Current debates around opening places of worship highlight issues of safety from infection, government authority, and trust in leadership. Broader issues turn on essential roles that religious communities play for people. Debates about Latino churches in parts of the United States center on these community roles.

Churches are essential institutions in many respects. Latino churches serve vulnerable and underrepresented communities, established in places "where no church of privilege wants to be." They minister to drug addicts, gang members, migrants, and homeless persons based in their communities. Many Latinos are considered essential workers, including undocumented workers who pick the food from agricultural fields, Latina grocery clerks who expose themselves to multitudes of people, and the food plant employees who have been ordered to resume work by presidential executive order. “Many multiethnic churches are made up of many migrant and marginalized members who are the church.” They exemplify what it means to serve others through their vocations.

Gatherings have particular importance. Church “is the one sacred place where a marginalized Latina can worship with her fellow sisters and brothers in her own native tongue. It is the one place where her cultural identity is part of her religious experience. There is something different about being in a place where one does not feel marginalized, profiled, and stereotyped." Church, for the Latino community, is the place where they feel important in the eyes of God, in a society that marginalizes and undervalues their contribution.

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing debates within Latino Pentecostal circles in California. They are wrestling with the desire to belong without putting their most vulnerable at risk. For some, the church is a gathering of people, an ecclesia, and without the gathering, there is no church. Others encourage ministers to look at their ministries and ascertain if they are making an essential impact on their communities, taking Matthew 25 to heart. As elsewhere there are difficult choices between the freedom to gather or the freedom to put others first by staying at home. Some Latino churches do not have technology budgets or church members with reliable internet access at home. There is a desire to belong together, and the church building location is a place of belonging.

Economic hardship is “another kind of pain, suffering, and death” that is generating concern and suspicion. One pastor wondered whether the stay at home order means the government is taking advantage of the pandemic for another agenda: to keep the churches closed indefinitely. For many Latino and Latina pastors, indefinite closure is interpreted as a spiritual attack on the very institution and mission of the church. Some pastors are discouraged that politicians do not trust churches to practice safe distancing. One pastor of a large Latino church asked, “Why are we more dangerous than others? Why are we a higher risk than stores like Home Depot?” The issue of freedom is generating debates.

Many are heeding the call to service. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Los Angeles county the food ministry at a Latino Pentecostal church, Church of the Redeemer in Baldwin Park, has grown exponentially. Like many other food banks, they are working hard to serve the needs of the community. They used to serve the community once a month. Now they open the church eight times a month and include home deliveries for seniors and those who are unable to drive to the church.