- Sunday, January 31, 2010
Churches of Christ drop isolationist view, work with other faiths
By Bob Smietana
THE TENNESSEAN
When he was growing up, Doug Sanders learned there were two kinds of people in the world.
Those who belonged to the a cappella Churches of Christ, who were going to heaven. And those who didn't, who were going to hell.
"In the Church of Christ, we had all the answers," said Sanders, associate minister at Otter Creek Church in
Brentwood. "And if we had the answers, that meant everyone else didn't. It's kind of embarrassing to admit it, but that's the way it was."
Since the late 1800s, Churches of Christ, one of Tennessee's largest faith groups, have believed their approach to church — singing without instruments in worship, interpreting the Bible literally, taking Communion weekly and banning women from church leadership — was God's way.
That meant they kept mostly to themselves, shunned other Christians and did not participate in interfaith projects for the community.
In recent years, congregations like Otter Creek have adopted a more progressive view of their faith. They've added instruments to church services on Sunday nights and during the week. And they've begun cooperating with other faith groups, especially on charitable projects.
Sanders and others say this approach is faithful to their traditions and to the Bible. But critics say churches like
Otter Creek have replaced real Christianity with a watered-down version.
To understand what's happening in Churches of Christ, it helps to look at the Bible. That's what Thomas
Campbell, his son, Alexander Campbell, and Barton Stone were doing in the 1800s, when they founded what's known as the Restoration Movement. The Campbells and Stone believed churches of their day had split into too many denominations. Those denominations bred hostility between Christians.
So the Campbells and Stone wanted to go back to the Bible and create a simpler kind of church that could unite all denominations. Restoration congregations called themselves either Churches of Christ or simply
Christian churches.
Those early Churches of Christ followed what they believed was the New Testament model for churches. That meant observing Communion every week, baptizing adults by immersion and having no ordained clergy.
The new churches also were autonomous, with no denominational structure. Because the New Testament doesn't mention musical instruments, these new churches banned musical instruments from all worship services.
That remains true for most of the 258 Churches of Christ in the Nashville area. Statewide there are 1,443 congregations, with 166,302 members. Nationwide, there are 12,629 Churches of Christ with a total of 1,224,404 members
But churches disagree on why they sing a cappella. Some congregations do it because that's the way they've always done it. Others say that it remains the biblical model and that to use instruments in church is a sin.
"We do it out of conviction. We are rock-solid believers in it. We believe it's the kind of worship God wants in the church," said Dan Chambers, pulpit minister at Concord Road Church of Christ in Brentwood, which draws about 400 people on Sundays.
Because of that conviction, Chambers said that he's reluctant to work with people of other faiths. He doesn't want to be seen as endorsing theology that he does not agree with.
"We are accused of being isolationists and to some extent that's a fair charge," he said. "It conveys a sense of arrogance to some, and we don't mean it that way. We just have very strong personal convictions."

Church cooperates
For Otter Creek Church of Christ, that isolationist approach to ministry doesn't make sense anymore.
Over the past two years, Sanders has worked with Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews, Catholics and other local believers at Tent City, the homeless camp not far from downtown. On a recent Saturday, Sanders and others members of Otter Creek were delivering some firewood to Tent City residents when a group of Seventhday Adventists showed up.
Sanders welcomed them, and said he was glad for their help. He believes that cooperating with other faiths, especially on charitable projects, makes sense.
On Friday, Sanders and other church leaders teamed up with city officials and Room in the Inn to make sure the homeless had a place to stay. That meant setting up last-minute shelters at a number of local churches, including McKendree United Methodist, Otter Creek, Woodland Presbyterian, Holy Name Catholic Church and
St. Augustine's Chapel.
If churches didn't cooperate, that wouldn't have been possible, Sanders said.
"There's no need to be afraid to work with other people," he said.
