Growing Through Multiethnicity

When Rey M. Bernardes became an Assemblies of God pastor in 1981, only five Filipino churches existed in the U.S. Now there are 89.

The growth is unsurprising given that it mirrors the rise of the Assemblies of God in the Philippines, the only Asian country with a Christian majority population. U.S. missionary couple Benjamin and Cornelia Caudle introduced the Assemblies of God in the Philippines in 1926, a century ago. Now there are 753,986 constituents in 16,219 congregations across the nation.

Numerous Filipino churches in the U.S. are led by long-term pastors. Bernardes planted The Lord’s Fellowship in Vallejo, California, in 1984. At 72, he remains senior pastor.

Like many Filipinos, Bernardes immigrated to America with his family, arriving in 1967 at the age of 13. His father, Capt. Mariano Aguirre, a World War II veteran and medical doctor who landed with U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his 1944 return to liberate the Philippines from Japanese occupation, found work at a veterans hospital in Milwaukee. Rey joined the U.S. Army out of high school. But after six years of active duty, he sensed God calling him into ministry. He graduated from the AG’s Bethany University in 1981 in Scotts Valley, California.

The Lord’s Fellowship started with prayer meetings that resulted in multiple salvations and healings. Cell groups, a nonthreatening way for people to find fellowship, became the entry point to Christianity.

Since the beginning, the church has operated a ministry to homeless individuals — the vast majority of whom aren’t Filipino. The Christian Help Center operated off site, provides shelter to 100 men, women, and children. The church also continues to hold regular food giveaways.

“Even in the 1980s, we had a lot of poverty and homelessness in the area,” Bernardes recalls. “The homeless shelter became the major ministry of the church, and because of it we have been multiethnic.”

Volunteers from a variety of congregations have helped served 3 million meals — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — over more than four decades. Christian Help Center has received Housing and Urban Development funding for construction, with local businesses and churches providing the bulk of its operating budget. The homeless shelter has helped The Lord’s Fellowship develop a good reputation in the community.

The Lord’s Fellowship, which has 100 regular attendees, has a robust missions ministry, supporting 55 AG missionaries.

Bernardes also is a past president of the Filipino-American Christian Fellowship, the fourth oldest of the two dozen ethnic/language groups in the U.S (formed in 1997) Assemblies of God. He notes that virtually all services in these churches are in English because of the vast array of dialects in the Philippines. That has helped Filipino congregations in the U.S. to attract non-Filipinos.

FULFILLING A VISION
Ernesto “Nestor” C. Arellano is the current president of the Filipino-American Christian Fellowship, whose churches are located predominantly on the West Coast. California, by far, has the highest number of Filipino-Americans, over 1.6 million. Arellano, however, is pastor of Jesus Is Lord Fellowship in Toms River, New Jersey.

Arellano, 62, planted an inner-city church in the Philippines in 1990 in Manila, the capital. His wife, Wilma, a nurse, moved to the U.S. in 1993 to help with the family finances. Many Filipinos in recent years have been recruited for careers in medical or educational fields. The relocation had been designed to be temporary, but Arellano says in a dream the Lord showed him an aerial view of clusters of people with different hair colors (unlike the uniformly dark-haired people of the Philippines). Arellano says he felt the Lord leading him to plant a church in the U.S.

Jesus Is Lord Fellowship began with eight Filipinos meeting in the living room of the Arellanos’ apartment. The group started multiplying via small groups. For 12 years, as the attendance increased, the church moved from place to place.

Early on, recently-arrived immigrants, most in the medical field, comprised the congregation. But they invited American nurses and doctors, fulfilling Arellano’s vision of a multiethnic body of believers. In fact, single Filipina nurses tended to marry American men, propelling the church in its ongoing efforts to become a multiethnic congregation.

Today, 55% of Jesus Is Lord Fellowship’s regular 220 adherents are non-Filipinos, with 17 nationalities represented in the church.

For the past 18 years, the church has been located on a 12-acre farm. Construction on a multipurpose building began in November.

Arellano’s story parallels many Filipino-Americans his age. Although born in the Philippines, he has lived most of his life in the U.S. Thus, he understands the culture and traditions from the homeland, but he talks and thinks like someone who has been part of the American fabric for decades. The younger adults in his congregation, born in the U.S., are largely unaware of the customs of their ancestors. Over 4.1 million Filipino-Americans live in the U.S., making them the third largest Asian subgroup, after Chinese and Indians.

The diversity at Jesus Is Lord Fellowship also counters the traditional male leadership found in many immigrant churches, or indeed churches overall. Jesus Is Lord Fellowship has a woman associate pastor, and five of the seven board members are female.

“In the Philippines, it is common for women to be lead pastors,” Arellano says. “I don’t understand why women have such a hard time finding the same acceptance in the United States.”