ERBC Honored as KKLA Church of the Week

99.5 KKLA, The Intersection of Faith & Reason, honored nearly 400 people in attendance at their 2 Sunday services September 16th at Eagle Rock Baptist Church. Congregants picked up KKLA Program Guides and were invited to listen to Pastor Rick Mandl interviewed on KKLA's, The Frank Pastore Show the next day.

Click here for more information and an audio segment from KKLA

KKLA Church Of The Week Transcript for September 17, 2007

FRANK PASTORE: 99.5 KKLA, the intersection of faith and reason and this time each week we honor one of the great fellowships in Southern California and I understand there are a lot of you who tune in for the very first time to KKLA just to hear our ‘Church of the Week’ because it’s your pastor who we’re interviewing and I just want you to know if you’ve never heard of KKLA here in Los Angeles, this is the only place in all of L.A. radio where you can get Focus on the Family and Family Life Today and James Dobson and Dennis Rainey and all of that. You’ve got the counseling shows with the New Life guys. You’ve got John MacArthur and Alistair Begg and Charles Stanley and Greg Laurie and all of that, and as my wife would say ‘You also have the best three-hour talk show in the country from a Christian world view right here with the Frank Pastore show from four to seven’ and so with all of that as background that’s who we are, that’s what we do, we engage the culture from a Christian world view and we play offense without being offensive and we have fun doing it.

This week for our KKLA Church of the Week I want you to meet Rick Mandl, he is the pastor of Eagle Rock Baptist Church and they are our KKLA ‘Church of the Week.’  Hey Rick, how are you bud?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Frank it’s an honor and a privilege to be speaking with you.

FRANK PASTORE: Now Eagle Rock rings a bell in my memory, have I ever been out there?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: You actually have Frank, it was before you were hosting on KKLA, it was what we refer to as ‘back in the day’ you spoke here to a Men’s Group in our church and you left a lasting impact in fact we had to form a recovery group for people who heard you.

FRANK PASTORE: That was probably many moons ago, I wish I could say I remember - I can’t.

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Well we remember you and we really appreciated it.

FRANK PASTORE: Did I share my testimony?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: You did, and as I said we brought our whole all of the men of our adult Sunday School together for you to minister with the men and it was an awesome time.

FRANK PASTORE: Rick for those who may not know and for those who cannot Eagle Rock Baptist Church, describe your church, what are you guys into? What do you guys do? Where are you?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: We’re located in Eagle Rock which is right between Pasadena and Glendale you can’t travel from one city to the other without passing through Eagle Rock.  Kind of the northeast corner of L.A. at the intersection of Colorado and Loleta. The church has been here 80 years, this is our 80th Birthday.

FRANK PASTORE: Congratulations!

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Thank you, I haven’t been here quite that long but I’ve been here 30 years.

FRANK PASTORE: I was going to say you sound so young

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Hey thank you, I appreciate it.  This is my 30th year here at the church. When I say this is my home church I mean it because this is the church through which I came to know the Lord 

FRANK PASTORE: No kidding?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Absolutely, and I never left.  I was here through a couple of stints in seminary and have sort of done every job in the church and it truly is home.  I married my wife here, was baptized here, my three daughters have been baptized here they’re all still in the church serving in the church so it really is home for us.

FRANK PASTORE: Now Rick, this is amazing because typically there are bodies buried and stories and things you try to move away from in your life so you must have great character or the people are incredibly tolerant and loving.

PASTOR RICK MANDL: It’s the latter!  Trust me it’s the latter. It’s the most loving and affirming and supportive and prayerful fellowship.  I couldn’t have lasted a year much less the years I’ve been here without them praying for me. They are such a church committed to prayer.

FRANK PASTORE: Is it somewhat intimidating to think that there may be a young person out there who may one day replace you in the pulpit and they’re coming to Christ?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: You know what’s intimidating Frank is that I remember when I was the young guy here - the new kid - and now I’m the old guy. I’ve got a couple of associate pastors here, the veteran among them has been here two years, the new guy has been here six weeks and so it really makes you feel old.

FRANK PASTORE: Okay Rick, what are you guys into? Do you do a lot of local outreach? Do you do international missions, I mean give me a picture of two or three things you guys are doing. 

