Eternal life with God

Pomerado Christian Church

• Contact: 12708 Stone Canyon Rd, Poway 858-487-7312 www.pomerado.com
• Membership: 100 (Attendance: 150)
• Pastor:  J.P. Charfauros
• Age: 34
• Born: Santa Clara
• Formation: Azusa Pacific University
• Years Ordained: 1 (12 years pastoral experience)

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

Pastor J.P. Charfauros: The power of God to change lives. God can take the darkest moments or situations in our lives, bring a light to them, and in that way helps us to be a light to other people. For example, I was depressed and suicidal in junior high through high school, and I would never wish that on anyone, but through it, God called me into a new life, and to share that story and help other students… In the same way that he took the darkness in my life to help me be a light to other people, he takes the darkest day of history, Good Friday, and makes it the brightest and most incredible moment of all history on Resurrection Sunday – Easter.

SDR: What is the mission of your church?

PC: We’re here to help people far from God come near to God, to have eternal life with God. As John 17:3 talks about, its not just when we die, but knowing God the Father through the Son whom he sent in Jesus. In our mission, we want others plugged into the people and purpose of the church. We recognize that we are not perfect people, but people changed by God to make a change in the world. We are also called to be witnesses to who God is, what He’s done, and how He loves. Plugged in. Changed by. Called to. PCC. That’s our initials, which helps us remember our mission.

SDR: Where’s the strangest place you found God?

PC: I found God working in the Mother Teresa homes in Calcutta about 13 years ago. It’s tough finding God when you’re ministering to someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you do and can’t understand everything you’re saying. Sometimes all you can do is provide care – such as massaging the arms of a man who was among the untouchables, the lowest caste of the Hindu system. That’s what made Mother Teresa so amazing – she brought care and love to the poorest of the poor and lowest of the low. She provided a home for the dying and had that hands-and-feet-of-Jesus experience of caring for people in those moments when love is beyond words, the same love Jesus expressed to us by washing our feet after the Last Supper. By getting outside our comfort zone, we too can become the hands and feet of Jesus.

SDR: Where do you go when you die?

PC: If we believe with our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, then we have eternal fellowship and relationship with him in heaven. If we reject or push against that belief, there is hell and punishment and unfortunately, as Paul says in Philippians 3, we should all recognize that hell is real but we should do so with tears. It breaks our hearts that people don’t know Jesus. So faith is not a matter of fire and brimstone, but rather if you care enough about someone, you want to share the reality and truth with them. And so Jesus is the way – the only way – the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. We’re not a fire-and-brimstone church, though; we’re a speaking-truth-in-love church.