By Pat Peckham, News Editor/Staff Writer - City Pages, Wausau Wisconsin USA
Pew-hopping is on the rise. So what exactly plays into people’s decision to join a church, perhaps for the first time? Local worshippers and clergy tell their stories …
Pastor Frank Connor doesn’t mind that Renee and Wayne Cottrell first showed up at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Kronnewetter simply because it was handy. The Cottrells live just a few blocks from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) congregation on Kowalski Road. Connor says about half of the congregation lives within walking distance.
What also got the Cottrells through the door was the fact that their children started attending preschool in the church building at about the same time the parents decided to scout for a new place of worship. It was becoming a chore to drive half an hour each way to Wayne?s hometown church in Marathon. They wanted something closer for what were then only occasional trips to church.
One Sunday last July, Pastor Connor, a part-time minister, needed help serving communion, so he made eye contact with Renee, who was sitting near the front. As an occasional attendee, she didn’t consider herself a full member of Bethlehem Lutheran, and declined Connor?s request. But as she stood up, Connor whispered, “You have to help me.” She protested once more under her breath and he assured her it would be fine. It was fine.
That one moment led to other things. Renee, who is 35, is now not only a regular distributor of communion, but teaches Sunday School, joined the Altar Guild, helps collect offerings, and last Saturday helped decorate the Christmas tree in the sanctuary.
A former Catholic, she says, “I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to miss church.” Looking back, she says, what convinced her to join was the warm atmosphere and how “Pastor Frank” drew her into an active role. The time in her life was also right. “It has really become home,” she says. “Everything just kind of clicked into place.”
The Cottrell story will sound familiar to anyone who has ever gone church shopping. And that’s probably a lot of you. Finding a new religion, the church search, pew hopping - it’s a common phenomenon in a mobile society. A large part of the population is nowhere near the church in which they were raised, both physically and often philosophically. And there’s also the contingent who haven’t set foot in church for a decade or more (or ever) and then have children. You know who you are and what you were thinking: Hmm, time for some religion.
Clergy around the Wausau area report meeting with new church searchers often - at least once a month in some cases. On some level then, churches are competing for members, and that phenomenon has helped created things such as the prevalence of modern worship and the full-service church.
… “Some full-service churches even offer tax advice. These kinds of things go a long way in creating a ‘community’ that most church searchers consider important.” …
So what goes into a successful search for that perfect church? Surprisingly, it’s often not a question of denomination.
This is the time each year when church and synagogue attendance tops out. Easter is big, certainly, for packing people into the pews, but December is when places of worship see consistently high attendance. The casual congregants join the every-Sunday regulars and of course, there’s always the “I only go for Christmas/Hanukkah” contingent.
That’s why December is the time to visit new churches if you want to see them when they’re trying their hardest, says Rev Stephen Hamilton Wright, head pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Wausau. Summer isn’t good because attendance is likely to be down, he says. His pick for the best month to see an average service? October.
All those worshippers show up because of the religious significance of the season, but how do they choose where to go? If they’re shopping for a church, what makes them stay? Does each person who bows his or her head in prayer first go through a period of intense study comparing the Lutherans to the Methodists to the Baptists?
Don’t count on it. Some people for whom religion is important can debate Scriptural interpretations with expertise, but in other cases something as simple as proximity is the deciding factor. And most ministers like Connor would say it’s OK to go to the church down the block if things seem to click.
Connor says people shopping for a church come in two basic varieties: the person or family looking for a new church, and those looking for their first. The latter tend to want a more liturgical and traditional atmosphere, he says. “It’s a spiritual experience they have not had in their past.”
A typical new member at Bethlehem Lutheran, which is growing again after some divisive years when pastors didn’t stay long, is not a newcomer to religion. “The people we’re getting … they’re looking for relationships. What makes them come back is whether a connection was made.”
Based on his experience growing up in southern California, Connor says young people who feel their lives are chaotic often seek order in a more fundamentalist church. “It’s very black and white. This is what you do. This is how you behave and this is your blueprint for life.”
