On Sunday, Jan. 5, the Rev. Paul Tellström announced his retirement from the pulpit at Altadena Community Church.
The 69-year-old pastor is in the throes of Parkinson’s disease. He is getting slower. His physical strength is fading.
Two days after Tellström announced he would soon be leaving — starting a transition that, no matter how expected, is difficult for any congregation — the church burned to the ground.
The Eaton fire reduced the 78-year-old Spanish Colonial Revival sanctuary to ash. And it took the homes of at least 15 members of the small, aging United Church of Christ congregation.
“I’m exhausted,” Tellström admitted Sunday, holding up his hands. The stress had worsened their shaking.
Still, he and many of his members had come to Montebello Plymouth Congregational Church, which hosted them for a joint service where many in the pews said an adage oft-repeated by people of faith when disaster strikes the place where they worship: The building is not the church. We are the church.
“Our church is always going to meet and always going to be together until it becomes impossible to do that. A fire’s not going to stop that,” said Tellström’s husband, Carl Whidden.
Among the more than 10,000 structures damaged or destroyed in the deadly and still-raging Eaton and Palisades fires are at least a dozen religious institutions, including several Christian churches, a synagogue and a mosque.
Altadena Community Church — founded in 1940, with its sanctuary built seven years later — stood near Altadena Drive and Lake Avenue, with the San Gabriel Mountains visible just beyond its red-tile roof and stately bell tower.
In 1986, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, the church declared itself “open and affirming,” meaning people of all sexual orientations were welcome in its pews. Pride flags often hung in the sanctuary.
The congregation, like so many, has shrunk over the years. There are about 60 members, many of them older.
On Tuesday, Tellström and Whidden were at their home in Pasadena, one mile from the church, when the Eaton fire started.
One of Tellström’s cousins who lives on the Westside called, asking if he could go to their house to escape the Palisades fire. He could, the couple said. But he would have to join them as they evacuated.
Whidden, 71, said they watched on TV as the church burned.
“It was a reality that was filled with horror,” he said. “My mind’s taking in that it’s our church on fire. But emotionally, it takes a while to catch up.
“We have — we had — a large, circular, beautiful stained-glass window inside the church, and the flames were licking out of that large window, just flying out. The violence — I’ve never seen such violent flames.”
The stained-glass window depicted Jesus.
“When you walk out, you always look up, and there he is,” Whidden said. “It’s just really hard to see that replaced with all these flames.”
Before the service at Montebello Plymouth Congregational Church on Sunday, the Rev. Mitchell Young set out a coat rack bearing dozens of pastor’s stoles — long, colorful pieces of cloth worn around the neck that, for many, represents the yoke of Christ.
Young’s wife, Nitaya, made around 500 stoles out of colorful cloth last year. All of Tellström’s stoles and robes collected over decades of ministry burned.
As they prepared for Sunday’s service, Young said, Tellström asked him: “How do you dress for your church? Do you wear robes or stoles? I may have to borrow one. I don’t have any. They all burned.”
From the rack, Tellström chose a rainbow-colored stole.
As she entered the sanctuary, Sherry Taylor, a 25-year member of the Altadena congregation, proudly showed off her T-shirt — bearing the church’s name — to fellow longtime member Michael Okamura.
“We are Altadena!” said Taylor, 74.
Then, she chuckled and said of some comforts added about two months ago: “The new pew cushions didn’t last long.”
Tellström led Communion, breaking the bread symbolizing the body of Christ, saying all were welcome to the table.
Whidden, a tenor, sang an offertory song titled “The Anchor Holds.”
The anchor holds, though the ship is battered / The anchor holds, though the sails are torn
In a brief sermon, the Rev. Rachael Pryor, conference minister for the Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ, said Altadena “was a place, maybe just a little bit more than in some other parts of this big city, where it was a little bit harder to be lonely, where people might feel like they could become part of a community.
“It’s a place where people who used to live there wished they could go back. It’s a place where people choose to retire because they want to get their tools and their gossip at the Ace Hardware store and run into neighbors while they’re out taking their dog for a walk.”
Even before Sunday, she said, members of Altadena Community Church were “struggling to discern” what the congregation’s next best steps were.
“Community is right there in the name of your church,” she said. “And in the weeks and months to come, when we are through the flames, and when the charred remains have been cleared away, those values will still be shared by the people — not the building — by the people that make Altadena a special place.”
What comes next for the church, Pryor said after the service, is unclear. She hoped people knew they did not have to decide immediately. And that they should take time to grieve what has been lost.
As worshipers filed past, Tellström gave hugs and handshakes, smiling and stoic. When Whidden walked up, his face broke into a big smile and he wrapped his arms around his husband.
“I think you did a wonderful job,” he said of Whidden’s musical solo, chuckling. “I was unprofessional and pulled out my phone to record.”
In the parking lot, Tellström said he was very tired.
He has been the pastor in Altadena for about four years. Before that, he had retired from Irvine United Congregational Church, where he was senior pastor for 13 years before stepping down after his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
“But I got better. And then the pandemic hit and I got bored and better,” he said.
The Altadena church was searching for a new leader after its pastor of two decades retired.
“I got my energy back, and I threw my hat in the ring, and I said — I actually said this during my interview — ‘You don’t want me. I’m too old and I’m no prize pig,’” he said.
Still, he got the job. He told the congregation upfront he would not be a long-timer.
“It’s been really wonderful, but I realized I was really wearing out.”
Tellström, who is set to leave in March, was pleasantly surprised to see so many of his members come to Montebello after all they’ve been through.
“They came. But they’re tired. They’re older. And we’re not growing. It’s a small church. But they are very, very faithful.”
He said the question often asked in times like these is: Where is God when terrible things happen?
“God is in the eyes of the first responders who showed up and cut a path so that we could start to attack the fire,” he said. “God is in those people who are standing on the side of the road giving out free water because they know that people need it. God is in the responders who are keeping the buildings safe around so that people have something to return to.”
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