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Frank, it’s all of the above.  Local outreach.  Global outreach.  We’ve got a real history in mini-missions.  We just celebrated our 20th anniversary of sending teams over to Africa and the Philippines and Moldova. And that’s just the past. I imagine that there will be all different fields this next year.  We’re looking at Indonesia, we’re looking at Brazil. One of the coolest things for me is a brand new young couples class that has just formed in the last six weeks.  We’ve got a Pastor of Family Ministries that leads that group and he asked them, ‘What do you guys want to do?  What do you guys want to do for fun?’  And they said ‘We’d like to do a short-term mission trip overseas.’  Another really cool thing about the church for me as a pastor is that when I walk into the local grocery store here in Eagle Rock and I look around at the people and then I walk into the church and look around, there is no disconnect, it’s not like we’re an island in the community, the church looks just like the community, and that’s a testimony to the grace of God, because trust me I am not smart enough as a pastor to know how to make that happen.

FRANK PASTORE: Okay, let me be blunt it’s white/black, young/old, Asian/Latino?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: It’s multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-pretty much any noun you can place after multi.

FRANK PASTORE: Alright, very cool.  And you’ve been there since day one.

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Well not quite because the church has been here 80 years but for me it seems like it.

FRANK PASTORE: How long have you been in the pulpit there?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: I’ve been in the pulpit as senior pastor for 17 years and there are some awesome pastors who have gone before me.  In eighty years you can imagine. You know the name John MacArthur.  Well we can’t claim him as our pastor, but we can claim his father Jack and his grandfather Harry, so some solid heavy-hitters through the years.

FRANK PASTORE: Rick are you the guy in the pulpit every Sunday?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: I was the guy in the pulpit for most of those seventeen years Frank, but we’ve just begun something here that we call tag-team preaching, so within a message we will go back-and-forth between a couple of the pastors and that’s a brand new thing.  Again, we didn’t set about to make it happen, we just sort of tried it once and saw that it was something that God was using.

FRANK PASTORE: Wait a minute, I’ve never heard of this.  So literally during the message you will tag-team and the other guy will come up and vice versa?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Exactly! 

FRANK PASTORE: Sounds like a great church.  Tell me one thing about Rick Mandl on a day-off, and you can’t say you’re gonna spend time with your wife and kids.  Are you an outdoors guy?  Are you a football guy? Is it golf or surfing?  What would you like to do?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Two things that are kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum.  If I had a day off to do anything I’d like to spend an hour and a half down at the gym to do a full workout; cardio, free-weights, the whole thing and not have to think about my next appointment because to me that is totally relaxing.  And then the other thing I love which is kind of out of the ordinary is game shows.  I’ve been a contestant on seven.  

FRANK PASTORE: What?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: The first one was over 30 years ago, the last one was three months ago.

FRANK PASTORE: What was the last one three months ago?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: It’s on the Game Show Network so probably nobody watches it, it’s called Lingo, but they’ve probably heard of the host Chuck Woolery because he’s got a long history.  And I kind of gave him a hard time and told him that I was his “stalker” because one of the early shows I did was Wheel of Fortune which he hosted, he was the first host.  And a second show I did with him was Scrabble, and so I told him I was stalking him and he kind of enjoyed that.

FRANK PASTORE: Well you must be an absolute blast as a dad when it comes to playing games with your kids.

PASTOR RICK MANDL: You know my kids love being a pastor’s kids except they tend to hear the same jokes over and over whenever I’ve got a new audience.

FRANK PASTORE: Rick, it’s been a blast talking to you, a guy who loves going to the gym, so you must be a buff pastor too?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: You know I wish I could say that.  Let’s say I aspire to buffness, some have had it thrust upon them, but I aspire to it.

FRANK PASTORE: Are you on the young side or the old side of the great five-o?

PASTOR RICK MANDL: Well you tell me.  Next week will be my 53rd birthday.

FRANK PASTORE: But it’s the new 30.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself.  Rick, God bless you and thank you for allowing us to honor you as our KKLA Church Of The Week.  Again, it is Eagle Rock Baptist Church . Their website eaglerockbaptist.com.  Their services are Saturday night at 5:30 and Sunday mornings at 8:15 & 11:00 And again Eagle Rock Baptist Church, our KKLA ‘Church Of The Week’ and Pastor Rick Mandl.