KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
T'S SUNDAY AND ABOUT 20 people mingle in the Coffee Haus on Mesquite Street in Arlington, Texas.
A hodgepodge of furniture is arrayed in front of a two-person band with an acoustic guitar and a conga. People sit and bow their heads in prayer.
Worship has begun at Axxess, one of hundreds of small emerging churches throughout the United States.
Many of these church communities meet in places frequented by young adults. Many members, mostly in their 20s and 30s, are disillusioned with traditional churches.
"These congregations are a little bit different. They recognize that transformation comes from relationships," said Brad Cecil, pastor of Axxess. "We meet at a coffeehouse. It's much more casual. We have breakfast together; we sing."
These Christians are trying to recapture the intimacy of the early church, and members stress the importance of community and faith, said Bill Leonard, dean of the Divinity School and professor of church history at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.
"It reflects the 'Friends' motif for organizing the church, where the atmosphere is more like the coffeehouse on 'Friends' than the huge auditorium of the mega-church or the ... architecture of the traditional church," Leonard said. "The concern for intimacy and cultivation of community is a response to the mega-church movement, with its huge numbers and mass meetings."
A means of connecting
Still, the emerging churches are often fostered by traditional churches, which see them as a means to reach people who either have never attended or can't connect with traditional churches, said the Rev. Dennis Wiles of First Baptist Church of Arlington.
The California-based Barna Research Group says only three of 10 people in their 20s and four of 10 in their 30s attend church in a typical week.
Axxess started as a young adult ministry at Pantego Bible Church in nearby Fort Worth, Texas.
Because the churches are unstructured, it's difficult to gauge membership or how fast they are growing. Texas has at least 15 emerging churches.
Some discovered the movement online, where members converse or write online journals or blogs about spirituality, life, politics, music and God.
"There's a lot of different expressions. The commonality of a lot of emerging churches is they're not just rethinking the worship service, they're rethinking the church as a whole," said Dan Kimball, pastor at the Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, Calif., and author of "The Emerging Church" and "Emerging Worship: Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations."
"I look back on the New Testament, and the church was always changing. That word emerging simply means what's coming to the surface," he said.
As the spirit moves them
Axxess has sponsored art nights, during which members present short films, write short stories or recite poetry. Communion is an individual act. Each week a type of bread, such as a bagel or a dinner roll, and a goblet of juice are placed on a low table. Members kneel and take communion when they feel moved.
Axxess member Will Canon, 25, said mainline religious are "not really interested in asking questions. They're more interested in telling you what to think."
Andrew and Bonny Godwin, both 25, were married by Cecil, and Axxess is their first church as a couple.
"This is so stripped down; it has an acoustic feel," said Andrew Godwin, a guitar player. "For us, it's easier to focus on what's going on on the inside. It's easier to focus on what we're really doing here."
At Journey in Dallas, people write their sins in sand and brush them away. A journal is always open for people to write their prayers and read the prayers of others. The group uses the liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer.
Ecclesia in Houston has a painting station set up during the worship service, where people can use a paintbrush to express their thoughts.
'Anti-historical movement'
The movement dismisses much of Christian history between the time of Jesus and the present, said Mark G. Toulouse, professor of American religious history at the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. The churches, which use terms such as "ancient future" or "vintage faith" to describe themselves, attempt to recover what they believe are true Christian practices and adapt them to the contemporary world, Toulouse said.
"It's rather ahistorical, even an anti-historical movement," he said. "It's this interesting mix in some respects of dismissal of the important traditions of Christianity but of affirmation of ancient house churches and contemporary popular culture."
Dan Hughes, 31, spent much of his childhood abroad and when he returned to the United States, he found the American form of church too consumer-based.
"There was a vitality and an honesty that was absent," Hughes said. "I had seen Christianity in 10,000 different ways in so many different colors. I felt I was a part of that marginalized group that they were talking against from the pulpit."
Hughes said at Axxess, the Rev. Mr. Cecil threw a copy of the Apostles' Creed, a prayer of faith, on the table and asked, "So what are we going to do about this?" A three-hour conversation on the meaning and interpretation ensued.
"There was no presumption in this meeting or ever; it was about being as honestly human and as faithfully Christian as we could be," Hughes said. "The emerging movement wasn't just cool, it was really compelling because it was honest."