Hipster Churches; Still Fundie

[AuntKrazy]

This is interesting to me. I'm a member of what many would consider a "liberal" church, and we may accidentally look "hipster" on the surface soon. We are building a new building, and some choices are because spaces are designed for multiple purposes and reflect the time we are building. at the end of the day, we serve breakfast between service because we regularly have attendees who need food. Some of these visit after receiving help from our food pantry, and we believe we are supposed to feed the hungry, and to also welcome people into our midst. It's not meant to obligate anyone, or to be trendy. We've done it for 60+ years.

We also don't hide our theology.  We'll feed anyone who has need. No sermon, agreement, or hugging required.

[danvillebelle]

1 hour ago, AuntKrazy said:

We'll feed anyone who has need. No sermon, agreement, or hugging required.

This was one of the many wonderful things that drew us into our first Orthodox parish.  It was in a downtown area and we had several homeless people who ate with us most Sundays.  I only know of one that eventually converted, after having been around for over 7 years.

[Alisamer]

On 1/28/2020 at 1:16 PM, quiversR4hunting said:

My church has coffee and donuts afterwards for a donation but it is meant to have the congregation to hang out and converse with each other. 

The Baptist church I go to rolls out the coffee machine in the morning and one of the ladies brings in Krispy Kreme donuts (of her own volition) so people can snack between Rehearsals/Sunday School/Service if they want. Most people afterward zoom out to get to the restaurants before the Lutherans get out.

(That's mostly kidding, but on Main Street there is my Baptist church, a Presbyterian church, a Lutheran church, and a Methodist church all within a half mile of each other. And all those churches plus a couple others will do community events together a few times a year. When my church burned a few years ago, all those churches offered space/instruments/other help. I've attended services at all but the Presbyterian church, I think, over the years. We do things differently but none of us think the others "aren't Christian".)

On 1/28/2020 at 1:32 PM, quiversR4hunting said:

Majority of Catholics don't know what it means to just go and join a non-catholic church, I think several would wonder why there isn't a block of classes to learn about the faith they are exploring.

Some of these more hipster churches might have classes, but it's more like a few hours. I just printed the booklet one of the local big one-name evangelical churches uses that explains their statement of faith and how stuff works there (like "we love our LGBT+ neighbors but despise the life choices they've made" and "only men may be elected as elders or deacons" and such).

On 1/28/2020 at 4:40 PM, feministxtian said:

Oh, and our pastor also has a MDiv and is working on a PhD. So, make of it what you will. 

Our pastor got his PhD a few years ago. It's really nice to have a pastor who has KNOWLEDGE of the Bible and context, and is truly interested in learning and understanding it. 

We are a more traditional style church however - hymns, an organ, stained glass. Most people dress up. The older men wear suits, younger are mostly khakis or slacks and polo shirts, women wear pantsuits or dresses/skirts. But no one would side-eye anyone for wearing jeans and a t-shirt or something. I think it's largely habit. It took me years to be willing to wear pants to church, it was just NOT DONE at the church I attended through elementary school and it felt really strange. 

My cousin attends a church with the rock band and praise songs, and a traditional service as well. I tend to prefer the traditional one, I think at least partly because in the other one they just project the lyrics on the wall and if you don't know the song already you're hard-pressed to follow along. With a hymnal I can at least approximate the melody from looking at the music.

6 hours ago, SawScar2017 said:

Here we have THRIVE, SUMMIT & ELEVATION. 

 

6 hours ago, formergothardite said:

One of my sisters visited Elevation once and she said it was insane.

I suspect we're all somewhat local! I'm currently printing the newsletter for what my mom calls the "Mary Kay Cathedral". The big pink church, I'm sure you know the one.  

They are way more fundie than my (historically SBC) small Baptist church, incidentally.  And wow, do they bring in lots of money each week!

[feministxtian]

18 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

Our pastor got his PhD a few years ago. It's really nice to have a pastor who has KNOWLEDGE of the Bible and context, and is truly interested in learning and understanding it. 