Otter Creek also has made other changes. The church is a cappella only on Sunday mornings. At other times, such as Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, instruments are used. The congregation also holds a vespers service on Wednesday night, with chanting and a liturgical Communion service.
Churches split early
Differences of opinion have been common in the Restoration movement from the beginning, said Lee Camp, who teaches theology and ethics at Lipscomb University, a Church of Christ school.
That's because Restoration movement founder Alexander Campbell started with good intentions but a faulty assumption, Camp said. "He assumed that one could simply read the Bible and everyone would come to the same conclusions," he said. "It wasn't quite so simple."
Instead, followers of Stone and the Campbells began to split. Those in the north eventually formed two distinct groups — the Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Most in the South became the Churches of Christ group.
Along the way, the nature of the movement changed as well. In the beginning, Restoration believers said they wanted to be "Christians only," Camp said, rather than joining a denomination. Eventually, however, they began to believe they were the only true Christians.
Churches of Christ also became more moralistic. When Camp was growing up in Alabama, his church banned drinking and dancing, along with "sins" like wearing shorts and mixed bathing — girls and boys swimming together.
Wearing shorts was cause for damnation, Camp said. He recalled going on a youth group trip as a teen and passing a man wearing jogging shorts. "Our preacher said, 'He looks real nice in those shorts. They'll look real nice in hell,' " Camp said.
But Camp said that he's grateful for his Church of Christ upbringing and said that most people in the church practiced a kinder, gentler form of Christianity rather than the preacher's hellfire and brimstone.
He sees congregations like Otter Creek as regaining something the Restoration movement lost.
"We are rediscovering who we were in the 19th century," he said.
Fourth stream in works
Glenn Carson, president of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Nashville, said that congregations like
Otter Creek are creating a fourth stream of the Restoration movement, distinct from Churches of Christ and other groups.
One of the first so-called progressive congregations was Woodmont Hills in Nashville. Another is Richland
Hills Church of Christ, near Fort Worth, Texas.

"They are all larger, urban congregations, who are operating in a community church mode, rather than a
Church of Christ mode," Carson said. "And they are in the process of opening up to other denominations."
There's at least one danger in the progressive movement, Camp said. He's concerned congregations like Otter
Creek could lose their distinctive nature.
"We could just become plain vanilla evangelicals," he said. Instead, he'd like to see other Christian denominations learn from the Church of Christ, especially when it comes to weekly Communion. Other
Protestants take the Lord's Supper far less often, sometimes once a month, sometimes quarterly.
That means they are missing out on an important part of worship, he said.
Critics fear that progressives may be giving up too much of their heritage. Chambers said that even though he's reluctant to cooperate with other faith groups, he doesn't criticize Churches of Christ that do.
When it comes to a cappella music and other traditions, however, he objects.
"I am afraid that a few of our congregations have waved the white flag and are basically surrendering the whole Restoration idea," he said.
"And I don't think most Churches of Christ have waved it. I don't think they are planning to. And we are not planning to do that."
Rubel Shelly, former minister at Woodmont Hills and now president of Rochester College in Michigan, believes Churches of Christ will have to adapt in the future or lose their effectiveness. "The notion that people in the 21st century are going to find their identity in a particular denomination is getting more and more unlikely," he said.
"The issue increasingly is: Do you believe in God or not? And if you believe in God, do you believe in God as he is represented in Jesus or as he is present in Allah or in Buddhism?
"If we ever had the luxury of being divided at every nuance of belief, we are losing it in this culture."
Contact Bob Smietana at 615-259-8228 or bsmietana@tennessean.com.
- Sunday, July 4, 2010
Muslims' growth brings dilemma
Larger mosques needed, but opposition abounds
By Bob Smietana
THE TENNESSEAN
When Muslims want to pray in Rutherford County, many go to an office building on Middle Tennessee
Boulevard that houses the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.
There's usually enough room for evening prayers until Fridays when about 100 people gather during the week's main service. On warm days, it can get uncomfortable.
