Interview with Jeff Cox

By Brad Dupray

The city of Bell, California, has experienced significant demographic change over the past three decades, transitioning from the post-World War II baby boom of middle-class Anglo families to being a city primarily comprised of Hispanic immigrants. As a means of connecting to its culture, Southland Christian Church conducts Las Posadas, a celebration of Mary and Joseph”s search for a place to stay in Bethlehem. This observance resonates within the Hispanic culture and has served as a means of evangelizing Southland”s community. Jeff Cox came to Christ at Southland as a teen, was hired as youth pastor in 1988, and has served as senior pastor since the retirement of Joe Mize in 2004.

Describe Las Posadas.

First of all, in Mexico, Las Posadas means “the inns” or “the shelters.” It is a religious and social celebration that takes place for nine nights””December 16 to 24. Essentially it commemorates Joseph and Mary”s journey to Bethlehem and their search for shelter prior to the birth of Christ. It”s a reenactment of the difficult journey. They do a lot of elaborate preparations for this.

How does Southland commemorate Las Posadas?

We don”t try to copy it “to the tee”; it can look really Catholic. And we only do it for one night. We approach it from an evangelical point of view. It”s culturally identifiable by our neighbors. We get a pony (mules and donkeys can be uncooperative!) and we”ll get a couple of people from the church to play Mary and Joseph. We get a permit from the city, put Mary on a pony, and we go a few blocks around the church, down the middle of the side streets. We have a sound vehicle playing English and Spanish Christmas carols. Even cities like Bell that are 90 percent-plus Hispanic aren”t exclusively Spanish speaking. You have people who are second generation who grew up here and they are totally English speaking. Even some first-generation folks primarily speak English.

Do you just show up in the neighborhood, or is there some advance notice of the event?

It”s a little of both. We invite the neighbors in advance by placing flyers on their doors. We have an introduction in the church sanctuary. As we walk along, people come out of their houses and we have an evangelism team that gives out candy canes and Christmas tracts in Spanish and English. We invite people to come back to the church where we have a living nativity.

How do you draw people from their homes to join the procession?

We have candles, or luminaries, and as the people leave the sanctuary we follow the sound vehicles with Christmas carols playing. Mary and Joseph are in their garb and the people follow in large crowds with candles singing “Silent Night,” in Spanish. So we have neighbors who show up to walk along and we have neighbors who say, “What”s going on?”

How does the procession conclude?

Mary and Joseph walk in with music along a pathway to the courtyard at the church, where we have the crèche. We”ll have wise men and a shepherd or two, and along with the pony we”ll have a couple of sheep and goats. We typically close with the gospel story. After that, we have piñatas and tamales (a Christmas staple here) and orchata, a sweet rice drink.

It”s totally an evangelistic event wrapped in a celebration.

What was the inspiration behind Las Posadas for Southland? Was it simply a means of connecting to the culture?

I think so. Pastor Joe Mize”s wife, Shirley, taught Spanish at Downey High School. In teaching a language class you”re always looking at the culture of the language and that was the genesis of it. She saw how that could apply to the church. Joe and Shirley”s son, Dave, is an elder and he has led Las Posadas for a long time.

Is this a direct connect to the heavy Catholic influence of your community?

I would say so. Clearly the Hispanic culture is going to be predominately Catholic. However, there is a growing Evangelical Pentecostal influence.

How many people does it take to put on Las Posadas?

We”ve got a core of about 20 to 25 people, which includes task group leaders and their teams. We have task groups for the march, the site, the sound, etc. We don”t do Las Posadas every year. We”re doing something this year called Christmas Traditions. We”ve done Los Posadas a lot of times, and this doesn”t mean we won”t do it again. We”ll always have an evangelistic purpose for what we do.

Have you seen results from this evangelism?

That”s the deceiving thing on this. A lot of times you have an evangelistic event you ask, “How many people have come forward?” There are some evangelistic events that lend themselves to that. I think there”s something to be said for the evangelistic event that you can”t really quantify. We look at this and say this really opens a door for people.

It”s a bridge to your community.

It helps convince people, I may be Catholic by birth or family origin, but this church next door to me, I can relate to this place and this place can relate to me. This has clearly been a stepping stone to some relationships. I think it is a process, but getting saved is a process. There”s plowing, cultivating, planting, and growth. You can”t have growth without God”s favor. God has to do that mysterious thing that happens while the farmer is sleeping. God is the one that makes it grow. Evangelism is a process. So you take a Las Posadas and you say, “Where is it in the process?” It could fit into any one of those. It might be the first time those kids who stand with their candy canes or their gospel tract heard the story of God coming down as a baby. That”s nascent work, it”s embryonic, it”s the first plowing, the first planting.

It has made us a friend to our neighbors. They may never go to our church, but they know us. And in many ways we know them. That”s a cool thing. If you go back 30 years, to when churches in the southeast cities of Los Angeles were in a changing culture, that didn”t happen as it should have. The people came and the people went home. They became foreign on their own terrain. With something like this you”re taking the church outside of its walls. We need to be better at that. We need to be more outside than inside. This puts you in the community and breaks down barriers.

Brad Dupray is interim president of Church Development Fund, Irvine, California.