My pastor wrote a book a few years ago called "I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy t-shirt". It tells his faith journey. His father was on the FBI's most wanted list, his mom had problems. He went to college, then on to law school but quit to pursue the MDiv. His wife is a LCSW with a master's degree. He's very honest with his journey and how he's gone through times when he literally would NOT pick up his bible for anything other than a sermon and felt like a fraud. Vince is a VERY interesting guy, very open and honest, and is not the typical grinning happy happy brainwashed pastor. 

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, Alisamer said:

I'm currently printing the newsletter for what my mom calls the "Mary Kay Cathedral". The big pink church, I'm sure you know the one.  

The one with the massive pipe organ?

[Denim Jumper]

The church Mr. Denim Jumper pastors always makes me smile. The congregation is a small, motley crew of same-sex couples and senior citizen hippies. Big hearts, a wealth of life experience, people with a real “come as you are” spirit. His parents still give him shit for being at “that gay church”, but thankfully he’s learning not care as much about their approval.
 

[clueliss]

Well, thanks in part to this thread, I did some digging.  Turns out the church I've been attending (and decided to back out of) is listed on the SBC website - however said affiliation is not listed on their own church.  During said dig I found this website:  https://www.churchclarity.org/   (the search function is a bit off since my search for my city/state gives me churches across the country for every city in the country with a name even close to the same).  (and for clarity, nothing against SBC but they don't match my own views and there are issues not just with LGBT+ but also with the role of women) (also that site is not all encompassing but has helped me identify a couple of churches to try out in the future)

Further clarify on my coffee comment - I was thinking specifically of a local 'mega' church that has free coffee and free donuts & bagels (not donated by members).  (said mega church also had a recent local kerfuffle due to their ongoing support of a film festival and folks spoke out protesting their anti -LGBT+ views, they then dropped out of the film festival) 

[Mom2Bubby]

I have family who live in Arkansas ( not too far from The Duggar’s).  My sibling and his family Members attend what I consider to be a hipster church. They have more of an auditorium than what I consider a church. It’s just a square building. They recently changed their name to something more “hip”. They just started selling t-shirts with the church logo in it. They have a praise and worship Group. They have songs I’ve never heard of playing on a giant movie screen and a keyboard with 3 or 4 people standing on a stage singing these songs I’ve never heard of. They also video the services. They pretty much do everything I’ve Been reading about these last 4 pages where  hipster churches are concerned. They ( my family) are also some of the most judgmental people I’ve come across. They love Trump, they are always posting about Kanye and Joel Osteen on their Facebook pages, totally against abortion of any kind, and can never just get together and hang out, it’s always called fellowshipping. They do the whole coffee bar and elaborate snacks and such. They have church on Sunday’s, but they have various meetings during the week like men’s night. They do trunk or treating at halloween( not because it’s safer, but because they don’t believe in the spirit part of it-yet they dress up and hand out candy.) I don’t hear much about what they do for others though and if they do help, they always have to make sure to post It to social media so they can be praised for it. I definitely get a fundie vibe from them. They have invited me to go to their church when I visit (I live in a different state), but I will never go there. I have a hard time biting my tongue and keeping peace when they post some of the most hateful Stuff on their Social media under the guise of being such good “Christian” people. I went to church when I was younger. I’ve been baptized. I was married in a pretty traditional church. I don’t go to church now and consider myself a Christian and a good person, but I feel I’m more spiritual than religious(if that makes sense). I feel your actions make you a good person, not the church you attend ( and how many times a week you attend said church). I’m middle aged and have always gone to more traditional churches-from Presbyterian and Methodist to Catholic and Episcopal. I even have family Members that are part of the Mormon Church( but I’ve never gone to that one). I prefer an organ and hymns and believing in trying to be a good person. I’m not sure why my family Goes to this hipster church. Maybe because they are younger( although my sibling isn’t, just his grown kids are) they like this idea of church. But I don’t get the hateful crap they spew and how they think it makes them good People. Since my sibling has been attending this church he’s changed drastically in how he acts and talks. Maybe he’s alway had such hateful beliefs and because I was younger I didn’t see that side of him. I would like to hope not.  Sorry for the rant. Guess I dislike this idea of a hipster church more than I thought. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Mom2Bubby
Added a sentence

[quiversR4hunting]

1 hour ago, Mom2Bubby said:

they like this idea of church.

