A Sunday stroller would have been hard pressed to imagine the scene inside the walls of the house at 88-40 192nd Street in Hollis, Queens. The large, blonde-brick building - blessed like the others on the sedate block with that rarest of New York City creatures: a lawn – transforms on Sundays into the home of the Indian Christian Assembly, one of several Pentecostal congregations in the area made up of Indian-Americans tracing their roots to the Southern Indian state of Kerala.

The service was already over an hour old when the Rev. Anthony Rocky walked up to the podium at the front of the low-ceilinged room to deliver the second of the day’s sermons. “I believe God’s presence is here today,” Rocky said, “and I believe something’s going to happen today, and I believe he’s going to tell some of you something today.” Murmurs of approval suggested that the worshippers agreed.

Rocky, from Kerala like the rest of the congregation but with a surname from European ancestry, had planned to preach on a biblical passage from Genesis. “But God was talking to me a lot as I was sitting there,” Rocky said afterwards, and God directed him elsewhere. God and a friend’s email.

“I received an email yesterday about a gathering on February 11th, a Hindu rally in Gujarat where they’re going to try and re-convert 500 Christians back to Hinduism.”

Rocky asked the congregation to pray for India and for the people of Gujarat, one of several Indian states with simmering tensions between Hindu and Christian communities. He then turned to the Gospels to illustrate the sort of faith needed in trying situations such as these. He told the story of Matthew 9:1-5; Jesus healing a paralytic because he senses the faith of those that brought the sick man to him.

“He saw that they had a humble faith, and he saw that they had an active faith,” Rocky said, settling into the repetition-with-variations that typify much ecstatic Christian oratory. “We all say ‘I have faith,’ but the question we should be asking is ‘Is Jesus seeing you?’”

Only this, he said, could lead Christians to triumph over adversity. “Unless they trust Jesus they’re never going to cross the Jericho wall.” The congregation rose on the waves of the sermon, with an “Amen!” from among the men seated on the left answered by a “Thank you Jesus!” from the women’s section on the right of the room. Hands began to lift into the air, growing towards the sun of the preacher’s words.

Rocky and the congregants had arrived at the familiar ground outside the city of Jericho. Through the telling of the story of Joshua and the Israelites conquering the city of Jericho, the pastor wove a tale of faith being tested. “They walked around Jericho wall one time and I believe on the first day they said ‘What is this stupid thing we’re doing?’”

The murmuring continued for the first six days they circled the walls, he said. “Then they walked around on the seventh day and what happened on the seventh day? The wall collapsed!”

The room in suburban Queens erupted: “Hail!” “Thank you Jesus!”

“On the seventh day the wall collapsed!” Rocky affirmed.

The Hallelujahs erupting from the congregation convinced Rocky that something had indeed happened here today. “Jesus is here to touch you,” he said and, with his head bowed and his voice lowered from the exertion, “Praise God.”

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The unadorned, expanded three-storey house at 88-40 192nd Ave. in Hollis, Queens does not look like a house of worship, but the simple sign that hangs above the front door identifies it as just that. India Christian Assembly, the sign declares.

Inside, the low-ceilinged, spacious sanctuary has about 200 blue-cushioned, metal-framed chairs, a video projection system, and multiple microphones set up before an array of instruments. There are no paintings of Jesus, no stained glass windows, no crosses; only a podium, flanked by an American and an Indian flag.

When the congregation arrives for the morning service, however, the church takes on the atmosphere of worship, setting the tone for the two and half hour service that will follow. People begin speaking in tongues almost immediately, as others take their seats and greet one another in a friendly manner, seeming not to notice.

Men and women sit on separate sides of the room. Men, dressed predominantly in dark-colored suits, to the left, women, dressed in vivid greens, yellows and blues, to the right. The younger members of the congregation sit in two forward sections on either side, and children choose to sit with their fathers or mothers or move freely back and forth.

They have come to worship “the living God,” and to hear a message from their pastor, the Rev. Philip Benjamin Thomas.

Thomas preaches in English, but he drives home points and repeats phrases from time to time in Malayalam, the native language of many of the worshipers who come from the South Indian state of Kerala.

“Besides God and humans, someone else is in our presence,” Thomas begins, “the Bible calls him Satan.”

