Sermon, song and worship come before Sunday matinee

WASHINGTON - When the medieval church wanted to communicate the biblical narratives to a largely illiterate society, it used stained-glass windows to illustrate the stories.So as the modern church looks for ways to reach a generation unfamiliar with the Bible, the most obvious medium, they say, is movie theaters.

"Theaters are our 21st century stained glass," said Joel Schmidgall, one of the pastors of National Community Church, a congregation that meets in four campuses - three movie theaters and a church-owned coffeehouse - around Washington.

"We wanted to be in the middle of the marketplace where people are used to going already," he said.

Most people that attend National Community Church are people who grew up going to church and have since stopped going, or those who have never been to church at all, he said.

"People might not be comfortable going to a church building, but they might go and check out something at a movie theater," he said.

Churches have been meeting in theaters for a number of years, but the trend has exploded in recent years. Barry Brown, director of regional sales at National CineMedia, said six years ago, only three churches were meeting in theaters through National CineMedia. Today, they number more than 180.

"The theaters have down time on Sunday mornings, and from a church perspective, it's a cost-effective way to get some space," Brown said.

On a recent Sunday morning, worshipers filed past an empty food court in the basement of Washington's Union Station and into the movie theater that National Community Church calls home. Some stopped at the concession stand for a cup of coffee that they carried into the dimly lit theater.

As the service starts, a live band springs to life and lyrics to praise songs are flashed on the giant screen. Schmidgall used the screen to show a short film clip and to broadcast a PowerPoint outline of his sermon.

The congregation of about 1,200 regular attendees uses two theaters at Union Station in northeast on Sunday mornings; childcare is provided in the hallways. Services are sometimes broadcast to the two satellite cinema locations and the nearby Ebenezer's Coffeehouse, which the church renovated and opened in 2006.

Having church in a theater may seem a bit unconventional, but pastors say people are attracted to the idea. "They are engaged and excited about what we are doing," said Jeff Bell, pastor of Granger Community Church in Elkhart, Ind.

Instead of trying to bring people to the church, pastors of cinema churches try to bring the church to the people. People know what to expect when they walk into a movie theater, but that's not always the case when they walk through the doors of a traditional church.

"It's an attempt on behalf of pastors to create space that will be hospitable for people searching for God," said Brian McLaren, the author of "Everything Must Change,'' and a popular speaker among new-wave Christian leaders. "A lot of people who don't go to church feel like it's foreign."

Bell said his Indiana church was initially "a little hesitant'' about whether worshipers would come to a theater. But because "people come to the movies expecting to be moved by something on a screen," a cinema church feels comfortable, familiar, he said.

"Our original church campus is 15 miles away," Bell said, "and with the economy in its current state, people are less willing to travel far to church. This allows us to have a presence in the community."

Going into the cities and utilizing the theaters reaches a demographic that has been ignored for a number of years. Decades ago, many churches followed their members to the suburbs, and for some who stayed, members were not willing to drive back downtown for church.

"Statistically, urban areas are the least churched part of county with the youngest people," said Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Seattle's Mars Hill Church and founder of Acts 29, a church planting network that has helped start more than 150 churches nationally and internationally.

Not only do these churches go to where the people are, they speak their language. Driscoll's church, for example, allows worshipers to send text messages to the pastor while he's preaching.

Theater churches and other nontraditional types of services are affecting the people around them. Driscoll's church started 12 years ago and now has 20 services with seven locations in Washington State.

"I think for many people, this is a scary time for the church," McLaren said. "Others of us see it as a time for creativity.