Warehouse 242

Christian Century, April 4, 2001 by Paul Wilkes

IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT in Charlotte, North Carolina, and at the Grady Cole Center the band is already up to speed, with plenty of decibels, perfectly balanced acoustics and a throbbing beat. A crowd streams through the doors, mostly Gen Xers dressed in shorts and tank tops, button-down shirts, Talbot's dresses and many variations in between. The scent of amaretto- or hazelnut-flavored coffee wafts through the air. Free designer traveling mugs are being handed out in the lobby. At each seat is another coffee "artifact"--a paper coffee filter. What's going on?

The pounding music blasting out from a rock band makes Pastor Todd Hahn, 31, think of a soaring cathedral. "Each week, we work hard to have something people can take home with them. No white noise. My people just won't put up with it."

This is weekly worship at Warehouse 242. Hahn will eventually explain the coffee filters, telling his congregation that they are "grounds" through which God pours his graces. Grace can provide a refreshing drink for the outstretched cups of a generation thirsty for something beyond a latte. It is a new variation on Paul's musings in 1 Corinthians, but Hahn knows how to connect with the Starbucks generation.

Warehouse 242 grew out of a Sunday school class at Charlotte's Forest Hill Evangelical Presbyterian Church "that just seemed to take on a life of its own," Hahn tells me. "People were exchanging phone numbers, talking before and after class, getting together outside of class. It wasn't a church, but people thought of it as their church. Forest Hill was more for baby boomers, but these people were younger and weren't completely at home there. It was obvious something was happening, the Spirit was leading us, we just had to follow." That Sunday school class grew into a Saturday night service called satpm.com, and quickly drew hundreds of Gen Xers. Then Hahn, with the blessing and financial support of Forest Hill Church, started his own congregation.

Warehouse 242 is a strange name for a church, but as I page through the thin three-ring binder that contains the history of the year-old church, its genesis is clear. Names like "New Hope Community" or "Southend" were simply not going to work for a Gen X church in Charlotte's Center City. At a marathon session someone suggested "Warehouse 242," and the name stuck. "A warehouse is a temporary place where you hold things. Stuff comes in and out.... Like churches should be, bringing people in, equipping them for life and sending them back into the world," says Hahn. Acts 2:42 ("they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship") provided the rest of the name.

When Hahn was a college student at the University of North Carolina in the mid-1980s, he met Jimmy Long, who later wrote a book about ministering to Generation X. Long predicted that Hahn would be part ora new generational ministry. "There's something different about your generation," Long said.

Today, in the house that serves as the church's temporary administration building, this pastor--with penetrating blue eyes, red hair, faded jeans, earring and nervous energy--talks about the generation that churches are eager to gather in, yet find elusive. "Everyone says Gen X people are uncommitted; it's just that they need something real to be committed to." Hahn goes on:

These are children of divorce, many of whom have no church background. They are wary, mistrustful of institutions that have disappointed us all. They are fragmented. Skeptical of certainty. Life is terribly fragile and unpredictable. They long for deep relationships. They relate to individuals, to people, not some idea or ideal or institutional line. They want to see continuity, where they fit in in this confusing time. They want to give themselves to something beyond a sort of "white bread" world that they live in, but need to see that that "something" is tangible, that it will work. They process truth relationally, so if they see that a community ... really does stand for something and will be there for them when things are going great and when they suck, then they'll commit to it.

"These people are not antichurch," Hahn adds. "For many of them, the church isn't on the screen, not part of their equation. We really do think of ourselves as missionaries to North American culture."

By 2003, Charlotte will be home to 317,000 Gen Xers. "And there is a real hunger in the postmodern culture to be rooted in something more than the contemporary. If you want Sunday school, Sunday night and midweek worship, Warehouse 242 won't suit you. If you want a church that will go into every corner of your life, every day, here we are. People spend too much time in church; they need to take what church means into the world."

Warehouse 242 is a strange combination of orthodox and contemporary. There are no fancy bulletins for the service, no standing committees (only ministries). The music is usually not Handel. Yet Hahn uses terms like "the priesthood of believers." He may process with a Celtic cross and sing a rock version of the Agnus Dei. Phone calls are more rare than e-mails. Non-Christians are called the "normal" people, and lectio divina, the ancient monastic practice of praying the scriptures, is encouraged.