Church-shoppers won’t find that in an ELCA congregation, the most liberal of Lutherans. “We’re not very rules-oriented,” says Connor, who was ordained at age 42 after leaving a career as a geologist with Shell Oil. “We see things in shades of gray.”
For a contrast, a church-shopper could go to Highland Community Church (Evangelical) near the water tower on Wausau’s northwest side. It’s led by the Rev Jeff Hinds, who holds a doctor of divinity degree and not only has a ministerial staff, but a finance director, administrator, and multiple general office personnel. It’s hard to pin down the congregation size, as the church doesn’t push official membership. They do say that about 310 families “call the church home.”
One of the ministers, Rev. Steve Clements, says the evangelical church teaches “… right out of the Bible without adding a lot of man’s ideas.” For them, the Bible is central and inerrant. They say they try to be practical, but don’t like a practice they describe as “softening Scripture to culture.”
The congregation has doubled in the past four years. Church attendance on a typical Sunday is 700, split among three services. And for those accustomed to small, traditional churches, these services are a sight to see. The two largest services are held in a sanctuary that doubles as a gymnasium. The hard carpet is striped so that when the stacking chairs (pews) are stored away, it’s a basketball court. Anchor points flush to the floor allow the space to hold volleyball nets. The altar resembles a stage; mechanical jacks raise it or lower it into the floor for more room.
When Hinds is preaching, one person in the back runs computer graphics displayed on overhead screens for hymn lyrics or Bible passages. Another person operates a 6-foot-wide soundboard. A third person controls the video camera - it can’t be stationary because Hinds frequently steps away from the podium.
Highland Community is relatively new and didn’t have a building of its own until 1995. Thus, adults in the congregation are not there because they grew up in that church. For the most part, they left another church. Rev. Clements and Rev. Dan MacDonald say the new members like the certainty. “People are looking for absolute truth, things that are immovable,” MacDonald says.
During his sermon Sunday, Hinds called on the Lord: “Tell me what to think and what to believe.” Clements, who is 29, says the church gets a lot of people in his age range who are economically successful, but want more. “A lot of people are asking, ‘Is this it?’”
The church that was tiny when it met in the Labor Temple and heard sermons by the Rev. Ken Moberg made one leap when the main church went up in 1995. They’re still not finished with detailing the offices and meeting rooms added in the second addition to the facility on 28th Avenue, but there’s already talk about Phase Four of the building expansion.
Across town on the east side of the Wisconsin River, there’s the Universalist Unitarian Church, a more-traditional-looking church with historic stone architecture. Physical appearances aside, this church has little in common with Highland Community beyond the 10:30 am starting times of their worship services. Rev. Paul Beckel says newcomers to the UU church rarely are coming from other churches. “We primarily are getting people who haven’t set foot in a church for a long time. We get people who have said religion is not for them but then they find us and say, ‘Well maybe religion is for me.’”
The UU church has no creed, no central set of beliefs that members are expected to embrace. Beckel might in a Sunday message tell people some things to think about, but not WHAT to think. A typical newcomer checking out the UU church has a family and wants a place where the kids can get a religious education in a liberal, non-dogmatic religion that takes a world view. Exploring the spirituality, religion, and beliefs of other cultures is common at the UU church.
Beckel’s experience is that choosing a church is comparable to choosing a house. “There might be 25 things you want in a house … You say these are the things that you want and these are the things you can live with. People don’t get everything that they want.”
Are politics part of the comparison shipping? Less so than some might think, say Beckel and others. Liberality in religion does not always equate with liberality on economic or social issues. “Our society is less well off because we are so fractured,” Beckel says. “It firms up too much that there is a cookie-cutter conservative and a cookie-cutter liberal.” He dislikes labels.
The UU church in Wausau vies with the Catholics for the title of most supportive of social justice issues. Local Catholics have an active peace studies group and are susceptible to pleas for help in cases of extreme personal hardship. The UU church was in the forefront of organizing opposition in 2003 to the visit by homophobic Baptist Fred Phelps of Kansas. And earlier this year it was a UU ministerial intern who pushed a local observance of Martin Luther King Day.
