A local pastor shares on-the-ground efforts to pray for, comfort, and serve their LGBT neighbors.
For a Latino, Pentecostal megachurch just 10 minutes south of the Orlando nightclub Pulse, the scriptural call to “mourn with those who mourn” has become their heartbreaking reality in the wake of Sunday’s deadly rampage. This week, Iglesia El Calvario prepares to host funerals for victims, offer grief counseling, and conduct ongoing outreach for their city and its LGBT community.
The nearly 4,000-person Assemblies of God church prayed, gave blood, and passed out water on Sunday, while death counts climbed from 20 to 30 to 40 to 50. That evening, they heard from Governor Rick Scott and Lieutenant Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera in a citywide vigil held in their sanctuary to remember the lives lost—many of them Hispanic and gay, at the club for Saturday’s Latin night.
Gabriel Salguero, a pastor at Iglesia El Calvario and founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, joined his LGBT neighbors in relief efforts. He offered prayers in Spanish and English at an 8,000-person event hosted this week by Equality Florida, a gay advocacy group. When local reporters inevitably asked about the tension between evangelicals and the gay community, he responded, “We’re called to be Christ to everybody, and we’re called to love our neighbor, every neighbor.”
It’s not the first time Salguero has pastored a community devastated by grief. He moved to New York a few months prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks. He had only been living in Orlando for six months before this weekend’s shooting. In between vigils and community events, Salguero spoke to CT about the church’s response to the attack that has left their city overwhelmed by grief.
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