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

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

These worshipers came to church looking for community. According to Daniel V. A. Olson, a sociologist at Indiana University at South Bend, the search for friends is why most people are drawn to a new church. Denison and the lay leaders of the parish seem to be aware of the need to provide manageable clusters of people with similar needs or interests. They announced in the bulletin that several small groups were being formed: an evening Bible study, a group for stay-at-home moms and a group of Habitat for Humanity volunteers.

What kind of Presbyterian church this will be is yet unclear. Its roots are in the Reformed tradition and almost all the members of the core committee are Presbyterians. Denison wants this church to become a self-conscious part of the wider church. The laypeople I talked with, however, don't evidence much of a hankering for Calvin. They want the church to be something different, though they are not sure how. One worshiper said, "I like the idea of being in a church that wants to be ready for the 21st century." Another hoped that the new parish would have a mix of traditional and contemporary preaching. He wanted to learn about the Bible and history and about how to apply both to his life.

The congregation agreed that there should be social outreach from the start. Next to a coffee urn lay a brochure that urged members to volunteer at a local psychiatric hospital. A sign-up sheet was also available for people willing to volunteer at Sojourners' House, a refuge for battered women and their children. The first-year budget of the new church has a healthy 10 percent for Presbyterian missions. (In the regional synod, the average pledge to denominational missions is 6.5 percent.)

New churches are indeed "something old, something new." And because they are a new creation in which the wider church has invested so many resources and so much hope, they deserve attention.

First, the whole church can learn from new churches' success and frustrations in reaching new members. The reasons why people come to a new congregation may prod established churches to ask why people stay away from their own doors.

New churches also are laboratories for the use of the demographic data now being retailed to denominations. What used to be known only to McDonald's is now available to judicatory committees. This information was vital in planning New Hope Presbyterian. Such data can help older congregations shape their mission arid plot their future. It takes time and a receptive spirit to use this information. Churches like New Hope may show the rest of us that data banks can be friendly.

Finally, New Hope Presbyterian will probably be a place where new liturgical forms are tested. Music is an example: the members of the congregation began singing accompanied only by Charles Denison's guitar. They now rent a piano and are planning to buy a keyboard. Perhaps an organ will come next.

The future of mainline denominations may be written in part by the people who leave their old neighborhoods and churches and shape new congregations. They carry old denominational names with them, but they express that tradition in new language and media. These new congregations are not Old First transplanted. And Old First may pick up something from them.