"During prayers, it gets so hot that the air conditioning doesn't work," said Saleh Sbenaty, a member of the mosque's board of directors. "This building was not designed for this kind of use."
Like many American mosques, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro faces a dilemma. As the number of
Muslims in the United States grows, mosques know they must expand as well. But those plans to expand often run into hostile resistance.
Opponents, like some in Murfreesboro, try to use zoning laws to block mosque building or expansion. That has left some local Muslims wondering if they are second-class citizens when it comes to religion.

"These people who go out and oppose mosques, they are opposing American values," said Yasser Salet Arafat, who is helping organize a proposed mosque in Antioch. "You are betraying America by standing against our basic values, by saying you cannot have a mosque, you cannot be a Muslim in the United States."
New mosques are rare
Of the estimated 330,000 houses of worship in the United States, only 2,500 are mosques. Fewer than 200 were built new, said Omar Khalidi, librarian for the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT.
"The vast majority of American mosques were buildings built for other purposes," he said.
The Islamic Center of Nashville, for example, first met in a house on 12th Avenue South, which was replaced with a newer building in 1987. The Salahadeen Center, home to Nashville's Kurdish Muslims, is in a former furniture store.
Those kinds of converted buildings worked for first-generation Muslim Americans. But they don't work as well for their children, Khalidi said.
While immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s were content with a place to pray, their children want more from the mosques. They want their mosques to have the same kind of amenities that many churches offer.
That has led many Muslim groups to design new mosques modeled after megachurches.
"They have gone over to the Baptist church model," he said. "... If you have a gym, if you have a basketball court and maybe even a swimming pool or other facilities, this will be more attractive to young people."
Arafat agrees.
He and other organizers of the Islamic Center of Tennessee hope to convert a movie theater at 5400 Bell Forge
Lane in Antioch into a mosque with a prayer hall, a library, classrooms and other meeting space. There are also plans for a gym. It would be the fifth major mosque in Middle Tennessee, serving an estimated 25,000 local
Muslims.
"Look at the churches," Arafat said. "They've got multipurpose spaces where you can go and play and have activities and have classes and prayer and worship — everything. The only thing you do in our mosques is pray."
Growth gets harder
Building new mosques has become increasingly difficult since 2001. Over the past three years, at least 18 mosque projects — from Mississippi to Wisconsin — have run into fierce opposition. Mosque foes cite traffic concerns and fear of terrorism.
More than 400 people flocked to a recent public meeting on Staten Island to protest the sale of an empty convent to a Muslim group there. A proposed mosque near ground zero in New York has drawn thousands of protesters. According to a poll from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, more than half of voters in New York
City oppose the project.
Hundreds of opponents packed a Rutherford County Commission meeting in mid-June to protest the
Murfreesboro mosque. Similar resistance helped derail a proposed mosque in Brentwood earlier this year when mosque organizers withdrew their request.
When supporters of the Murfreesboro mosque held a vigil June 24 at the Rutherford County Courthouse, mosque opponents showed up. Don Westcott held up a sign reading "Tolerance is not surrender of principles and truth." The Smyrna resident said he has Pakistani friends who've been persecuted for their Christian faith. That makes him suspicious of American Muslims.
"If we can stop it here, that's another brick in the wall against Islamic spread," Westcott said.
But the Rev. Russell Richardson, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, disagrees. Richardson's congregation has a new building next door to the proposed mosque site on Bradyville Highway.
"If we infringe their freedom — we infringe our freedom," he said.

Grace Baptist held a seminar recently on how to witness to Muslims, led by Rev. Raouf Ghattas, a former missionary to Syria.
Ghattas told Baptists at the meeting to always treat Muslims with respect. "If you cannot respond to them out of love, it is best to keep your mouth shut," he said.
Richardson echoed that message.
"If we can bring them to a decision for Christ, that is wonderful," he said. "And if we can't, we will still love them."