I first read this as "they like the idea of church." So I will run with my thoughts. 

I think there is a segment of these hipster church goers that do like the idea of church. But they don't want to really dig deep into their own self-examination let alone the Bible. Sure they will quote it but they take other's words for it not actually study or question what they hear. They want the superficial friendship* that we see on tv meeting for coffee or brunch but not actually knowing anything deep down about the people.

So I think there is a group of people that like the idea of church because of what society says but they really just want to go to the "cool" church and drink coffee. 

*Those people are called acquaintances, I have a lot of acquaintances, we all have a lot of acquaintances or "surface" friends. Sometimes they are the "friends" we hang with at ball games or robotics competition but then when that season is over we really don't see them until the next season or we just see them on social media. 

[Alisamer]

15 hours ago, formergothardite said:

The one with the massive pipe organ?

Yep, that one!

 

 

[Giraffe]

2 hours ago, Mom2Bubby said:

They recently changed their name to something more “hip”.

Renaming seems to be part of the trend, too. I find it odd. It goes along with the entire concept of rebranding, but it’s one more thing that makes me suspicious when I notice it. 

[SilverBeach]

1 hour ago, Giraffe said:

Renaming seems to be part of the trend, too. I find it odd. It goes along with the entire concept of rebranding, but it’s one more thing that makes me suspicious when I notice it. 

My most recent church did this, going from something like Chicago Reformed (location and denomination, self explanatory) to something like Living Waters Community. Still reformed, but it isn't evident. It's definitely a rebranding thing just like done in the marketing and advertising world. Some of these churches actually use consultants to assist with the rebranding process, with the goal of boosting attendance numbers. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by SilverBeach

[Marmion]

7 hours ago, Giraffe said:

Renaming seems to be part of the trend, too. I find it odd. It goes along with the entire concept of rebranding, but it’s one more thing that makes me suspicious when I notice it. 

In fact , since you mentioned it , one of the churches I mentioned in the first page of this thread , Rust City , used to be called " The MVMT " , spelled like the watch store , as I recall .  And I did find out that they're Assemblies of God backed too , although they don't mention it , not even on their website .  { https://www.tribtoday.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2018/10/rust-city-church-chose-embarrassing-name/ , https://rustcity.church/team , https://ag.org/church?g=093d6b02-4b96-40c3-ac2f-e8fbc203d9cc&d=False }  P.S.  Since so many seemed to like one of the prior videos I'd posted , here is another , which I think satirically sums up the " hipster churches " .  

 

[Katzchen24]

This thread has been so interesting, and I feel like I must have been driving around town with my eyes closed (eek!). Went out to do a bit of op shopping, and realised the large glossy building in the same complex as the Salvos store was something called Enjoy Church. They're another organisation who have sister churches everywhere in Australia (plus Japan and the USA) and are quite cagy about their affiliation. Their "What we believe" section is even thinner on info than the C3 church one is, but does include a very similar statement about baptism.

"We believe that in order to live the holy and fruitful lives that God intends for us, we need to be baptised in water and be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables us to use spiritual gifts, and has the initial evidence of speaking in tongues."

Interestingly, there are no mentions of attitudes towards SSM and the LGBTQIA+ communities. I wonder if this is a strategy as per their mission statement "To be a large, strategic, Christian church full of life and hope."

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, Marmion said:

here is another , which I think satirically sums up the " hipster churches " .

Ha ha, this about covers it! 

[Katzchen24]

Following on from my post about Enjoy Church, I did a bit more digging. @Giraffe's earlier post had a link to Churchwatchcentral.com and I went there to see what else I could find.

