Mount Pleasant congregation offers worship at downtown club

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Mount Pleasant congregation offers worship at downtown club
January 23, 2011
By Adam Parker
The Post and Courier

Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

-- Acts 19:8-10 (New International Version)



The idea came out of the blue.

It was a crazy idea, holding church in a rock-'n'-roll club. But the leadership at St. Andrew's Church-Mount Pleasant had been thinking for a while about extending its reach, not by purchasing land and building church buildings, not by transforming their Old Village campus into a megachurch, not by investing money in things.

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Photo by Alan Hawes

Daron Taylor gives the sermon at the City Church inside The Music Farm in downtown Charleston last Sunday. The church is a satellite of St. Andrew’s-Mount Pleasant.

No, the goal was to reach people where they live, to delve deeply into the urban landscape, to leverage existing assets, foster communities and tie them together.

It's the old way of "doing" Christianity, said the Rev. Steve Wood. It's what the Apostle Paul did when he left the synagogue in Ephesus for the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

It's what the Christians of medieval England did when they established "minster churches" (which became the important collegiate and cathedral churches) and many small parishes (which anchored the communities).

"What if we did church not at church?" the people at St. Andrew's wondered. It would open a world of possibility.

In April, they contacted the operators of the Music Farm.

In October, after months of planning and praying, Wood and his team, navigating between the rock bands and their fans, started St. Andrew's-City Church.

Going downtown

The new downtown church in some ways is bucking a trend. Just when church planting seems to be happening mostly in the suburbs -- and at the periphery of Charleston's cosmopolitan area (five recently cropped up in north Mount Pleasant) -- St. Andrew's is focusing its efforts on the peninsula.

In many churches, the congregations are getting older and struggling to attract young people, to make church seem relevant in complicated times when the Christian message has become one in a thousand transmitted each day to Americans increasingly accustomed to streaming video and downloadable "apps."

None of this deters Wood and his team, they said.

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Photo by Alan Hawes

Daron Taylor gives a sermon at the City Church. The church holds services at The Music Farm and is a satellite of St. Andrew’s-Mount Pleasant.

Todd Simonis, young adult pastor at St. Andrew's, is one of those taking the lead at City Church. He said the congregation often talks about the remaining 166 hours each week after Sunday morning services are done and how to fill them with meaningful activity.

One way, he said, is to better integrate religious life into the daily experience. The Cooper River bridge "is symbolic of the separation between faith and life," Simonis said. Taking the St. Andrew's sensibility downtown helps reduce the divide.

Wood, who leads one of the region's most dynamic churches, one that has been growing in size and ambition for many years, said he is not interested in the megachurch model with its accompanying large budgets and centralized command.

"We prefer to be fully immersed in the community," he said.

City Church is meant to offer young people (and others) a "nonthreatening" place for worship without "formal liturgical barriers," Wood said.

The Music Farm already is a gathering place for young people. Why not leverage that?

What's more, Simonis said, the club venue is a place for artistic expression, and it encourages musicians to join the church effort. Some musicians are working their way into worship teams, he said. One wrote a new song.

The team, which includes City Church worship leader Jessica Smith (who studied urban ministry at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.) and college ministry leader Daron Taylor, hopes to attract the unchurched, not those comfortable with their current congregations, Simonis said.

Flourishing

Last March, St. Andrew's severed its ties to the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and other Episcopal bodies, becoming an affiliate of the recently formed Anglican Church in North America, a theologically conservative group with a missions focus.

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Photo by Alan Hawes

Adam Jacobs (left), Kelly Wallace, along with Katie Williams and her husband, Jason Williams (glasses), listen to Daron Taylor during the City Church service Jan. 16.

During years of conflict and controversy, Wood and his colleagues worked to concentrate on parish life, community service and the priorities of the congregation, he said. They tried not to let the fight consume them.

"Post-departure, we realized how much time it took," Wood said.

It had been stressful and sometimes exhausting, he said. But cut loose from Episcopal polity and politics, St. Andrew's suddenly was faced with a blank slate, an opportunity to shape its own destiny, Wood said. Quickly the leadership turned its attention to church planning and settled on its minster strategy.

Growth keeps happening, but not always in ways you'd expect.

At the mothership in Mount Pleasant's Old Village, all the leadership positions had been filled. But with a new church plant, personnel shift around a little and new opportunities arise, both downtown and east of the Cooper River, Wood said.

Following an example

The model for this kind of urban church was offered by the Rev. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. Wood cited Keller as an inspiration and said he hopes to emulate Keller's success locally.

Redeemer has turned the megachurch concept on its head. To grow, it has gathered small congregations of worshippers at various locations throughout New York, keeping overhead expenses down and establishing a neighborhood presence.

Recently it has launched its RENEW Campaign, designed to establish three quasi-independent "generative" congregations and a semi-decentralized administrative apparatus.

These initiatives got the people at St. Andrew's thinking.

Multiple small churches located in different parts of the urban landscape can attract a variety of people across generations, Wood said. A robust main campus can house most of the bureaucratic functions and provide essential administrative support to the network of congregations.

'Fun to watch'

The essential building block at St. Andrew's is the "LifeGroup," a small set of church members with a common interest -- worship, community outreach, foreign missions, children's ministry, etc. -- that can work in tandem with other LifeGroups to accomplish large goals.

City Church is an example. A core group of about 65 church members was asked to make a two-year commitment to the downtown initiative, Wood and Simonis said.

It was difficult for some people to leave the familiar comfort of the Mount Pleasant campus to worship is a rock club, but soon it was impossible to look back with nostalgia. Soon it was the future that demanded everyone's full attention.

It didn't take long to break the 200 mark, and today about 250 attend a Sunday morning service. The model, it seems, is working.

Cars could become less necessary.

Sunday mornings could become a less isolated part of the week.

The gospel message could insinuate itself into daily life.

"It's been fun to watch," Wood said of the City Church planting effort.

"People don't leave when it's done," Simonis said. "There is very little rushing for the doors to get on with the day."