Satanist at Christian school

By Wisdom Mira, Lighthouse Christian Academy senior

Arti Cedillo was a satanist attending a Christian school – Lighthouse Christian Academy.

“I was expelled from my last school,” he said. “I was a bad kid. I was a bully, and I was beating up kids.  This sounds really dumb, but I wanted to form like a terrorist group. I thought it’d be cool. Then I had to come to Lighthouse.”

The constant barrage of the word of God combined with the sincerity of his fellow students changed Arti.

“I came to the school with the wrong mentality. I told myself I wasn’t going to make friends,”  he says. “I kept on trying to keep my original plan going, to not make any friends, but the other kids won me over eventually, they were all really cool, really happy kids.

“I thought I was the one who had real joy and freedom,” Arti said. “But then I saw these kids being really happy to go to church and happy to praise and sing worship songs. I had no idea why – until later, of course.”

Lighthouse is NOT a reform school. It is simply a Christian school -- one where Christianity is more than a word on the sign out front.

Arti, who graduated from LCA in 2008, rocks on the guitar for the Christian heavy metal band Alas! The Destroyer (video) which plays in the West Hollywood club Whisky a Go Go. He also plays on worship at the Lighthouse Church, recently cutting off his long locks in preparation to preach in Guatemala City in September.

Now 23, Arti has made a huge impact on the youth at the Santa Monica church. He leads worship for the youth group, and kids who might flirt with drugs, partying and rebelling have a great reference point in this young man who did all those things but allowed Jesus to change him. He possesses a great vision to revolutionize worship at the youth group.

“Revival is going to start with the youth group,”  he said.

How did this pastor's kid wind up a Satanist? "Heavy metal drove me to that," he said. "I described myself as a devil's child. I would beat people up and then tell them I was doig the work of the devil."

Did he beat any one up when he came to Lighthouse in the eighth grade? "I didn't have the pleasure," he quipped.

As a worship leader, now he'll be beating up the devil