From the Churchwatch article:

“One of the most far-reaching initiatives to emerge from the apostolic leadership of the Assemblies of God has been the formation of the Australian Christian Churches (ACC) in February 2000. Brian Houston and the National Executive led their pastors and churches to form an umbrella group to unify the activities and image of the Pentecostal churches in Australia. Each affiliating movement has retained its own identity and organisational structure, but has adopted the same logo, and cooperates in welfare, missions, church planting and conferences.”

It's really hard to find any kind of information on these churches, but the Churchwatch article had a pdf document which discussed Australian tertiary institution, AlphaCrucis College's push to become a university. This is important because AC College comes under the auspices of the ACC and is a Pentecostal college with branches throughout Australia. Page 7 of the document has a list of ACC affiliated churches and it is ENORMOUS. Enjoy Church, and C3 are there too. I think this answers some questions for me at least about what these organisations really believe.

[LiterallyBananas]

On 1/28/2020 at 12:28 PM, formergothardite said:

They all seem to dress the same and make the same generic "spiritual" social media posts. There seems to me to be two types of people into these sorts of churches, there are the true believers who do their best to suck people into believing hateful things, and then there are those sorts of people who maybe don't believe any of the hate and don't really think deeply about what their church stands for, they just think it is fun. 

This made me think of my mom and gratitude toward the church I grew up in. I'm not super familiar with its dynamic now, but based on conversations with my mom I think it easily could've taken the route of close mindedness and/or superficiality. It's a larger church so I'm sure some do have those experiences. But overall it seems like they've maintained authentic leadership - individuals driven to constantly, genuinely reassess their own behavior and spirituality; those who, above all, believe God is love.

I've since moved away and no longer consider myself religious, but I still think back positively on the time I spent at that particular church - until childhood trauma culminated to depression/anxiety/an eating disorder, etc and related family dysfunction that could no longer be repressed. And I had experiences in college that resulted in leaving the church as a whole. But it's nice to be reminded of when I absolutely loved my hometown church. Tbh most of my most positive pre-teen and teenage memories involve church activities and related friendships. And it was church friends who held me up when shit really started to hit the fan. ?‍♀️

Anyway. That was therapeutic to talk about.

Oh, but the church and not being superficial. I know at one point they'd kind of adopted an elementary school in an underserved area of town. The school only had a janitor part time, so they made a schedule of volunteers to help clean (toilets, everything) and do outdoor maintenance. I think they still have a program to send the kids home with backpacks of food on the weekends. IIRC it wasn't even really something that had the church's name attached to it, they just did it because they saw the need.

I believe they're also involved in supporting youth outreach programs that aren't necessarily church related. It's become a tradition in the family to donate money instead of gifts - almost selfishly, because we're all picky and have too much crap to begin with. Two years ago Mom donated to an organization working to give students better access to mental health treatment, and this year it was to Teen Reach. I want to say her church supports the organizations but isn't directly involved. 

Idk. The big, nondenominational churches don't all totally suck, but a lot give me weird, almost cult-y feelings. Or are more of prosperity gospel focused (to add to the Hillsong commentary, I think I read somewhere a few of the Hillsong churches are unfortunately leaning that direction). 

Aaaand this is why I tend to lurk and not comment. I end up writing novels that are slightly off topic. 

Edited February 1, 2020 by LiterallyBananas
words are hard

[Hane]

@LiterallyBananas, long posts that veer off topic are a revered FJ tradition! We all welcome your input.

[LiterallyBananas]

@Hane and that is why I love FJ.  My brain is very "oh look, squirrel!" 

[feministxtian]

7 minutes ago, LiterallyBananas said:

@Hane and that is why I love FJ.  My brain is very "oh look, squirrel!" 

and...."Ooooooohhhhhhh shiny" 

[Giraffe]

18 minutes ago, LiterallyBananas said:

@Hane and that is why I love FJ.  My brain is very "oh look, squirrel!" 

