Popular Church Looking for Home in Bozeman

Brook Griffin, Staff Writer - Bozeman Daily Chronicle
June 05, 2005

BILLINGS - The band is lit with red lights, making it look as if it were covered in blood. The Sunday morning crowd is huge, casual, predominantly dressed in jeans and T-shirts. If someone in the congregation was wearing a tie, they would stand out like a Pharisee among the faithful.

Welcome to Harvest Church, one of the largest congregations in Billings. So large in fact that several members are moving to Bozeman to start what church leaders call a "daughter church."

Hopkins wants to rent out a school in Bozeman until Journey Church becomes large enough to build its own facility. If the Billings membership is any indication of the church's popularity, it might not take long.

Harvest Church is celebrating its first year in a new building, on the outskirts of Billings Heights. On any given weekend more than 2,000 people attend three different services, latecomers stand in the lobby where there is coffee and punch. Harvest Church itself was the offspring of another church in town, but Harvest has grown by leaps and bounds in its first few years, and it has the calender to prove it.

There are events and programs nearly every day of the week, and members are encouraged to get involved. There are classes for women, classes for men, drum lessons, evangelical recovery classes, even a climbing wall outside the church. The church is planning to build its own public pool eventually as well.

Some of those efforts might be a little shocking. The Lazarus Project, for example, involves a church-owned hearse that's modified with an array of coffin-shaking speakers in the cab. It hauls a casket on trailer with a barbecue and ice chest inside.

The concept, which is based on the Bible story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, is intended to first turn heads and then get people thinking about their own mortality. Hopkins said he would like to bring the hearse to this year's Warped Tour concert in Bozeman to attract attention to Journey Church's message.

Such unique gimmicks, however, are often criticized by non-members.

"We've been accused of commercialization of the gospel and called a 'disco church,'" said senior pastor Vern Streeter in a recent Sunday morning sermon. "But we don't water down the gospel."

The musical portion of the service is right out of a contemporary rock concert, complete with guitar solos and lighting effects. Sermons sometimes include short films projected on a large screen above the pastor that relate to the topic. All of this is part of the church's effort to fuel enthusiasm and help people connect with God. It can be an addictive experience.

Marvin Shaw, a retired professor of religious studies at Montana State University, said many churches in America are crafting services along those lines.

"The emphasis is on an emotional experience, an emotional high that's very powerful," Shaw said. "On the other hand you need it again and again."

Journey Church plans to hold its first service in Bozeman on June 26, with once-a-month services until September, when the church should be ready to assemble weekly. Despite the tight schedule, Hopkins has not revealed which school he would use, saying he doesn't want to make an announcement until final arrangements are made with the Bozeman School District.

Whether Journey Church will generate the same level of interest in Bozeman as Harvest Creek has in Billings remains an open question.

But Chris Blackmore, senior pastor at Evangelical Free Church in Bozeman, where attendance has grown from nine people meeting in his home in 1973 to 900 worshipers each weekend, said size can make a difference to the church's overall health.

"The average church in America may be in the vicinity of 100 people and supports one pastor," he said. "A church of 900 tends to be a little more efficient."

But he said he is not threatened by another church moving into town. "It's never discouraged," Blackmore said. "I want people where they feel they can grow the most."

Frank Coil is the moderator of the Gallatin Valley Interfaith Association, a local group of 35 churches with members ranging from Muslims to Christian Scientists. He said the association welcomes additional places of worship to the valley.

"We look at it as a group we can help support," Coil, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said. "We realize there are doctrinal differences, but we can work together for the greater good."

For future members of Journey Church, the attraction is in being part of the enthusiastic effort to spread the message in Bozeman.

"A church like Journey is not coming to rob people away from other churches," said Jon Oakland, 42, a member of Evangelical Free Church.

Oakland, along with his wife Michele, 41, plans to leave that church to help Journey get off the ground in the months to come.

"There are a lot of people (in Bozeman) who are unchurched and I think Journey will give them a good option," he said. "For Michele and I it wasn't much of a thought process. We like that kind of church."