Late last month, the City of San Jose ordered Lighthouse Food Rescue to shutter its daily food ministry location or face crippling fines for violating new zoning rules. Within days, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (D) had personally intervened in the case after public outcry. “Seeing the outpouring of advocacy and support for [Lighthouse Food Rescue] has been amazing, he said. “Pastor Olmos has been doing incredible work in our community, and we’re going to make sure that work can continue.”

What prompted City Hall into such an abrupt reversal? Only the faithful, winsome ministry of a gospel-preaching church. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus instructed his disciples. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14, 16). By its actions, this Lighthouse Ministry has done just that.

The food ministry launched during COVID and rapidly grew to feed more than 1,000 people per day, five days a week. It offers foods such as milk, meat, and eggs not available at other pantries, and it does not closely police what foods people collect in their boxes. It serves a mix of homeless, elderly, and disabled people, as well as poor families. Its current partners include Costco, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Safeway, along with a variety of humanitarian organizations.

The ministry operates out of a small building at E. Julian and 17th Streets on the Northside of San Jose, in a modest neighborhood dotted by liquor stores and the occasional bodega, but not close to any large grocery stores. To handle the volume of people it serves and food it distributes, Lighthouse dispenses most of the food from the sidewalk.

This fact led to its most recent troubles, when on September 25, Lighthouse Food Rescue & Distribution received a citation from San Jose’s City Planning, Building and Code Enforcement department.

The citation notified the ministry that food distribution on the neighborhood sidewalk was no longer permitted, and that it would face daily fines of up to $20,000 if it did not remove distribution and canopies from the sidewalk within 10 days and cease all operations within 60 days.

Such harsh treatment came as a shock to the ministry. In March 2022, the city Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services featured Lighthouse Ministries in its weekly #SiliconValleyStrongHeroes initiative, praising the organization as “a beacon of light in the community.” San Jose’s then-mayor Sam Liccardo had also expressed his appreciation “of the work that Pastor [Ralph] Olmos and Lighthouse Ministries are doing to keep our most vulnerable neighbors and families fed.”

The special article by the San Jose city government even invited readers to seek “more information on Lighthouse Bible Church in San Jose,” even including a link to the church website, lbcsj.com.

Sadly, many churches that operate urban food pantries no longer hold to biblical teaching. Like other liberal churches, they have jettisoned theology and reduced their understanding of Christianity to ethics alone.

Lighthouse Bible Church is not one of these churches. Its robust statement of faith asserts the inerrancy of Scripture, the trinity and incarnation, the reality of sin and hell, and the need for salvation by grace through faith. The statement of beliefs even gets more specific, affirming creation in six days, election and perseverance, and dispensationalism, an unusual mix of doctrinal distinctives characteristic of the late John MacArthur (and the senior pastor’s bio confirms MacArthur’s influence).

Doesn’t that undermine all the media’s preferred narratives about Christians? “Caring progressive city gushes over fundamentalist church’s mercy ministry” is not a common headline in mainstream newspapers. Yet, here, it is the truth! The vibrant spiritual life of Lighthouse Bible Church San Jose — an apparently recent plant that holds its Sunday services in the building of an Adventist church — is proven by the practical love its shows for its community through Lighthouse Food Rescue. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” said Jesus (John 13:35).

Yet Christians walk a paradoxical road, with glimpses of glory intermingled with trials. Before San Jose recognized Lighthouse Food Rescue’s service to the city, it had first demanded $15,500 for a special use permit. That threat induced Pastor Olmos to briefly suspend operations on January 8, 2022, which “caused an uproar.”

Overnight, a GoFundMe page raised the funds necessary to keep the food ministry open. However, the San Jose City Council eventually voted to waive special use permit fees for pandemic-related food centers, and the ministry was able to turn the money raised toward improving its services.

Then last month, the city zoning department again told Lighthouse Food Rescue to close down; under new zoning laws, a special use permit was no longer an option. The property appears to still be zoned as “multi-use commercial.” But the problematic code appears to be a prohibition on “any stand of any sort for the vending of any merchandise, produce or other property” on a city sidewalk, which restricts the City Council’s ability to issue permits only “for a limited period of time” and for events that “would unreasonably impede the free passage of traffic.”

“I’m up against the wall. It’s almost like [the city is] telling me to stop. But my conviction says, ‘How can I leave the people?’” Pastor Olmos responded. “From being called a ‘beacon of hope,’ to ‘get out or we will fine you,’ there really doesn’t seem any way that the Lighthouse stays on 17th Street.”

Once again, however, public support flipped the script, prompting the mayor to weigh in on behalf of Lighthouse. “I just heard the news about the code action,” said Mayor Mahan. “Look, in a big city, code enforcement can be a blunt instrument. They’re looking for code violations and trying to get people into compliance.”

“My team, alongside our Housing Department, has been in touch with the Pastor over the past week to help them relocate to a location that works for them, the people they serve, and their neighbors,” Mahan added. “The city may even be able to help them with moving costs. Stay tuned!”

The one true God is in the business of engineering stunning reversals for his own glory. After imprisoning Paul, the Philippian magistrates came to personally apologize to him (Acts 16:39). Three years after King Henry VIII had William Tyndale executed for translating the Bible into English, the same king authorized an official English translation, which was largely based on Tyndale’s work. On a much smaller scale, the mayor of San Jose is now offering city assistance to a Christian ministry the city was trying to shutter.

Wrinkles certainly remain, such as the city’s insistence that Lighthouse Food Rescue change its location, which would take it further from the community it serves. But the local favor it enjoys is a testament to its faithful, loving, biblical work, which ultimately glorifies the God it serves.