As Thomas speaks, he closes his eyes, stretches out both arms, pauses for emphasis, smiles benevolently to all corners of the room, and allows his voice to tremble ever so slightly at the end of important phrases, signaling the members of the congregation to punctuate his message for him.

“Praise the Lord!”
“Thank you, Jesus!”

Thomas speaks of the “challenge,” as he calls it, of leading a Christian life when Satan is “working against us every step of the way.” Comparing Satan to a crouching lion waiting to attack its prey, he uses the example of animal documentaries on TV to illuminate the image.

“They bite at the neck; at the throat,” he almost hisses, and then, raising his voice to a surprising crescendo, delivers the message home, “and after that, the lion sits back, knowing that the prey is done. He lets it bleed! If you are not careful, he will be waiting at your door!”

Christians must not become complacent in their faith, and that they must never let down their guard or take the grace of God for granted, for Satan, like God, “is always present among us,” he says.

“We are always under threat. We are blessed people to have God in our life. But please,” he implores with seeming urgency, “take your life carefully.”

As Thomas nears the end of his pre-sermon thoughts, a soft music begins to play along with him. First light notes on a piano, and then the gentle chords of a guitar grow stronger as he gathers himself, throws his head back, and delivers what will be his conclusion.

“The devil is a powerful enemy, as powerful as a crouching lion,” he practically growls, now hunched over the podium and gripping it on both sides, “if you give your life to God, he will give you the power to resist him.”
“Halleluiah,” the congregation answers, “praise the Lord!”

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Jenny Chocko sat at a small round wooden table in a red salwar kameez and a black scarf pulled lightly around her head. She had a sore throat and a congested voice, but was determined to complete the last 10 minutes of Sunday school for children at the Malankara Catholic Church in Long Island, a congregation made up of Indian immigrants from Kerala who follow Syrian rites, but reconciled with the Vatican in the early 20th century. Their service is held each weekend at The Immaculate Conception Center, a sprawling campus for the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, but technically in Douglaston, NY.

More than 30 families attended the two-hour service conducted in Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerela. Their children stayed behind for a half-hour class taught in English, in small groups by Chocko, several other church mothers and two nuns.

“Samuel was sleeping one day at a temple,” said Chocko, referring to the Old Testament prophet who is the subject of this week’s lesson. Stacy and Amal, both seven, and Christy, eight, climbed into the other seats at Chocko’s table. “Stacy, what’s a temple?”

Stacy, with haphazard bangs, a palm-tree ponytail, and two missing front teeth, hesitated a moment. Then she remembered, and jumped up. “It’s like a church!” she cried.

“So Samuel was asleep, and God called him.” Chocko continued reading, as her students followed along in Glory to the Triune God, a coloring-book style introduction to the Malankara Catholic catechism. The books are standardized and shipped over from India, complete with a young Indian boy on the cover, three fingers clasped, touching his forehead in prayer. Chocko looked up, “Who is God?” she asked.

All three children sat up straight and pointed upwards.

“And how does Samuel respond?”

“Say what you have to say, I’m hearing,” said Christy, a girl with pinch-worthy cheeks in earrings and a purple selwar kameez. “I’m listening,” Chocko corrected.

“And Samuel was a prophet,” Chocko continued reading in Lesson Eight; “Samuel Whom God Called.” “Who is a prophet?”

The children were stumped. “Is Garfield a prophet?” Chocko prodded. “Yes!” her students giggled and answered in chorus.

Chocko sighed and repeated, “Who is a prophet? Was Moses a prophet?” This time Stacy had an answer. “Someone who’s going to lead!” she cried.

Samuel is considered an important Old Testament prophet, and the last of the Hebrew judges in Rabbinical literature. His story is told in the Book of Samuel, and as a young child, he began to receive communications from God. A mysterious voice came to him one night, and on the instruction of his teacher, Eli, he responded, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth." Samuel foretold the destruction of Eli’s own sons, and went on to become the spiritual power of Israel.

“And what did Heli mean,” Chocko read, “when he told Samuel ‘If he calls you again, you shall say: Speak, Lord, for your servant hears?’ We should hear the call of God and do his will?”

“We should listen to God,” started Christy, as she stared in her catechism-coloring book at a purple-robed God holding a young Samuel’s hand. “And like, do what he says?”

“Yes,” Chocko smiled wearily. “So when you pray tonight, think about that.”

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