History of Church of the City
History -Beginning in Highland Park, an urban community in Los Angeles, California
by Pastor Randy Carrillo
In the early 1980’s, I participated in a group called the Highland Park Ministerial Fellowship.
Founded in 1950, it was comprised of pastors who met monthly to fellowship and update one another
on church and community business. After 15 years of pastoring elsewhere, I returned, once again to
Highland Park and attended a monthly meeting of the Fellowship. I discovered a drastic drop in
membership. The last meeting I attended in the 1980’s had about 20 members in attendance. This one
had 3 members (including myself). At that meeting, the two remaining members offered the position
of president to me. I declined saying to myself that I didn't need another meeting.
During my personal prayer time I felt the Lord speak to my heart calling me to be the president and
to use this platform to gather the churches together in unity to pray in order to make a significant
transformation in our community. So I accepted their offer and began gathering pastors for the
monthly fellowship breakfast. Participation increased to about 20-25 pastors again, and I began
to talk about getting together for united prayer for our community. We met consistently every
month and shared reports about what was happening in the community and our churches but no unity
prayer. After three years of unsuccessfully getting the churches together, I was ready to give up.
Soon after two Spanish speaking pastors, Pastor William Rodriguez and Pastor Alfredo Trejo,
approached me and said they thought that community prayer was a good idea and that they would be
willing to invite their churches to a prayer vigil. I said that it should be bilingual, and they
agreed. Numerous flyers were handed out in the community and the prayer night was scheduled for
Friday, August 5, 2005. The results were astonishing. Over four hundred people came during the
period of 10:30 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. to pray. I felt a significant shift in the community after
that night. A few months later in December, 170 members from various churches gathered to participate
in the annual Northeast Holiday Parade. Members held out numerous signs accompanied by two praise
bands (one in English and one in Spanish) in open air trucks. (The previous years I represented
the group in the parade by myself). This was more evidence of a significant shift in the landscape
of Highland Park. The following year we expanded the membership to include not just pastors but also para-churches, independent house churches, and marketplace ministries. I also learned of the many years of prayer by many faithful people over the land of Northeast Los Angeles that had preceded my return to the Highland Park area. These shifts began to enlighten us that
unity was not an end in itself but was the means in which God was using to bring spiritual transformation to our community.
In December of 2006, I reunited with an old friend and former student, Pastor Abe Lara. He shared that he was pastoring a Methodist Church on Olvera Street and had only been there for about four months. I shared with him the vision of the Church of the City and its roots in Northeast Los Angeles. He was receptive, open to collaboration and willing to help cultivate the unifying vision that was put on my heart for Los Angeles. This is just the beginning of the history He is writing on our hearts and lives. I look forward to what He has in store for us all.
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