LA's Last Street Preacher

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Watching Carlos Alvarado preach is electric—Alvarado stands in the cool night air drenched in sweat, laughing, screaming and crying. No music, no gimmicks. With only a bible in hand, this small man gathers a crowd within minutes.

On the corner of Vermont and Wilshire, it seems like Alvarado barely notices his audience. And he preaches nonstop for hours. But he says that’s because his message is important.

“Jesus saved my life 20 years ago,” said Alvarado.

20 years ago Alvarado was a young man in Guatemala. A smoker, a drinker, and part of a gang. When a rival gang placed a price on his head, Alvarado was forced to flee. Alvarado told me that when saying goodbye to his mother for the last time:

“My mother told me, Carlos if you give me one present before you go to the US, accept the lord jesus, believe in the lord jesus and I am okay my son. And I cried, oh I cried.”

He’s kept his promise. Alvarado has preached every night for twenty years in South LA.

“Jesus told me go, tell everybody If I can change you I can change other people,” said Alvarado.

Los Angeles used to be a street preaching capitol. Preachers needed a permit and couldn’t preach within 75 feet of one another.

Now, Alvarado finds himself alone most of the time. Which brings its own safety issues. He says he’s been forced to the ground by the LAPD demanding he “show them the drugs.” And one time, a passerby tried to stab him. It’s a second job that’s in a word, exhausting.

“When I come home, I feel very tired but I feel very very good,” said Alvarado.

Alvarado ends his sermons with an invitation for everyone to be saved. His count of souls saved is 500. Well, 524 after tonight.
And even skeptics feel a change as Alvarado places his hands on their chests.

“I have never seen a street preacher in my entire life,” said one passerby. “His energy was through the roof, there’s nothing like it when you have such a strong belief coursing through your veins.”

Alvarado will be on another street corner tomorrow night—the busier the better. He says car horns and buses are no match for the word of God.