Keeping the faith, in their way

When John Hutchins took his wife and two children to visit Buckhead Church about 18 months ago, his 7-year-old daughter, eyeing the rock band onstage, theater lighting and big-screen monitors, said, “Daddy, I thought you said we were going to church.”

Hutchins, who is the son of a Methodist minister, said, “It’s not like my father’s church at all.”

This church does not belong to a denomination, has no liturgy or stained glass and offers communion only occasionally. It has a flashy Web site and high-energy classes from Bible study to family finance.

Some of the fastest-growing congregations in the United States are those that leave behind denominations, stultifying services and internecine theological fights and offer contemporary styles of music and communication. They are growing because Americans seem to love their innovation and family-centeredness and because their leaders have learned to apply entrepreneurial principles to faith.

Metro Atlanta has its share, large and small. Buckhead Church, with sister churches North Point Community Church in Alpharetta and Browns Bridge Church in Cumming, together attract about 20,000 on Sundays. Newcomer Courageous Church started in downtown office space in January, and attracts about 100.

Andy Stanley, the son of one of America’s best-known Southern Baptist ministers, the Rev. Charles Stanley, helped start and pastors North Point and its affiliates. The initial idea was to start a new Southern Baptist congregation, “but it occurred to us that would be a hindrance rather than a help,” he said.

Andy Stanley and other leaders winced at Baptist cultural baggage, such as the denomination’s call to boycott Disney for allowing gay day at theme parks. They dreaded the lethargy of bureaucracy. Stanley remembered enjoying the lack of church trappings when he led members of his dad’s congregation as the church moved into a former industrial building.

Starting anew, he wanted freedom to use flexible business models and packaging that people who did not grow up in church would understand —- from informal dress to a stage rather than a dais, and music that sounds like what people listen to on the radio, Stanley said.

It is a growing movement. The American Religious Identification Survey shows that in 1990, 194,000 Americans identified themselves as nondenominational. In 2008, it was 8 million.

About one-third of nondenominational churches are megachurches, having more than 2,000 members, and nearly all are evangelical.

Meanwhile, attendance at mainline churches and at the Southern Baptist Convention is declining.

A handful of the new churches are pastored by sons of famous ministers, such as North Point and Grapevine Church outside Dallas, led by another son of a former Southern Baptist president.

Scott Thumma, a professor of sociology of religion at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, said going independent gives them the chance to move out from under their fathers’ and denominations’ expectations and fuse entrepreneurship with faith.

Dave Travis, an Atlantan and director of Leadership Network, a church training organization, was at a conference recently of 4,000 pastors interested in starting new congregations. “And not one wants to be in a denomination,” he said.

Americans are at ease with crossing church borders —- about half have switched denominations or faiths in their lifetime, according to the Pew Center. Disenchantment with denominations’ public image of feuding, particular teachings such as being against drinking, and their lack of contemporary feel help push people toward cutting those ties, Travis said.

Jason T. Berggren, 36, represents that group. He is a North Point member and wrote a book, “10 Things I Hate About Christianity: Working Through the Frustrations of Faith” (X Media, $14.99).

Berggren wrestles with religious trappings, such as the benefits of sleeping in over going to church, and why Christians seem obsessed with rules.

He grew up not going to church and became a Christian at 20. His wife grew up Catholic. They both wanted their faith to be accessible and relevant to everyday life, as opposed to hidden in ritual. He wanted to walk out of church feeling inspired, challenged to be better. And he wanted to be comfortable in the same way he would be in going to a baseball game, as opposed to a museum, he said. “I think that is why people gravitate toward nondenominational churches,” he said.

Hutchins said when his children are older, perhaps he will return to a more liturgical church. He misses saying the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed as a congregation.

“There’s a sense of community in that,” he said.

But North Point and its active children’s programs meet his family’s needs, for now.

Stanley knows his style church isn’t for everyone.

“I don’t feel like we are the right way. I feel like we are another way,” he said.