news-record.com

For some Christians, going to church doesn’t mean donning a suit or a dress on Sunday and slipping into a pew.

Their pastors may not even stand before them at a pulpit. Instead, they may sit among the congregation, encouraging dialogue.

Worship services in the 21st century not only encompass multimedia, but a multitude of ways to engage parishioners.
Three local churches — Mosaic of North Carolina, The 5:14 Initiative and 1.21 — reflect this. They may sing worship songs in English, Spanish or Korean. Or they may have religious discourse over a pint of beer.

But whether they meet in a home, a community center or a bar, their focus remains to worship God, love their neighbors and serve those in need.

Churches like these appeal to younger worshipers — Generation Xers and younger — who aren’t committed to any particular denomination, says James Hart, president of the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies.

“They become almost like consumers of worship,” he says. “They go wherever they want to go and shop for what different churches have to offer.”

This is because younger people tend to question authority and structure, Hart says. They are attracted to leadership principles that are more flat.

“There’s a distrust of big business and even of big churches — any kind of big institution needs to earn their trust,” he says.

And older worshippers worry about this, Hart says, because traditional, denominational congregations are shrinking. More than one in five adults who switches to a new church moves away from traditional worship, according to a Lifeway Research study.

But Hart says even if some churches may follow a nontraditional format or meet in a nontraditional environment, the word and the structure of the service often remains traditional.

And the message also remains unchanged.

One pastor’s journey

Gene Schlesinger’s path to becoming a pastor began with his wife.

Gene and Loren Schlesinger, both 28, started dating in high school, but her parents had reservations.

He had long hair and wore a hemp necklace and heavy metal T-shirts. They worried he might be a bad influence on their daughter and preferred they didn’t spend so much time together. But they didn’t restrict how often she went to church. So Gene and Loren even attended church on Friday and Saturday nights.

But something started to change within him — a quiet transformation. This passage from John 14:6 struck him one day: “...Jesus answered 'I am the way, and the truth and the life.’ ”

Gene Schlesinger decided that if he wanted to take Jesus seriously, it meant taking his word seriously.

“(Until then) I wasn’t totally coasting, but I wasn’t there for God either,” he recalls.

Loren Schlesinger wasn’t sure she wanted to be a preacher’s wife. All of the pastor’s wives she had known directed the choir and managed church activities and functions. Schlesinger, a nurse, didn’t want church to be her career.

But then she started meeting preacher’s wives her own age and saw they were different.

Gene Schlesinger realized he could be a different type of pastor, too. For example, he was among a handful of area ministers who participated in a theological series “The Gospel on Tap.” They met at The Pour House, a Greensboro bar, and discussed the Gospel as it pertains to music, television and movies. Schlesinger’s discussion was on the alternative rock band Radiohead.

“I love Radiohead, and I love Jesus, so I got to put the two together,” he says.

His own church, 1.21, used to be known as “that church that used to meet in a bar.” Its Sunday services used to be at Foothills Brewing in Winston-Salem.

Now, 1.21 meets in a small space a few minutes from the brewery. A stage faces the congregation in an area that is dimly lit. Local artists show their work there, and musicians are encouraged to perform. Neither artists nor the bands have to adhere to Christian material. Most of the parishioners — including three of its four pastors — are younger than 35.

Gene Schlesinger says 1.21 church stands for “first-century truth in the 21st century.”

Theologically, the church adheres to the Bible but in today’s context. This means its pastors may spread God’s message wherever people gather. Even in bars.

“We want to be all about Jesus but do it in a way that’s relevant now,” he says.

Church is not a building

It has been said they wouldn’t want a building if one fell on them.

Been there. Done that.

So, this group gathers every Sunday morning at someone’s home. It looks and feels like a family gathering. On this particular morning, the congregation of the 5:14 Initiative gathers in Bill and Dori Goebel’s kitchen, eager to dive into egg and cheese biscuits, warm crumb cake and a breakfast casserole.

After breakfast everyone meets in the living room for the service. Their pastor, Jimmy Renslow, doesn’t stand before them. He sits among everyone else in a circle.

Someone starts a song: “I will be glad. I will be glad in the Lord.”

Others join in.

The family’s miniature dachshund wanders into the living room. So does the Renslows’ toddler, Zuri, before she’s encouraged to join the other young children in the kitchen.

A discussion begins on how church shouldn’t be a destination.

“It makes no sense to me,” Renslow says. “Asking 'Where do you go to church?’ It’s like saying, 'Where do you go to be a man?’ I am a man.’”

And that’s why he started the 5:14 Initiative, inspired by this verse from Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “Everything in the laws and the prophets can be summed up with one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

Renslow, 41, had been in youth ministry for 20 years when he began to wonder if church couldn’t be more than just a place to go.

“Most people come — sit, listen to the sermon — and leave, perhaps touched but really making very little difference in their daily lives,” he says.

He says churches are run like businesses and recalls hours spent in meetings centered on building upkeep or staffing issues.

It made him think about creating a church without a building, one that spent time on what mattered: God and helping others. Without the overhead, they could give more money to ministries. Last year, his church of fewer than 40 members gave $30,000 to the poor.

By current standards, this worship style seems nontraditional. But the concept is actually very old and traditional, Hart says, because the Christian church started as home churches.

“It wasn’t until the third and into the fourth century that we saw public worship spaces being built for the purposes of worship,” Hart says.

The 5:14 Initiative’s worship style also is more participatory, with contributions from everyone. The “sermon” is more like a discussion, and anyone can comment at any time.

Bill Goebel says it encourages more dialogue, and he feels more engaged.

“In a normal church, you’re following a script,” he says. “Here, there’s no script. ... It allows me to bond with (God) better.”

A beautiful mosaic

A mosaic is the art of creating an image by assembling assorted pieces of glass or other material. The pieces may be different colors and irregular shapes and sizes, but when they are combined, they make up something beautiful. That’s how Peter Kim thinks of his multiethnic, multicultural church. And that’s why it’s called Mosaic.

They meet on Sunday in the community center at the FantaCity International Mall. The congregation is made up of black, white and Asian worshippers. The sermons are in English, but they sing praise songs in many languages, including Korean and Spanish. They also have regular Agape Feasts, or international potlucks.

Kim grew up in Korean Presbyterian churches but had always wanted to start a multiethnic church.

“I felt that calling, ... knowing that’s something that God mandates in the Bible,” Kim says. “It says that one day we will worship as different tribes, different languages, different nations, all people.”

In 2006, Kim left the Korean church to start his own. He met Wes Ward, a pastor at Westover Church, through service work. Ward put him in touch with Mark Maltby, who had similar aspirations. Ward also connected them to Kenny Wallace, who is multilingual and whose military family attended many churches. They had their first service in October 2007.

Wallace says it’s sad that their church would be considered unusual or nontraditional because God loves all people regardless of ethnicity, age or socio-economic status.

Hart says there isn’t yet a big movement toward establishing multiethnic or multicultural churches. But he believes this could change as the country becomes more diverse.

“Churches need to be proactive about that very thing,” he says.

Ward says churches can play a role in welcoming and assisting the immigrant and refugee communities.

“For me, it’s just a beautiful picture of God’s heart for all people,” he says. “It’s been really neat to see how the Holy Spirit has brought the three of them together to serve — an Anglo, a Korean and an African American. That’s pretty remarkable.”

For Kim, his congregation resembles what he expects to find in heaven:

“I feel like this is the final dress rehearsal before we get to heaven. This is what heaven should look like here on Earth.”

Contact Tina Firesheets at 373-3498, or tina.firesheets@news-record.com