The crowd of families that packs Faith Community Church’s patio and backyard area each year for Festividad for Christ gathers mostly on the strength of word of mouth.
The Newhall church has seen an average of 500 attendees – and up to around 1,000 at its record-breaker – since its first Festividad event in 2005, said Senior Pastor Steve Jackson, the same year Jackson became a pastor there.
“There’s no RSVP, you just make the invitation broadly,” Jackson said. “Sometimes, 300 or 400 show up, sometimes 500, sometimes 800, you just never know. So we try to prepare, and you know, be ready for whoever shows up.”
It was clear during Saturday’s festival how it’d been honed over the past two decades: Families were offered free gifts for their kids (for boys and girls by age cohort), their pick of secondhand clothes from a clothing drive behind the church, and a free chicken-and-sides lunch.
Each operation – along with stations for chess games, cotton candy, popcorn, face painting and free shampoo – was seamless, and in fact, according to Miguel Bocanegra, the associate assistant pastor for Spanish ministry, they could’ve taken hundreds more.
“I think it’s not one of the best or the highest numbers that we have, but every time we do this … there are many in the community that are getting to know our church for the first time,” Bocanegra said. “They live only a couple miles from here, a mile from here, some across the street, so that’s a great experience, to see people here that we can offer a little bit of what we receive and to give to them.”
Bocanegra said that within a 5-mile radius around Faith Community, the church’s focus area for ministry, there are congregation members from around 12 different Latin American countries.
Festividad is one of the church’s most significant events oriented to its Spanish-speaking congregation, and is marginally older than the church’s Spanish services.
“Probably pretty shortly thereafter I became pastor, we invested in … (making) sure that we had a Spanish pastor as well,” Jackson said. “If we’re going to minister this neighborhood, we can’t just be English, so we’ve made that investment.”
Many of the teens involved in Faith Community have grown up with its English services – but for some, the Spanish services have allowed them to be of service to community members who they may never have met.
Jeremiah Martinez, an 18-year-old Faith Community Church member, was stationed inside the petting zoo in the church’s backyard to oversee the animals (and the kids unsuccessfully trying to pick them up).
The zoo has possibly been the festival’s greatest achievement, back through contractor Zoo Mobile for its second year. This year’s combination of zoo animals – a duck, a goat, bunnies, fluffy chickens, guinea pigs and a pot-bellied piglet named Wilbur – had serious star power for the toddlers and young kids in attendance.
Martinez, whose parents immigrated from El Salvador, has been volunteering with the church for around five years.
“A lot of the kids grew up in the English ministry of this church. I’m one of the few that was able to grow up in both the Spanish ministry,” Martinez said. “But I do think that being able to speak both languages really helps out a lot, being able to reach out to as many people as possible. I’ve witnessed so many times where there’s just a big … language barrier.”
The kids in the pen trusted Martinez’s animal wisdom: He was a careful handler for Wilbur, holding her out for them to approach.
Being approachable can be an extremely powerful posture. At Festividad, it’s helped hundreds.
“(Not everyone) … has to believe what we believe,” Martinez said. “But honestly, anyone who even comes in, gets their clothes that we’re donating, anything, we really love helping everyone.”
