Holmberg: New leader at former ROC church looks to make healing mission real
The Richmond Times-Dispatch/December 18, 2015
By Bob Rhoden
As legions of “Star Wars” fans jammed Richmond theaters for the 7 p.m. premiere of “The Force Awakens” on Thursday evening, a comparatively tiny force of 100 or so souls settled into their seats inside the vast space at 5501 Midlothian Turnpike.
They sang “Joy to The World” and “Silent Night.”
Then their 73-year-old leader — sort of a much-more-mild-mannered Han Solo — stood up to engage them in one of his softly delivered fireside-like chats about their collective health before the night’s Bible lesson about wise women.
“I like to talk for a few moments about where we are,” he told me a few weeks earlier when we met for lunch. “Encourage them that they have a future.”
This is the rather famous pastor Bob Rhoden, a gentle soul you naturally want to call Father Bob, even though he’s not a priest.
Some call him “the fixer,” and he’s here to help steer what was once one of the most powerful spiritual ships in the galaxy away from what appeared to be certain devastation.
Just a few years ago, this same building on Thursday and Saturday nights would make a “Star Wars” opening seem like Sunday school. Thousands would be singing and dancing and shouting praises. The stands in the college gymnasium-sized hall practically swayed as the force awakened.
Back then, it was the ROC — the Richmond Outreach Center — and it was definitely a rockin’ place praised by both Richmond’s mayor and the governor for transforming the area’s lost, beaten and hopeless.
Every week, the ROC’s vast fleet of buses would bring in hundreds of kids from the projects for physical and spiritual nourishment. Its schools and rehab centers reached the unreachable, who in turn reached out to others. Bodies were rebuilt in the gym and dance hall; minds were filled with tutoring and job training. Its giving and sharing ministries testified boldly about faith in action.
You may not have known all of this, although you likely know someone who was touched by this force. But surely you know the rest of it.
The ROC’s charismatic leader, former gangbanger Geronimo Aguilar, was proved to have long been preying on underaged girls, and is believed to have been involved with other females in his churches. “Pastor G” was forced out of the ROC 2½ years ago and was convicted in June of sexually assaulting two girls in Texas. He’s now serving 40 years in prison. Those victims were 11 and 13 at the time.
But among his other victims is this vast, 121,000-square-foot church at 5501 Midlothian Turnpike.
“When churches are built around the charisma of the leader, it’s OK as long as he’s healthy,” Rhoden told me. All too often though, he added, “it spins out somewhere.”
And it had certainly spun out.
Attendance plummeted as one and then another temporary pastor came and went. The long-suspected cracks in the military-like leadership structure Pastor G had ruled widened without him.
Then, a year ago, the church board called on the fixer — Bob Rhoden.
It’s an unlikely story, the kind you can find in the Bible. Here’s a man raised without a father, by his grandmother. He was 2 when both of his parents were killed by a drunk driver.
He’s a guy with a prayer, “God help me to learn how to be a father,” and a simple mission statement: “Your potential is my mission.”
Rhoden came to Richmond and started the West End Assembly of God in 1969. It grew during his 22 years there, mothering five other churches in the region and more than a dozen overseas.
He was elected the Assembly of God district superintendent, sort of a pastor to pastors, and later began his city-hopping tenure as a fixer of churches whose pastors were dying or suffering other upheaval. He and his wife roamed across the land.
The invitation to steer this charismatic megachurch was a little out of his wheelhouse, he admits.
“None of us is Geronimo,” he told me. “Wisdom, distilled intelligence. I think that’s what it needs for this season. They’re looking for a father image ... someone they can trust.”
It is now called Celebration Church and Outreach Ministry. Three of its other large and valuable properties were sold to balance the books. The bus fleet has been upgraded and continues to roll into Richmond’s toughest neighborhoods. The steady downward slide in attendance has leveled off.
Rhoden believes the ministry’s long and strong connection with the inner city can help it become a sort of clearinghouse for those who truly want to make a difference there.
“This place has the potential to be a connecting place for churches seeking an urban experience,” said Rhoden, the author of the well-regarded book, “The Four Faces of a Leader.” (It’s a book our presidential candidates would do well to read.)
The plan behind sustainable, healthy growth is to be “pastor-led, board-served, congregation-approved,” Rhoden said. “The pastoral teams are in place. ... It’s going to be a great turnaround story.”
Is it possible? This gentle soul is known for it.
Friends, I know some of the souls who were healed by this body. I know the work they did was real, even if they were led by a sociopath.
I also know, as many of you do, the hurt and loss that came with the fall. But some of the longtime stalwarts remain. And the mission is real. Anyone who watches Richmond’s crime, education and poverty picture knows of the need.
“We have some traction now,” Rhoden said. “We want to turn that into momentum. If you do the natural, God will do the supernatural.”
What an epic journey.
May the force be with them.
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