TheBurg

12 | theburgnews.com | 02.19 O n a still Sunday night in January, the Stage on Herr buzzed with alternative rock as concert lights blared on an empty stage. A handful of 20 and 30-somethings, drinks in hand, made small talk as they waited for the evening's program to start. ey weren't there for a concert or dance party, which you can find at the Midtown Harrisburg performance venue almost any night of the week. Instead, they were settling in for church. e Hummelstown-based church e Bridge has held Sunday evening services at Stage on Herr, one of the performance venues within the House of Music, Arts and Culture (HMAC), for the past year. ey know that a bar and rowdy concert venue isn't a typical place to hold a worship service. But according to its leaders, that's not a problem. "ere's no boundary on what a church has to look like in our world," said Alyson Wert, e Bridge's Midtown campus pastor. "When we were looking for a venue, no space was off limits, and no idea was off the table." e Bridge is hardly the first church to plant itself in a quirky venue or swap out organ music for contemporary praise songs. A growing number of congregations have left historic church buildings in favor of non-traditional, mixed-use spaces in recent years, participating in what religious leaders say is a broader re-invention of white, evangelical and mainline churches for an increasingly secular American public. As a recent announcement by Harrisburg's United Methodist Conference shows, even long-established churches are starting to look for a change in scenery. e Susquehanna Conference of the UMC said in December that it would consolidate 10 congregations across Harrisburg as it prepares to sell numerous historic church buildings. e congregations will meet in one location starting this spring, and church leaders eventually hope to open five new worship locations around the city. It's unlikely that any of the new campuses will have steeples or stained glass. Conference leaders are scouting out community centers, schools and entertainment venues instead. "Basically, it's taking church out of the context it's always been in," said Shawn Gilgore, communications director for the Susquehanna Conference. "We're looking for spaces and places that that aren't intimidating to people who are looking for a spiritual community." As other churches in the Harrisburg area have already shown, there's almost no limit on what space can become a house of worship. Since 2005, Harrisburg's Brethren in Christ Church has met in a converted car dealership on Derry Street. e rapidly growing, Lancaster-based church LCBC—shorthand for Lives Changed by Christ— recently announced plans to purchase a former ice-skating rink in Mechanicsburg and convert it into a campus with a 700-seat sanctuary. (Its leaders declined to comment for this story.) Up on Allison Hill, Wildheart Ministries holds fiery, jam-band style worship in an Instagram-worthy mansion on S. 13th Street. e circa-1900 estate is also command central for Wildheart's community service projects and houses missionaries working in Allison Hill. Gilgore estimates that the movement of churches out of traditional church buildings has swelled in the past decade. For many churches, the motivations are just as much spiritual as they are financial. new PossIbILItIes Data from the Pew Research Center show that the American public is becoming less religious with each passing year. Devout Baby Boomers and Generation Xers still log regular attendance at Christian worship services, but a growing minority of Americans say they do not identify with any organized faith. As a result, overall church membership—especially in white, evangelical churches—has dwindled over the past two decades. Coupled with the 2008 financial crisis, stagnant or declining membership numbers have forced many churches to find creative ways to cut costs. e UMC Conference in Harrisburg, for instance, calculated that it had just 400 members across its 10 church locations before it announced its consolidation plans in 2018. at figure was a far cry from its membership rolls a few decades ago, when a single church would likely count hundreds of regular parishioners. With only a small congregation to support its maintenance, a historic church building can siphon precious resources from clergy salaries or outreach programs. ese factors have led the UMC Conference to drastically reimagine what a church can look like. Unloading 10 of its church properties and leasing newer, smaller spaces will give the church more flexibility to ramp up ministerial programs across the city, Gilgore said. ReliGious movement Christians in the Harrisburg area are eschewing old church buildings to meet in bars, homes and commercial properties. What's driving the change? bY LIZZY hArdIson Wildheart Ministries holds Monday night worship services with live music in the living room of a historic mansion (right, top) on S. 13th Street in Allison Hill.

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