really like just men driven and yeah, just really gung ho about the things
of the Lord.
The church is really on fire for God.
We were really fired up about doctrine.
There's a few things I love about First Works Baptist Church.
The first being and what really attracted me to the new IFB and the style of church
was the unadulterated preaching that first and foremost what comes is the Bible and what
the Bible has to say.
You know, the Bible says, despise, not prophesy.
So if we're not to despise something, that means, well, we're supposed to love prophesying.
What is it talking about?
Talk about preaching.
And the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which
are saved, it is the power of God.
And I'm thankful for the word of God that's being preached.
Why?
Because it helps me to stay right with God.
The Bible says, Preach the word, be in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all longsuffering and doctrine.
Why?
Because you're right with God.
I love that the preaching at First Works doesn't leave you guessing about what the Bible says
because the pastor is clear and explains verses and doesn't provide wishy-washy answers to
scriptures that most people kind of question because they might go against our culture.
So the objective is why I came to this church.
It's very clear, and it's well-defined, and it correlates with the scriptures.
And we were given the commission to go and tell how great a salvation that we have.
In the Christian life, in your individual life, the higher you go up, spiritually speaking,
for the longer you are a Christian, the more you are faithful.
You're steadfast and you're unmovable.
You're always abounding in the work of the Lord.
There's always going to be spiritual opposition.
The number of enemies will increase.
The number of adversaries will multiply.
Why is that?
Because the more you do for God, the more success you have in the Christian life, the
more Satan wants to stop you.
A homemade bomb was tossed into an El Monte church known for its anti-LGBTQ teachings,
and now the FBI and local investigators are trying to figure out who is responsible.
I remember just being in shock.
I opened my phone and I just saw a news article.
I believe it was in the men's chat, and I was just like, whoa.
The FBI is calling it an IED, an improvised explosive device, a phrase rarely heard to
describe violence in this community.
The idea that something like that would happen in this neighborhood is beyond comprehension.
But investigators say someone targeted this church.
I think everybody in the church was notified through that text that the building was bombed.
And initially, it was a bit hard to believe.
A controversial church in El Monte is now the center of an FBI investigation after a
homemade bomb damaged the building.
Several people have been protesting the church because of its pastor and his anti-LGBTQ views.
The explosion happened yesterday morning at the First Works Baptist Church on Tyler Avenue.
The arson unit came in, the LA County Fire Department, as they were trying to figure
out what happened.
And they did determine that it was, in fact, some sort of an explosive device that went
off in and around this church.
And then, of course, there was their concern of possibly yet another device as they're
trying to figure out exactly what caused this blast.
Well, you know what?
If they kill us, guess what?
We get the clock out early.
Go to heaven and cash in the check, and we're good to go, right?
But you know what?
The fact of the matter is we're going to be OK because God's protecting us, and we're
doing God's work.
Yep.
Amen.
So I had just gotten up in the morning, made my coffee, like sat down, and I looked at
my phone and saw that I had a message from Pastor and opened it up.
And it just said, the church got bombed.
And I was a little in disbelief initially, you know, a little bit surreal.
You see that what can happen, you know, when you're following Christ and the persecution
that he went through and the persecution that Christians truly go through, you know, if
you're living by the Bible, you're going to get persecuted.
To this extent, I never thought it would happen.
I was not surprised that the bombing had occurred.
It was kind of surreal to me, the fact that our church got bombed.
You know, I think initially I was a little surprised, but you know, kind of thinking
about it further, it really shouldn't be, you know, when all the apostles were thrown
in prison and worse, and you know, I guess, you know, all the will of God and Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
So it really shouldn't come as a shock.
And it's foolish to think that, well, you know, everything's going to be hunky dory.
The more we do for God, you know, nothing's going to happen.
Everything's going to be a bed of roses.
We're not going to have enemies.
We should just be loved by our community and loved by Los Angeles and loved by California.
That's not realistic.
Why?
Because California is a wicked state.
California, you said, why are you there?
Because this is where I was born and raised, amen.
And we're to be a light in darkness.
We're to preach the word of God in a dark place.
We should shine forth as lights in a crooked and perverse nation and state.
You know, obviously we're in a wicked state that's called California.
We're living over here next to Sodom and Gomorrah, which is Hollywood.
We have everything going against us when it comes to the laws and the culture and all
these things.
This is considered a liberal state, but you know what?
We still have an independent fundamental Baptist church here who still preaches the truth.
And you know what?
God will continue to open doors for us, but we just can't be ignorant and not realistic
and thinking, well, no opposition is going to come about that.
You can expect to become more godly or increase in your righteousness and not have opposition.
I think a pastor's response to the whole situation with the bombing, it eased at least my mind,
you know, and my wife's because there was strong leadership.
So it wasn't like, you know, the leadership doesn't know what to do.
It seemed like the leadership knew very well what to do and how to handle the situation.
You know, first towards the LGBTQ community and says he doesn't care that some want him
to stop.
We're going to sign all these petitions and get all the signatures, try to get the mayor
to come to you and throw you out.
Then what?
You think I'm gonna stop preaching after that?
I think he handled it like a boss.
They are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath.
It worries me that we have been living here our whole lives and that there are people
who agree with this rhetoric and we're potentially targets to like hate crimes.
But Pastor Mejia doesn't care what they think.
I'm not afraid of these freaks.
I think he set a tone for the church to just display courage.
I'm still not apologizing.
We're getting you guys out of here.
Okay.
You're still filthy.
He kept his composure and made everyone feel safe.
For the pastor, he says the violence won't stop him from preaching what he believes.
I'm more fearful of disobeying God and preaching his word than any individual in this world.
I'm willing to lose everything to preach God's word.
Hail Satan.
666.
Praise the dark lord.
Yes, I'm not mad at you.
I knew also immediately that this would strengthen our church and this would strengthen the resolve
of our objective.
I never sensed anything lacking in terms of security.
All the men really even stepped up and just following Pastor's example.
At the end of the day, when we all go to heaven, this is going to be like cake.
It's like, man, I should have done more.
I should have been persecuted more, right?
It's now that we need to put in the word to do something great for God.