Pastor Avery Austin - Total Deliverance Church

Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, Avery Austin felt trapped in a world of poverty and violence. His grandfather and uncles were heavily involved in street crime, while his mother became a drug addict early in his childhood. Austin himself would spend much of his adolescence involved in gangs and drug dealing to make ends meet all the while feeling that his options in life were extremely limited due to his background.

“I never thought there was going to be a way out for me. I thought this was just the card that was dealt for me,” Austin recalls.

Desperate for change, Austin even sought to reform himself on several occasions. After being kicked out of school in the 11th grade, he would return and eventually graduate from Manual Arts High School. He also completed a stint in the Navy and even joined the Islamic faith.

But no matter what he tried, he was drawn back to the allure of the streets. By the time he entered his early 20s, Austin was one of the biggest drug dealers in California.

Then one day in 1992, Austin and his brother were stopped by cops while selling drugs in Arkansas. With cocaine in his pockets, he fled the scene and ran into the woods just outside Little Rock. While being chased by officers, Austin remembered some advice given to him by his mother and called out the name of Jesus. “I dropped down to my knees and said ‘Lord, Please don’t let these cops catch me out here because they’re going to kill me for sure. And to be real, I need your help.’”

The police soon turned off their searchlight and retreated to their cars. While walking away from the woods, a police car pulled up along side him. Yet, Austin said, the Lord intervened once again.

“I heard a voice speak to me audibly and said don’t move. This voice was so powerful, so strong, yet so peaceful and filled with so much love. I just froze, right in the light and I just noticed that the light wasn’t hurting my eyes. I looked down on the ground and noticed my shadow wasn’t even in the light. I believed to this day that the Light of the World stood between me and the light of man.”   

The police car subsequently left and a voice told Austin to flag down a car driven by an elderly woman. The woman said God had told her to get up from her bed and pick him up. The woman also told Austin that God had work for him to do.

Changed by the experience in Arkansas and finally finding an opportunity to leave his gang lifestyle behind, Austin joined the New Bethany Church of God in Christ Pentecostal Church.

“I begin to really seek God for truth because I knew I didn’t want to be that old person anymore. “

In 1993, he was called into ministry, and was involved with the church’s community outreach programs. After six years, he would move on to Shackleford Church of God in Christ and would become ordained in 1998.

In 2000, Austin was called to start his own church, Total Deliverance Church. In the beginning, he conducted services in his living room and had a congregation of four. Then one day, Austin was told by God to move the church to Lancaster, a place that historically had not been accepting of blacks.

“I was a little nervous. I didn’t know where Lancaster was. I had to look it up,” Austin said. “Once I looked it up, I found out the racial history of Lancaster and learned it was the headquarters for the Skinheads. But I was determined to obey.”

Within a year of conducting services at a Lancaster hotel, the congregation of Total Deliverance grew to 15. The church moved to a storefront church, were in four years the congregation grew to 400. Total Deliverance then moved to its current location, where the church has continued to flourish. Currently, the church’s congregation is nearing 2,000 members.

Austin, who co-founded the church with his wife of 17 years Eleesa, is still stunned by the church’s rapid growth.

“It’s amazing to me. It’s nothing that I did. I take no credit for myself. To God be the glory. I’m not that smart I know that. I just did what He said and He blessed me.”

Austin’s personal story of triumph over his previous gang lifestyle has attracted a lot of young adults, especially former gang members, to Total Deliverance.

“A lot of them come in because a lot of them are like me, looking for a way out. But they just didn’t know how to get out.”

The growing church, while predominately African American, has also  attracted a large number of Hispanic and white families attracted to Austin’s message of self-improvement through Christ.

“Heartache and poverty are universal,” Austin says. “So when you’re teaching people to be better people, it’s universal that people want to be better and that’s what I do.”

Austin, who serves as the Superintendent for the First Jurisdiction Church of God in Christ- Antelope Valley District, has placed an emphasis on putting ministry into action. Through its compassion ministry, Total Deliverance feeds 1,200 families every month and organizes community wide giveaways for the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays and a Back to School giveaway.

The father of three believes the Compassion ministry is most important to him because of his own impoverished upbringing.

“We were very poor, we didn’t have a lot of food. We didn’t get anything for Christmas,” Austin recounts. “So now I’m able to give those things out and see hope on people’s faces. That’s better than anything I could ever buy.”

As Total Deliverance continues to develop into one of the leading black churches in the Antelope Valley, Austin says he will continue to build a congregation that is both compassionate and intent on improvement.

“One goal is just to demonstrate God’s love in action. I want to put my arms around somebody.  I want to give somebody a blanket that doesn’t have a place to lay their head. And I want to build people and make them better. That will always be our goal.”