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptists' Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in Nashville, said that mosque opponents are misguided. He said that the constitution protects all faiths, even unpopular ones.
"The minute you allow the government to decide which religions are kosher and which are not, you are in big trouble," he said. "That's way above their pay grade."
The proposed mosque in Antioch also has met resistance. Metro Nashville school board member Karen
Johnson has started a petition drive, asking the movie theater's owners to sell to Nashville State Community
College.
Johnson said she doesn't oppose a mosque in Antioch. But she wants the college to buy the property. She said the theater is the only building in the area that fits the college's needs.
Not so, said Eileen Crane, executive assistant to the president at Nashville State. Crane said the school is still looking at property in the area, and is open to leasing or buying another facility. School officials have no interest in interfering with the sale of the theater, she said.
Like other faiths
The trend in mosque construction matches what's happening in other faiths, said Steve Newton, an architectural consultant for LifeWay Christian Resources. Newton, who has worked on church building projects for about 20 years, has seen a trend toward building cafes and larger lobbies to give people more places to gather.
"We are seeing a much greater emphasis on space where people can connect in intentional but unstructured ways," he said.
In the past, Newton said, congregation members lived near one another and built relationships in the community, away from church. Now people drive past local churches to find one that fits their needs and their sense of mission.
A new building also can draw people who drifted away from the faith, says Kevin Jaques, director of the
Middle Eastern and Islamic studies program at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Jaques said only one out of every five American Muslims attends the mosque on a regular basis. Many
Muslims come only for the major holidays, in the same way that some Christians show up at Christmas and
Easter.
Over the past 10 years, he said, mosques have tried to reach out to so-called cultural Muslims.
"Around the year 2000, the crisis of the American Muslim community was that the second- and thirdgeneration Muslims were leaving because the mosques were oriented around the way their parents had done things back home," he said. "They weren't accounting for American culture and customs. There's been an attempt to create ways to pull those kids back."
The opposition to local mosques has disappointed longtime members of the Nashville Muslim community.
Zainab Elberry, who moved to Nashville from Egypt in the 1970s, has worked at interfaith efforts for years.
She helped organize the first Islamic Center in Nashville.
She said that local Muslims simply want facilities that match the ones that her Christian friends enjoy.

"Why can't we have a nice place to bring our friends and grandchildren to?" she said. "When we are invited to visit our friends at churches, we want to be able to invite them back."
Contact Bob Smietana at 615-259-8228 or bsmietana@tennessean.com.
- Sunday, June 20, 2010
Publication: The Tennessean
More preachers hold down day jobs
Gigs pay the bills, but their real work is serving the Lord
By Bob Smietana
THE TENNESSEAN
ORLANDO, Fla. — Ray Gilder has some advice for Baptist preachers who are just starting out.
Prepare to get a day job.
"Make sure you have a marketable skill," said Gilder, bivocational ministries specialist for the Tennessee
Baptist Convention.
Gilder was in Orlando this past week to meet with bivocational ministers, preachers with day jobs, at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. They are truck drivers and government workers, contractors and teachers, who also feel called to preach. They often minister in out-of-the-way places, far from the spotlight.
But while Baptist megachurch pastors get the spotlight, says Gilder, bivocational ministers keep the convention running. Without them, many small churches would close, says Gilder, national coordinator for the
Southern Baptist's Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network.
And they are a growing group.
About three-quarters of Southern Baptists churches draw fewer than 100 people on Sunday morning. That means they often can't afford to pay a preacher a full-time salary. So about half of Southern Baptist churches nationwide, and two-thirds in Tennessee, rely on bivocational ministers.
"We represent the majority of churches," said Gilder, who also pastors Gath Baptist Church in McMinnville.
The idea of bivocational ministry dates back to the Bible. The Apostle Peter was a fisherman before becoming a preacher. The Apostle Paul, when he wasn't writing most of the New Testament or starting new churches, made tents for a living.
