Grace in the Streets (AGM 1.0)
By Carlos H. Rodriguez
They called me a cholo, a vato. I wore those labels, and worse, as badges of honor. They represented the dream of family and belonging, until the nightmare nearly killed me as it had too many others.
I grew up in central California in the Santa Maria valley, the second of five children. My mom had migrated from Mexico, and I never met my biological father. My alcoholic step-dad regularly abused us mentally and physically. Drugs and gang violence overran my neighborhood, and I was recruited to join my first gang at the age of ten. The fellas provided an escape from the mess in my home, and a sense of the family I so desperately desired.
Before starting high school, I was an alcoholic like my step-dad and owned several guns. My deepest friendships involved other gangbangers and revolved around older guys schooling us. I embraced violence and drugs as normal, everyday life. By nineteen, I had survived many gun battles and a stabbing, and was facing five years in prison for a gang related shooting. As a seasoned drug dealer, I recruited young boys to join our gang, as others had recruited me. I avoided the sentence I deserved, but spent two months in jail with a five-year prison term hanging over my head if I screwed up.
After escaping death twice more, three months before my 21st birthday, I was done running. A “voice” in my head told me I could escape the life, so I went to church and met Jesus. Shortly after, the Jesus that found me asked me to give away all I owned and follow Him, so I moved to Fort Worth, Texas. There I heard about a crazy New York City street preacher assembling a gang-like army of evangelists to rescue kids like I had been from the streets. Mesmerized, I flew to New York in 1985 for Abounding Grace Ministries’ very first Jesus Loves You New York outreach. I knew I was where I belonged. Once again Jesus asked me to give away everything I owned and follow Him, this time to New York City.
Pastor Rick and Arlene accepted me as a son, despite my rawness and rage. Turns out I was the first of a dozen or so kids they would “adopt” as their own over the next twenty years. They took me in; showed me how to live; and most of all, started me on a path to wholeness. I became Rick’s assistant. He taught me a trade, how to run a ministry and a business, and how to lead like a servant. Arlene wasn’t afraid to get in my face. She was raising generals and, whether I liked it or not, as an adopted son, I had enlisted.
In 1988, Rick officiated my wedding to Laura Dursey, and the next year we moved to Brooklyn to be closer to the ministry. In July 1992, during a prayer meeting in my home, Rick envisioned a ministry center where we could follow up on those we helped to lead to the Lord. This was the humble beginning of Abounding Grace Christian Center. Pastor Rick and Arlene ordained me in 1995, and commissioned my family to return to Southern California as missionaries to cholos and vatos like I had been.
In 2007, I moved to Maryland with my beautiful wife and our two sons Caleb and Jonathan. I’ve worked for fifteen years as a construction project manager for ISEC, Inc., and have held positions of Assistant Pastor, Senior Pastor, and currently Administrative Pastor at Cornerstone Fellowship Church.
Facing the Future
Like Rick and Arlene, my wife and I see our primary roles to equip generals at home and work who courageously live as lights in a dark world and infect everyone they meet with the love of Jesus. I hope to be remembered as a man who loved Jesus more than his own life and followed Him wherever He led. As Abounding Grace envisions its next thirty years, I see a growing beacon lighting the way to Jesus and empowering disciples for the work of the ministry.