Welcome to the club. ❤️

[Petronella]

On 1/29/2020 at 1:07 AM, feministxtian said:

For our church is more of the ideas of conservative dress, looking down your nose at someone, being 'holier than thou" about things. We're an open and accepting church, nobody gives a damn about your past, who you love, how you dress, what kind of car you drive, what color your hair is or how many tattoos you have. Our pastor has tats, our youth pastor (female) has a full sleeve from shoulder to fingers, and more elsewhere, her current hairstyle is a half mohawk dyed purple. We've had people visit the church and walk out before the service even started. You'll hear some profanity in the large area outside the auditorium, none of us are "pure". Our pastor is a good guy, he and I are actually a lot alike and we've had many conversations over coffee about that. I was beyond shocked when he showed up in a suit and tie for David's funeral. It was literally the first time I'd seen him that dressed up! We don't have many (if any) homeschooling families, lots of single parents, working couples. Nobody literally gives a shit about it. 

See, this attitude seems to me to be as intense and controlling as the fundies but in the other direction. Are people who dress in a more toned-down way welcomed, or looked upon with suspicion? I think what you're trying to say is that you welcome everyone, but you speak so aggressively against modesty and typicality that it feels judgmental in the other direction.

I agree with the poster who found it odd for a pastor to say they don't like "church." Why not broaden their idea of what church is? And if they already have, in terms of the kind of church they lead, why not embrace that wider definition instead of putting others down?

It reminds me of a church that opened in our neighbourhood in California years ago. At the time, we attended a church that had a praise band and modern worship music. We liked it! It was nice. We also appreciated classical music and hymns, and now in England we attend churches (we're part of two) with more traditional music and organs. Also nice! But this church that opened in our California neighbourhood, they sent postcards to all the homes in the area to introduce themselves. A big selling point of theirs was "not an organ in sight!" And I was like, why are you being critical about a different form of church music? If you have a band, say you have a band. That's great, and people who want a band will be drawn to that. But why put down churches that have a different kind of music? Why can't we all be friends? I never went near that church. No desire to take part in that kind of negativity.

[nelliebelle1197]

On 1/28/2020 at 2:34 AM, hoipolloi said:

That Mosaic Church has a list of by-laws and a constitution that are nothing but a giant red flag to me.

Considering the ways one can leave that "church" it sounds more like the Hotel California than anything else:

These people may be young, serve the designer coffee, have musical praise bands, and wear the flannel shirts, but they're still a bunch of controlling, fundie ass hats.

After looking at some of their pictures, I am think we should call them fundie assbrats

[feministxtian]

@Petronella Its more of there's no dress code. Our congregation is more like the "island of misfit toys". We lean more towards people who wouldn't "fit" in a different church. We're not a "megachurch", we're actually quite small. That makes it much easier to get to know people and the pastoral staff. There are plenty of churches here for the "churchy" people, there are 3 fairly large churches that have all the hippy-dippy programming and are still quite fundy in view. Us? Nope. We take mission trips to places like India to build homes for women and children who have gotten caught up into sex slavery, build houses in Mexico, work with kids in what is considered the worst neighborhood in Vegas. 

[crawfishgirl]

I've been looking for a new church in my area.  I've never been a regular churchgoer.  I like the Unity churches because they are inclusive and focus on spirituality and not rules.  There is a good one in my city, but it's not close.  It doesn't have many kids there, and I would like for my teenagers to have a youth group to attend with people who live in this general vicinity.  So, I've been looking for a church in the area to attend, that is not too conservative.  I've been just casually looking for a while now.  I read their websites for red flags before I'll visit - but again, I'm not really actively looking.

I have an acquaintance that works part time at a nearby Methodist church.  One day (it's been a couple of years now) I asked her about it, and she told me that their membership had been dwindling (it's an older church in a somewhat older area), and they brought in a new minister, and were looking to attract new members.  Their new minister told them to look for younger families to approach, since they would populate the church as they grew older.  They were targeting up to age 35 or so.  She was in her mid/late 30's when she mentioned this to me, and laughingly told me that she was at the upper edge of it.  I think she saw my expression at that point, and started backpedaling a bit (I was 50 at the time - I had younger children since i had kids later in life), but needless to say, I never tried that church, and I definitely never will.  

Now when I look at churches to consider, I wonder to myself if I will be accepted at them, because I am in my 50's now.  It's a troubling thought.