Across Fifth Street from the UU church the Rev. Stephen Hamilton Wright is head pastor at the more middle-of-the-road First Presbyterian Church. Proving again that an old building does not necessarily bring with it more conservative ideas. First Presbyterian is more liberal on social issues than Covenant Community Presbyterian Church in Rothschild, housed in a newer building on Weston Avenue. That has prompted some congregational movement between churches. Like the UU’s, Wright says, “We’ve taken a very open, welcoming stance to the gay and lesbian community.”
Wright says political and theological conservatism don’t go hand in hand. He has staunch Republicans in his congregation who would not be comfortable in Emmanuel Baptist Church or Trinity Lutheran, which is associated with a branch of Lutheranism more conservative than the ELCA, but not so conservative as the Wisconsin synod. In terms of liberality, he puts the Presbyterians close to the United Church of Christ, a denomination in the news earlier this year when television networks refused to run its national ads saying the UCC welcomes everyone.
For Wright, being theologically liberal means openness to questions about matters of faith and a hesitancy to tell people exactly what they should believe.
But churches can change significantly under a new pastor. Also they are in many ways difficult to pigeonhole for anyone looking to neatly blend religion with being a Republican or Democrat. The Catholic Church, for example, is theologically conservative when it comes to its authority structure and stance on the ordination of women, but progressive in terms of peace, concern for the poor, and human rights. “It’s an outgrowth of what they are taught about the value of human life,” Wright says. “The Catholic position on preservation of life is pretty consistent from start to finish, all the way from opposing abortion and capital punishment and euthanasia.”
Religious experts say there is more drift between churches in recent years by those described as “spirituality seekers.” And the Internet has made it much easier. Hardly a month goes by when Wright doesn’t receive a call from a church shopper who says something like, “I’ve been to the Presbyterian website, then I went to your website, and now I want to talk to you.”
… “There’s a lot of church-changing going on and a lot less denominational loyalty … That kind of brand loyalty doesn’t really exist any more …”
Most denominations have websites where you can punch in your zip code and find out about churches near you. Factors in determining where those seekers land can included things such as how the church organ sounds, whether there’s a good choir, what activities are offered, and where the kids’ friends go.
“There’s a lot of church-changing going on, and a lot less denominational loyalty. At one time, it was very common to marry somebody you knew from a youth group. That kind of brand loyalty doesn’t really exist any more,” Wright says.
For church-shoppers he advises young adults to think about what they liked about the church of their childhood and what displeased them. He cautions against leaving or joining a church just because of the personality of the pastor. The whole package should be more important, Wright says. “If it’s the pastor, work it out. Preachers come and go.”
Don’t be shy about asking to talk to a pastor, he says, and go to the church to get a feel for it. “You can tell a lot by just going to a worship service. The first thing you notice is how they treat strangers.” He says he would care about the quality of the preaching and whether he agrees with the theology expressed. Another important clue is what the church does outside its own walls in terms of mission work and services like a food pantry.
The fastest growing Protestant denomination is the broad evangelical movement, says Jim Veninga, dean at UW-Marathon County. In addition to his administrative duties, he’s an associate professor in the history of religious studies. Naming Highland Community Church as an example, he calls them “full-service churches.” They work to connect with their congregations more than once a week through services such as daycare.
And Highland certainly has lots going on. Just looking at women’s events, their bulletin lists a quilting event in January, a program to “lift a Christian sister to the Lord with prayer and encouragement,” devotional meetings, a mother’s group praying for their children and their schools, and exercise class “where faith and fitness meet” and a group for mothers of preschoolers. Sunday school classes are held not only for youngsters, but also for men, women, teens, and couples. Bible study groups meet in Hatley, Weston, northeast Wausau, Wausau, Merrill, Rothschild and the town of Hamburg. Volleyball season starts January 10.
Veninga says some full-service churches even offer tax advice. These kinds of things go a long way in creating a “community” that most church searchers consider important.
