A Sliver of a Storefront, a Faith on the Rise

The New York Times ^ | January 14, 2007 | DAVID GONZALEZ

[Mrs. Don-o]

“This could be a church,” he muttered. “Lord, that is the place.”

Mr. Florian, a factory worker by day and a pastor by night, was desperate to find a home for his small congregation...Now, on most nights when the neighborhood winds down to rest, the fluorescent lights inside the room flicker to life, and the spartan, whitewashed space rattles under a sonic barrage of prayers, yelps and tambourines. As a teenage band pounds out bouncy Latin rhythms, men in crisp business suits that belie their dreary day jobs triumphantly pump their fists. Women in flowing skirts shout, stomp and gyrate wildly. The air crackles.

[snip] Storefront churches like this have become part of the streetscape in New York and around the globe in recent decades.

Yet “los aleluyas,” as the Pentecostals are called by their neighbors, sometimes dismissively, remain mysterious to outsiders... Children preach like adults, and adults wail like children. Here one day, their churches may be gone the next.

This is the story of one such church: its people, its pastor, their fight to survive and the emotional, sometimes extreme religion that fires them night after night.

It is also the story of Hispanic faith in the 21st century, seen in tight focus. [snip]

Experts believe there are roughly 400 million Pentecostals worldwide, and this year, the number in the city is expected to surpass 850,000 — about one in every 10 New Yorkers, one-third of them Hispanic. Precise numbers, however, are hard to come by because there are scores of denominations and no central governing body...about 80 percent of all Pentecostals belong to small or independent congregations. They have aggressively courted the poor, and imparted a work ethic that is nudging their members into the middle class and beyond.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This is a long and fascinating portrait, fair and sympathetic (in the NYTIMES??) of the kind of Christianity which is the fast-growing future of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and New York City, where --- as the aticle states --- one out of every ten New Yorkers is Pentecosal.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Pentecostals: many converts from Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical. But mostly, they recruit by "bringing the Good News to the poor."

Ping.

[Earthdweller]

Well DAVID GONZALEZ, I see you have entered the great Satan's domain.

Best wishes.

[The Mayor]

Same thing goes on here in Buffalo. One day they are gone but they try.

[100-Fold_Return]

Praise the Lord! Satan can't stop the Word! [NYSLIMES???!, oh well??]