BUSHWICK — He's hoping to teach how to turn the other bearded cheek.
A Bushwick minister is trying to create harmony in his flock by using the Gospel to "bridge the gap between hip-hop and hipster."
Danny Torres, 30, is opening up Swerve Church this Easter Sunday and hopes that by using technology and contemporary music he'll be able to capture a diverse crowd of worshippers and begin to address some of the tensions he feels in the neighborhood, he said.
"It's no secret, it seems like there's a culture war going on in Bushwick," Torres said, pointing out graffiti he's seen scribbled on walls across the neighborhood that reads "Stop Whitewashing Bushwick" or "Gentrification is the new colonialism."
"I understand the hurt as a Bushwick native," said Torres, who added that with the influx of new residents it can be a strange feeling to walk down a street where you grew up and feel like the outsider.
"I won't even feel comfortable walking through, I really feel like the odd ball out."
Recruiting a diverse congregation with residents of all stripes and creating "an environment where people can belong before they believe" will start that healing process, he said.
"I'm not 100 percent sure how it's going to happen, but if anybody can do it I think it's the church," said Torres, who recently left a teaching job to dedicate himself full-time to Swerve.
One way Swerve Church has begun to reach out to a diverse crowd of Bushwick residents is through social media — it has 400 likes on its Facebook page and 135 Twitter followers.
Grand Opening Easter Sunday!Where will you be Easter Sunday? Why not join us for the Grand Opening of Swerve Church? We would love for you to be our guest and celebrate with us! Visit swervechurch.com/easter for more info.
Posted by Swerve Church on Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Getting ready for the Easter Grand Opening. Be our guest! https://t.co/I2P1eviHIL #Bushwick #Brooklyn #NYC pic.twitter.com/JyRd5brsT7
— Swerve Church (@SwerveChurch) March 21, 2016
Another tool Torres plans on using is music — he wants to recruit DJs and local musicians to play services in order to "create a sound that sounds like Bushwick," he said.
Torres tried first to launch Swerve Church in 2013, but raising funds, finding a physical space and getting everything in order took longer than planned, he said.
Since then he and his wife Melissa, 32, and a group of around eight other friends and family members have been doing projects in the community as Swerve Church, like trash pick ups and youth mentorship programs. They haven't had a physical church until now.
Whether or not he'll manage to recruit a diverse congregation that represents the neighborhood is still up in the air, Torres admits.
"There's very little you can do to control who walks through those door," he said.
