The Church @ The Neighborhood Center
1929 W Fillmore St, Phoenix, AZ  85009

Services:  Sunday 10am - Noon
Bilingual:  English/Spanish  

Thoughtful observers of the American evangelical church have rightfully criticized some congregations for looking too much like fast-food restaurants. Customers show up to worship services and order God like a commodity, insisting that the spiritual meal served be tailored to their individual preferences—‘a side of extra emotion and hold the guilt, please.’ For Billy Thrall, copastor of The Church at The Neighborhood Center, the church does resemble a fast food joint—but not in the way the critics mean.

Several years ago, Billy showed up at the new NM property on Van Buren to meet with Kit. As she was running late, he decided to wait across the street at a local burger place, Jack in the Box. “I walked in there and looked around and thought, ‘This is the grossest Jack in the Box ever,’” Billy recalls. “I mean, it was smelly. There were homeless people out front and inside. And yet there were also government workers from the state capital just down the street. It was just this really weird, kind of smelly blend of people.”

Billy waited in line to order coffee, annoyed at the surroundings and wishing he wasn’t there. “And I have no way to explain it, but just then I felt the Lord say to me, ‘Umm, Billy? This is how I want My church to look.’”

“I started to tear up there because I looked around with different eyes,” he says. “I realized, if you’re going to really do church in the city, it’s going to look a lot like that Jack in the Box did that day.”

The Church at The Neighborhood Center is messy—and that is perhaps one of its greatest strengths. “We’re in mission,” Billy emphasizes. “So the fruit of that mission is going to be around us. That’s hard for some people. It’s uncomfortable if you expect church to be a place that is nice and safe. I think if we’re doing a good job, then people are going to be talking about their messiness.”

“For us, grace is more than a theological concept,” Billy explains. “It’s a lifestyle. It’s a community.”

This church body sports Anglos and Hispanics, African-Americans and Native Americans, the young and the old. When ODF sold its property on McDowell and moved to the suburbs, Billy began helping out with worship at Nueva Esperanza. Like others there, he desired to find a way to blend an English and Spanish worship service, one that would be comfortable to the many kids and teens growing up in NM’s programs. In October of 2000 several ministry and Nueva Esperanza leaders gathered together for a retreat in Prescott. “It was a really critical shaping time for us—especially for me,” Billy remembers. “It forced me to put down on paper why we were there, what our core values would be.”

After this watershed retreat, a joint English and Spanish service was begun. “Jorge Macias and I would come in on Saturdays and hose out the warehouse on the new property, sweep up, and set out chairs. On Sunday mornings around 9:00, the Spanish church would meet while the English speakers gathered in a side room with a tiny air conditioner for Bible study. After a while, the two groups would swap places. Afterwards, we’d gather together for a huge potluck.” The warehouse was freezing in the winter—Kit remembers raiding the Food Bank for jackets and blankets. In summer, the place was excruciatingly hot. Although the congregation’s next location was, well… unorthodox…no one complained.

“When construction started on the property, we couldn’t meet in the warehouse anymore,” Billy explains. “I stopped for lunch one day in the neighborhood at a little sandwich shop that was next door to a boxing gym. Turns out the deli owner owned the gym too. I asked him if he’d rent it out to us on Sunday mornings—and he said yes!”

“Jorge and I would get there really early Sunday morning and push the boxing ring to the side, set up portable chairs, and clean up all the stinky towels as best we could,” Billy chuckles. The church met there for nearly a year.

Though English and Spanish groups were now joined, Jorge and Billy sought an even deeper level of integration. Today, at the church, the two literally co-preach each Sunday. They study a text together, wrestle through it, then decide what God would have them say to the whole congregation. Jorge speaks for several minutes (without English translation), then Billy follows (without Spanish translation). It is a unique arrangement to say the least. Though the congregants are separated by language, Jorge and Billy try to speak with one voice. “Is it messy?” Billy asks. “You bet. But what church leadership isn’t messy? I’d rather work on this kind of messy than any other messy. I can’t imagine my life without Jorge.”

This story is an excerpt from The Relentless Pursuit by Amy Sherman.