Eric Gabourel is Pastor of Providence Christian Center, better known as the Hotdog Church (Church of God), in San Francisco, California and Coordinator of the San Francisco PCPJ (Thirdway Peace and Justice Fellowship).

Eric is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was there that he embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Eric became a member of Faith Temple Church of God (Cleveland, TN) and began to bear witness of his transforming experience with Jesus. He was soon called upon to serve in pulpit ministry and received formal training from Pastor Timothy Ponce. Eric’s desire for further ministerial and theological training lead him to study at Lee University in Cleveland, TN.

While at Lee he experienced yet another epiphany, this time it pertained to the teachings of Jesus. During the brief time that he was an attendee at South Cleveland Church of God, the college ministries pastor Tony Johns gave a presentation and a homily on the life and prophetic proclamations of Martin Luther King, Jr. Johns also stressed King’s teachings and practice of nonviolent resistance. This presentation resulted in several sleepless nights of reading King’s writings and listening to his speeches giving a peculiar ear to his teachings of nonviolence as a means of social transformation.

This sacred experience, the discovery that the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) was historically a pacifist denomination, and his reading of Steve J. Land’s re-visioning of Pentecostal eschatology in Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom lead him to embrace pacifism and a broader understanding of the Kingdom of God. From this point onward he would proclaim Jesus as the One who provided salvation spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, and socially.

Upon graduation from Lee University in 2002 Eric lived in Honduras, the homeland of his parents, for a duration of four months. While there Eric ministered to street children in San Pedro Sula and strengthened a development project he and Wesley Cepin founded called Mission Miskito. Mission Miskito is an ongoing ministry that seeks to encourage Hondurans of a better social position to minister to those who are not as fortunate in the areas of spirituality and social mobilization. The Mosquito Coast is one of the poorest regions in the western hemisphere and is called thus because the indigenous people there speak Miskito. Presently their emphasis is in the areas of education and health.

After leaving Honduras Eric did a year internship at a recovery center (Providence House) in San Francisco. During this year Eric was a housing monitor who lived with men coming off the streets or out of prison who sought a Christ-Centered recovery program. After his year was up Eric felt God tugging at the cords of his heart to stay in San Francisco and was appointed to the associate pastorate of Providence Christian Center a.k.a. the Hot Dog Church. Providence Christian Center is in the heart of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. The TL, as it is called by its residents, is the most drug saturated part of the city with the highest rate of homeless, prostitution, crime, and at risk youth.

Pastor Gabourel, who is an ordained minister in the Church of God, is also serving as the coordinator of the San Francisco chapter of the Pentecostal Charismatic Peace Fellowship. PCPF San Francisco functions as a grass roots movement that seeks to educate and train the populace about Jesus’ way of nonviolence. PCPF San Francisco also seeks to embody the principles of nonviolence and to engage in effective activism for social justice and against militarism. Eric is still furthering his ministerial and theological studies at the Church of God Theological Seminary West where he pursuing an M.Div.