The Lord really spoke to us

San Diego Reader: What is your favorite subject on which to preach?

Pastor Carolyn Nichols: Building strong families. That subject encompasses everything that the Body of Christ was meant to be. We have a great youth team and the leaders of our youth team both graduated from our high school and later became our youth pastors. We raised our own crop and have the same philosophy — the stronger our families are, the stronger our church will be.

SDR: What is your main concern as a member of the clergy?

PN: The undermining of the family in our society. That’s huge. I’m an educator. So, I see it happening in our public schools. I think there are many things they teach which are not biblical truths and do not strengthen families. They’re being forced to teach that having two mommies and two daddies is an okay thing. They begin that very early — as early as kindergarten — and that breaks my heart. We know better than that as a nation, and I’m just so sorry we’ve stooped to that level. My prayer is, “God have mercy on us, if we become like Sodom and Gomorrah and get what they got.”

SDR: What is the mission of your church?

PN: We feel God has placed us strategically as a lighthouse in this dark corner of the city. We’re located across the street from the civic center, and city hall is just down the street. So, it’s a central location, and the church itself sits on a bit of a rise in the street. We were seeing these people going by, and the Lord really spoke to us: “What are you doing to reach these people?” As a result, many have come to know Jesus and are part of our congregation.

SDR: Where is the strangest place you’ve found God?

PN: Years ago, we were asked to work in juvenile hall, and a member of our church had a small band. He’d been invited to do the Christmas program there for the kids for entertainment. At the close of that service, he asked if I would speak a few words and close in prayer. I was not prepared for the shock of looking into their faces…. All those girls won our hearts in this horrible place where you go through lock after lock and hear the sound of those doors closing behind you. It was amazing to me that the presence of God knows no limits — He goes through prison walls and doors and finds hungry people and hurting hearts wherever they are.

SDR: Where do you go when you die?

PN: When Jesus comes back, my body and spirit will be rejoined, I will be given a new body, and the dead in Christ shall arise first. For those whose names are recorded in the lamb’s book of life, by receiving Jesus and believing he is the Lord of their lives, the savior of their souls, and to the best ability with his help to love and serve him; those will be caught up. The alternative, of course, is that those whose names are not in that book will go to everlasting punishment in hell. So, if heaven is real, hell has to be real, too.