A sense of community is what drew Eric Giordano to Mormonism. This assistant professor of political science at UWMC says he became a Mormon as a teenager for reasons largely unrelated to theology. His family life was a little topsy-turvy because his mom had remarried to a man with children. When he asked about her Mormon upbringing, she told him about the Mormon credo of always helping a fellow Mormon in need. That extended family concept appealed to him, so he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints at age 17. He uses his own story to make the point that reasons for choosing a church are varied and complex.
One of his colleagues recently completed her own church search. Anne Herda-Rapp, an assistant professor of sociology had been Catholic, but she was disillusioned by a number of the church’s positions: refusing communion to elected officials who didn’t vote in accordance with church teaching, refusing to allow priests to marry or to ordain women. She liked the social justice component of the church, but there were too many turn-offs. Herda-Rapp and her husband tried several churches and found one they like near their home in rural Lincoln County. It’s a small Methodist congregation where the female pastor talks about social justice issues.
Though they may not be religiously definitive, partisan politics are finding their way into religion more and more these days. Mark Brown, a UWMC professor of philosophy says choosing between churches is becoming more an exercise in comparative politics as church leaders feel more free to offer their opinions on secular issues of the day.
Churches used to be “in the world but not of the world,” Brown says. Now there’s less fear that politics would contaminate spirituality.
Rabbi Dan Danson of the Mount Sinai Congregation says few people in this predominantly Christian area ever “try out” the worship services at his synagogue. On average, he gets one or two people a year who just drop in to check out the Jewish faith. Overwhelmingly, if there’s a new face among the 90-household congregation, there’s a family or marriage connection. Larger cities get synagogue-shoppers, but Mount Sinai is pretty much the only show in town. Anyone from Wausau seeking another synagogue would need to drive to Green Bay or Appleton.
“We’ve go folks from seven counties. We physically take in a quarter of the state. On Saturday, people from Shawano, Oneida, Portage, Marathon, and Waupaca counties studied the Torah together,” Danson says.
He pays attention to trends in local Christian churches and says a growing church like Highland Community can create its own buzz. Some people want to be part of something that is popular and growing. Clicking with the pastor or rabbi counts too, he says. People are looking for a place to feel at home, to feel welcome, and to hear a message authentic to their beliefs.
The size thing can cut both ways, he says. Do you want to walk into a room where everybody knows who you are? Or do you prefer the relative anonymity of a larger congregation? Theology is not always paramount if a place of worship has other things going for it, Danson says. “People have an amazing ability to filter out theological messages they don’t like in a congregation they do like.”
Pastor Connor at Bethlehem Lutheran knows a little about size issues with congregations. As soon as he was ordained he was assigned to a 2,600-member church that left him cold. There was no sense of community, so he left. He was in Appleton trying to decide on a next step when he got a call about helping out in Kronewetter. The congregation has grown in his 14 months there, and he thinks he might have found his niche. “I just love being here.”
Connor doesn’t push people to join. He says he was taught to make disciples, not members. The approached worked with Renee Cottrell.
DIAL-A-CHURCH
An organization called Belief Net (http://www.BeliefNet.com) has on it’s website something called “Belief-O-Matic”. It contains 20 questions to help visitors find a faith that matches up with particular beliefs - if any. Right off the bat the questionnaire asks about the nature of your god. Possible answers range from a deity that has human form but is the Almighty and the Creator, to “none of the above.” Another question asks your belief about the afterlife and another forces a multiple-choice response to why there is suffering in the world.
The web page contains a lighthearted disclaimer that Belief-O-Matic “assumes no legal liability for the fate of your soul.”
The Internet-savvy can spend time at http://www.BeliefNet.com to learn more about various religions, or homework-lovers can take books such as the “Handbook of Denominations” out of the public library. Eventually though, after the reading and checking with friends, area ministers say what’s needed in order to make a join/no-join decision is to actually swing those big doors open and walk inside.
Pat Peckham is a staff writer and news editor for City Pages, a locally-owned and operated independent weekly, serving the Central Wisconsin area. Pat can be contacted at http://TheCityPages.com . “The Church Search” originally appeared in the December 15, 2005 edition of City Pages - Copyright 2005 City Pages, Inc. - All Rights Reserved - Reprinted here with permission.