"He was a pretty good preacher on the side," Gilder said.
For much of their early history, many Southern Baptist preachers were farmers or teachers as well. That changed in the 1950s, as more churches began to hire full-time ministers.
Today, bivocational ministers can be seen as second-class citizens.
"People sometimes say, 'If they were any good as preachers, they'd have a full-time job,' " Gilder said.
That irks the Rev. Bo Brown, pastor of Community Baptist Church in Maylene, Ala.
Brown, who works for the Social Security Administration for his day job, says he works as hard as other ministers. He's not looking for a full-time church job. He took vacation time from work to attend the Orlando convention.
"Bivocational ministry is a calling," he said. "It's not something that you do until your church gets bigger and you don't have to do it anymore."

And don't call Brown a part-time pastor.
"It's not part time," he said, "because you don't work half as hard as any other minister."
Many of the bivocational ministers got a call to preach long after they'd had established careers. They often can't afford to quit their jobs and go to seminary. So they preach where they are.
That's the case of the Rev. Andy Courtney, pastor of Bledsoe Creek Baptist Church in the Sumner County community of Bethpage. He has driven a truck for the Dunlap & Kyle Tire Co. for 16 years and been a pastor for
4½ years.
"I drive a truck to pay the bills," he said, "but my job, my calling, is the pastorate."
Church pay is small
It's not a lucrative calling.
According to a 2008 compensation survey from LifeWay, the average pastor of a small church with between
50 and 74 members makes $39,459. For a bivocational pastor of the same size church, the salary is $10,181.
"I'd starve to death if I had to depend on preaching for a living," said Kenny Louden, who preaches at
McCrae's Chapel in Big Sandy, Tenn. "I don't look at preaching as a job. That's working for the Lord."
Louden runs a construction company, along with pastoring the 60 or so people who attend his church, which is part of New Harmony Baptist Church in Paris, Tenn. The church had been closed for a number of years before
Louden began preaching there.
"I preach in cowboy boots, a pair of blue jeans and a button-up shirt," he said.
Like many bivocational ministers, Louden didn't start his career as a preacher. Until his mid-30s, he didn't want much to do with church.
"I sowed a few wild oats," he said, "and I ran with a pretty rough crowd."
But his wife was a churchgoer who prayed for years that her husband would find faith. That happened when
Louden was 36.
He started preaching in his early 40s. Because he runs his company during the days, writing sermons happens at night or on the weekend.
Finding time to write sermons and take care of other pastoral duties, like visiting the sick, can be a challenge.
The Rev. Bobby Clark of Abbot Baptist Church in Mansfield, Ark., gets up at 4 in the morning to work on his sermons before going to work. He is also a contractor, and carries two phones with him. One is for work, and one for the church.
If the two ring at the same time, he answers the church phone first. Having two phones helps him draw a line between his two roles.
"I don't want to answer the phone for someone whose loved one just died in the same way I'd answer a guy calling with a problem on the job site."
Independence prized
Gilder said that in recent years, a number of pastors have decided to stay bivocational, even if their church grows large enough to hire a full-time pastor.
They believe that having financial independence allows them to preach what they want to preach in the pulpit, and allows them to stay out of church conflict.
If they disagree with the church's deacons or other members, the pastors can deal with the conflict without feeling that their job is threatened.
And some pastors say that staying in the work force helps them relate to their parishioners better.

"If someone comes in and says, 'My manager is killing me,' I can say, 'My manager is killing me, too. Let's pray together,' " said Brown, the Alabama pastor.
Contact Bob Smietana at 615-259-8228 or bsmietana@tennessean.com.
Caption:"I drive a truck to pay the bills, but my job, my calling, is the pastorate," says the Rev. Andy
Courtney, pastor of Bledsoe Creek Baptist Church in Bethpage.
JOHN PARTIPILO / FILE / THE TENNESSEAN