Vinings Lake Church is not your father’s church.
And Pastor Cody Deese, the son of a Southern Baptist pastor, doesn’t want it to be.
He said the church on Cooper Lake Road in Mableton is an “ever-evolving spiritual collective,” deconstructing and rethinking how people do church.
It’s among a growing number of congregations across the nation that offer a spiritual safe space for people who may be disillusioned by what they see in more conservative churches today.
One of the cornerstones of Vinings Lake is inclusion. Their growth comes at a time when some denominations are being torn apart over issues around same sex marriage, ordination of gay clergy and allowing women in the pulpit. Average Sunday attendance is 150.
At Vinings Lake, it’s OK to question longstanding Christian teachings: Is there a hell? What is salvation and is everyone saved from birth, regardless of the path they take in life?
And, if you really want to know whether God exists or what is forgiveness, it’s fine to discuss that as well.
“We are not against religion,” said Deese, 42. “It has a place. It’s a good starting point to nurture spirituality. But when it’s done right, it will move you beyond itself to a God who is much larger than any one religion.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
IT executive Tony Whitehead, 60, and his family have been members since 2021.
After moving to the area, they began looking for a church home. At the same time, one of the couple’s children was growing into their own as a nonbinary person.
“We were struggling a little bit with our children drifting away from a spiritual life and we wanted to find a place where we could all continue to receive a message that had the fundamentals of our traditions but also had the message of inclusivity we were seeking,” said Whitehead, who was raised Southern Baptist.
They found it at Vinings Lake.
Whitehead also likes that questions and questioning are welcome in the church.
Questioning is almost considered heresy in some faith traditions. Most evangelical Christians adhere strictly to the Word as it is written in the Bible without consideration of the time in which it was written and interpretations. They also tend to be more theologically and socially conservative.
At Vinings Lake, “Questions are part of the DNA of the place,” said Whitehead.
Religious disaffiliations and switching churches are at an all-time high, according to a new report released by the Public Religion Research Institute that examines the changing religious landscape.
There are several reasons why religiously unaffiliated Americans say they no longer identify with their childhood religion. According to the survey, 47% say it is because of their religion’s teachings about the LGBTQ community, up from 29% who cited that as the reason they left in 2016. Among the religiously unaffiliated, many cited sexual abuse scandals in several denominations.
“There is a pretty substantial and visible exit from evangelical Christianity in the U.S.,” said David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and author of “Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies.” “It’s especially led by younger people but it’s not only younger people.”
Many of them have left or have been pushed out of various expressions of faith because of theological, political and cultural reasons.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
The way many evangelicals have embraced former President Donald Trump and Trumpism has accelerated the exodus, said Gushee.
On any given Sunday, a mix of people fill the Vinings Lake’s sanctuary. They include believers, nonbelievers, agnostics and the LGBTQ community.
Deese said about 30% would not currently call themselves Christians. Instead, they would identify as “not really anything. I’m human and interested in spiritual conversation,” said Deese, who preached his first sermon at age 16 from the pulpit of his father’s church in Tennessee.
People, he said, are waking up about what it means to be Christian. What it means to look out for the least of these. What it means to be for love and justice. What does it mean to be human?
He said people are realizing that they were handed an idea that if you don’t believe certain dogma you will die and spend eternity in hell.
“Think about a 9-year-old hearing that.” It’s time for a change, Deese said.
The service, in many ways, mirrors a traditional worship service. There’s music, communion on first Sundays, and preaching. But it can also be very interactive with Deese asking the congregation — people of various backgrounds, races and ethnicities — questions and delving deeper into what he hears.
Keri Ladouceur is founder of the Post-Evangelical Collective, which was launched in 2021.
She said there is a desire among people to reimagine churches as redemptive places in the communities in which they’re located and across the globe. There’s been a hunger for revitalization in the faith community, she said.
Post evangelical representatives will gather in Raleigh, North Carolina, April 16 and 17 to share resources and information.
Katie Mair, 35, has been attending Vinings Lake for about two years.
She found the church on Google after searching for progressive, LGBTQ-affirming churches in metro Atlanta.
Deese, she said, doesn’t claim to have the exact answer to every question. “He asks more questions than answers. He wants you to think about things yourself. He doesn’t give you a list of rights or wrongs and dos and don’ts.”
