Surge in Church Attendance Reported Around L.A., Operation Blessing Creates Citywide Support Hub

LOS ANGELES – Smoke plumes are still rising around L.A. as the reignited Hughes Fires has burned through more than 10,000 acres, forcing the evacuation of more than 50,000 residents. The threat is far from over here despite all the hard work to battle the blaze.

As exhausted firefighters are making progress against this wildfire, CBN's Operation Blessing is setting up to provide long-term assistance amid the ongoing disaster.

"This has been the worst fire that I have ever experienced in my career and the worst fire in the history of the L.A. County Fire Department," said L.A. Fire Capt. Pat Richardson.

Operation Blessing has been here for two weeks now, feeding families, delivering supplies, packing cleanup kits, and supporting firefighters.

"There's just so much devastation all around that we are just trying to come alongside and help in any way we can," said Steffany Horton of Operation Blessing.

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That includes bringing in partners like Bel Air Church to take next steps in disaster relief. Pastor Drew Sams is the senior pastor.

"People have lost schools, people have lost churches. I know one church in the area, the sanctuary burned down, and over 50 homes in the congregation were lost," said Bel Air Church Pastor Sams.

A large parking lot across the street from Bel Air Church is often used by Hollywood film crews as a staging area when they're shooting movies in the Santa Monica Mountains. But now, it's going to be used by Operation Blessing as a citywide distribution center.

"That's going to be our main base of operations, and from there, we will be doing distributions in these hard-hit areas," said Hayley Henson of Operation Blessing.

Surge in Church Attendance

Pastor Sams says he's seen a surge in church attendance since the wildfires began. He calls it "revival through disaster."

"What I've seen is people who come for Christmas or Easter are now coming every week," said Pastor Drew Sams.

Pastor Steve Wilburn, also an L.A. police chaplain, is seeing the same thing.

"We're seeing people coming to the church and we're seeing the hurting people. It's been said in times past that if you speak to hurting people, you're never going to run out of people to speak to. But we're seeing people making commitments to Christ, is what we're seeing," said Pastor Wilburn of Core Church L.A.

Steve calls these wildfires "the great leveler," testing families of all backgrounds and statuses. Operation Blessing plans to be here to help them as long as it takes.

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