First Sunday: congregating - new presbyterian congregation, Connor Prairie, Indiana - Column

Christian Century, August 24, 1994 by Carl R. Smith

A new congregation has a significance that goes beyond its size, for it lives in that enchanted land called church growth. This is particularly true for Presbyterians, who have been reminded again and again that their membership has dropped 30 percent in 30 years. It was with much excitement, then, that 177 worshipers gathered last December for the first public meeting of a new Presbyterian congregation at the conference center of Connor Prairie, a reconstructed 19th-century village north of Indianapolis.

A nucleus of 30 or so interested people had been meeting for several months with Charles Denison, the organizing pastor. They wrote a three-point statement of mission stressing their belief in a growing commitment to Christ, to the people of Christ and to the work of Christ in the world. The operative word was "growing." "Growing" referred to inner spiritual development as well as numerical increase. In a three-page flyer sent to 17,000 area residents, Denison said, "We feel destined to become a large church, but we will never become an impersonal church."

Considerable energy was spent to see that the church got off to a fast start. In addition to the three-page flyer, 2,000 calls were made to area residents. Town weeklies carried interviews with the pastor. Ads were placed in suburban and city papers.

When I walked into the meeting room ten minutes before the first service, other kinds of preparatory work were immediately apparent. Coffee and rolls were being offered, and name tags and felt pens were available. Professionally designed color brochures described the mission of the congregation. On the wall behind the refreshments were poster-size color photos of charter members standing in the soybean field where they expected the New Hope Presbyterian Church building to rise.

We took our seats, still finishing cups of coffee. Looking around, one could see that most worshipers were in their 30s or 40s. Women outnumbered men. The congregation seemed to reflect the demographic data the presbytery used in studying the area. That information predicted that 90 percent of the newcomers would be "prosperous suburban families." These people tend to own their own homes, read the Wall Street Journal, drive compact cars and play golf more than the population as a whole. They also tend toward the Reformed and Episcopal traditions.

The service was not quite vintage Presbyterian. Traditionalists would have noticed that the order of service lacked a confession of sin and an affirmation of faith. Churchgoers particular about the liturgical calendar would have noticed the absence of Advent hymns. The organizing pastor and a visiting minister wore Geneva gowns. The visiting minister assisted in the baptism of a child, a tender, symbolic act at the beginning of a congregation's life.

In place of a children's sermon, a clown with sky-blue hair knelt among the 40 children and talked about Jonah while inflating balloons, and twisting them into whale shapes. The story of Jonah was not one of the day's scriptures, but it lent itself to the medium the clown used and caught the attention of both adults and children. At the end of the story, the clown led the children off Pied Piper fashion to another room for an hour of church school.

Choosing Advent as a time for the first public service helped ensure a memorable beginning. The sermon had two intertwined themes: the coming of Jesus and the birth of a new congregation. The sermon addressed the questions, "What beliefs guide this congregation?" and "What will this church be like?" Denison said that he hoped God's grace would be experienced in "the emotional, intellectual and inner lives" of the people. Clearly, he did not come to this growing suburb with a set of take-it-or-leave-it doctrines. He knew he was preaching to a baby-boomer congregation concerned about personal growth and the need for community. Like many of his contemporaries, this middle-aged pastor used stories to convey his ideas. The congregation seemed to be paying attention, laughing when he told a story about a childhood fishing trip and nodding when he summarized the core committee's vision.

The order of service called for few congregational responses, though we sang carols and the Doxology, said the Lord's Prayer and joined in a contemporary "Prayer of Advent." Except for the Advent prayer, one could get through the service without a printed bulletin.

The week after this service I talked with Charles and Cynthia Denison and a handful of the people who had been part of the congregation on the first Sunday. Denison said he has to remind himself that he "wasn't sent here to plant a typical Presbyterian church. It has to be something different." A woman whose family had attended a more established congregation in the community commented, "An old church makes you fight to get in. I'm the kind of person who likes to be with people who respect a 'take charge' woman." She believes that a new congregation is more open to ideas.

Another family attracted to New Hope Presbyterian came from a 200-year-old church in Ohio. They had sought out a traditional church in the suburbs, but had been disappointed. "It's really hard to get beyond the door of an established church," the husband explained. After sitting in church almost anonymously for several months, the family decided they needed to be with people who were more open. They found their way to the rented room at the conference center and met others on the same quest.