news story / By Heidi Walters

Big Church

After hugging everyone goodbye at the end, Pastor Mike and Lisa Cho sat in his book-lined office, the shelves peppered with surfing slogans like “Pray for Surf.” Cho is the director of the children’s ministry — which at the moment is offering something called “Space Camp” at 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. “We don’t have astronauts,” Cho said. It’s just a theme. The kids may walk around in space boots one day, and throw tomatoes at a picture of Satan the next.

“We use any object lessons,” said Pastor Mike, “that will teach the spiritual truth.”

Hydesville Community Church is so big it has even attracted its own gadfly. Kirk Cesaretti started a website devoted to excoriating what he claims is a constant harping by the church leaders that attendees either pay 10 percent of their income to the church — the tithe — or be in Sin. “Sin is separation from God,” says Cesaretti. And he thinks that’s unduly harsh punishment for not tithing. “And then came the “Surf the Nations,” said Cesaretti. That was a mission trip that head Pastor Delamarian, his wife and kids and some others took to Indonesia. Cesaretti accused them of misappropriating funds for the trip; Delamarian says it was, in fact, a real mission trip: “Surfing was just a tool” for them to spread their message, and Bibles, in a predominantly Muslim country. Cesaretti eventually left the church, but his kids still go.

Cho credits Pastor Mike for the church’s popularity. “He’s a great preacher, and he has a great message.” Many choose to go to the 6:30 p.m. service, where they can sit at bistro tables and sip espresso drinks while the pastor preaches. Cho said 80 seniors come to the senior lunches. But most of all, it’s the youth programs that people like about the HCC. The kids get to go on foreign missions; there’s a family camp; there’s intergenerational “mentoring.” Three years ago, the church even started the Christian Outdoorsmen group and has held a dinner every year — 400 men and boys attended the last one — where kids can win guns and other hunting gear.

Anything to reach the people, said Pastor Mike, an abalone fisherman himself. He said he read a study once that said the Pacific Northwest is “the most unchurched area in all of America.” And, by his own estimate, Humboldt County is likely 80 percent “unchurched.” He blames a certain fierce independence that comes with the territory. “But at some point you need people.”

Hydesville Community Church began in 1879 as a nondenominational church. In 1963, a new pastor changed it to “Evangelical Free,” after the denomination that originated in Sweden by people who were tired of state-run churches.

Last Sunday evening, Al Clark, from Eureka — who plays piano in the church band — was taking a break outside. He and his wife used to go to a church in Eureka. But, he said, “At the other church, there was a choir, and the members of the choir would stand up and I’d accompany them.” Then they switched to Hydesville. “This church has a full-on band. I feel more alive here. And there are a lot of down-home people here.”

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