Deep Ellum, a five-block area of
downtown Dallas, is filled with tattoo parlors, witchcraft stores, bars
and nightclubs. Now it also has an Assemblies of God church, Resurrection
Center.
Reaching the community:
Tony and Hanah Fundaro strive to be relevant in Deep Ellum.
This isn’t the safest neighborhood.
A van parked around the corner from the church has a message painted
on the exterior: "There’s nothing inside worth stealing."
Crack addicts regularly break into vehicles and homes looking for money
and valuables.
"Every pursuit of pleasure
is crammed into these five blocks," says Tony Fundaro, 24-year-old
Resurrection Center pastor. "The idea of God is a great obstacle
to their self gratification. It’s a difficult mission field."
But there’s no place Fundaro
would rather be. He had been raised in a godly home, but rebelled at
age 14 and began a four-year plunge into drug addiction, thievery and
eventually drug dealing. His desperate parents convinced him to enroll
in Teen Challenge in Oklahoma City, where he experienced a dramatic
salvation and repented.
After graduating from Teen Challenge
he headed to Southwestern Assemblies of God University. Under the mentorship
of Trinity Church of Cedar Hill (A/G), he and a handful of students
began evangelizing in Deep Ellum, with Fundaro holding a Bible study
in his apartment. When the Bible study outgrew the apartment, Fundaro
turned to a Muslim friend who owned a tavern. Because the bar didn’t
operate on Sundays, the owner allowed Fundaro to use it for free for
church services. Fundaro picked up cigarette butts, mopped up vomit
and took down the Budweiser sign from the stage before services there
for six months. In a further effort to reach people where they live,
the fledgling church began holding services at a drug paraphernalia
shop.
Meanwhile, Fundaro graduated from
Southwestern in May 2000 after marrying Hanah, who leads praise and
worship at the church. Sensing the need to find a more stable and permanent
location, Resurrection Center this May secured the long-term lease of
a 7,000-square-foot warehouse. Rick West, a commercial structures and
interior designer and a deacon in a local Baptist church, has donated
$300,000 worth of needed renovations.
Initially, mostly Southwestern students
attended the church. Now, however, 75 residents of the Deep Ellum community
attend, including Douglas Cartmel. The 30-year-old architect decided
to start attending as the result of being approached by church members
who conduct weekly street evangelism.
"I had gone into the world
for a few years and got lost," Cartmel says. "Resurrection
Center has been a total blessing. I understand now that it’s difficult
to make the right choices unless you have biblically based church people
encouraging you. If not for their encouragement I would have fallen
apart."
In addition to street witnessing,
church members conduct door-to-door evangelism; art, music and drama
presentations; and group dinners where friends are invited to hear testimonies
of salvation.
"If we’re going to reach
the younger generation we have to go to where they are," Fundaro
says. "We need to embrace this harvest or it’s going to pass
us by."
The church also is leasing a nearby
coffee shop, the only place in the neighborhood where teen-agers can
legally gather. The for-profit business will be a hangout for runaways,
known as squatters.
Resurrection Center became an official
home missions church in June. Morris Ivey, assistant superintendent
of the North Texas District, is enthused and supportive of Fundaro’s
efforts.
"We’re commissioned to
reach the lost wherever they are," Ivey says. "We want to
reach everyone with the gospel."
