And the gifts of the spirit are love, joy, peace and modern hipness...

We went to Rock Harbor church on Saturday night. Here is an entire church that is built on having the spiritual gift of coolness. The new church is very 'Dwell Magazine Retro-Minimalist', with funky architectural detailing in the sanctuary, which isn't called a sanctuary because that wouldn't be cool. Exposed plywood, barcelona chairs in the lobby, gothic iron grills on the walls to satisfy the goth rockers, eclectic lighting and imagery on the stage. I think the main venue is called the "shack" or something like that. They have a cool logo, looks like a surfwear company or something.

Other mini venues at RH - 'the lounge' the 'box', the 'centre' (not center), and 'the outlet'. and their uber-hip alt venue is a hard rockin' super sexy group that meets at none other than...you guessed it: The Shark Club. This is where my brother in law worships, because it relates to his generation. "I want to go to church in a night club, because it is where I can be at church, but feel like I am experiencing an entertainment venue at the same time, where I can play pool, have a beer, and meet women, all while experiencing myself experience God."

They have a highly developed communications ministry with the following teams: "content", "graphic design", "photography", "pr/media", and "web team". This ministry focus plays on their collective professional skills, which for generation y, tend to be focused on media.

Their elders are cool, too. They wear tight jeans, diagonal striped rumpled shirts and modern intellectual eyeglasses. They don't have departments in their church like missions, worship, and senior adults. They have "teams" with active names like "reach", "arts & culture" and everything they do has cool graphics, with retro geographic shapes and the like. I don't think they have a "senior adult" team. The worship pastor is on equal par with the teaching pastor. He looks very earnest on that keyboard, with perfectly worded between-song mini-messages that challenge you to think about...well, you. How earnest are you? How dedicated are you? How purpose-driven are you? There is a race to be the first one standing when the song gets really good, to show that you "feel" the worship. "I'm getting back to the heart of worship, and its all about...me?"

The pews, no, they are chairs, are full of hip young modern couples with no children or young children, with jobs like "web designer", "CFO for punk rock record label", "graphic artist", "consultant" and "computer game designer". The hair is messy, but just right. The clothes are rumpled, but intentional. the message is very challenging, and that night, seemed all about what is RH's image. They talked about their growth, their big budget, their median age of 27, their success, their industrial building, and then their image. its the perfect Generation "y" topic...concerned with how they look, and how others think they are feeling. They are not necessarily concerned with their own feelings, just what it looks like to others when they are "feeling". I didn't see any retards, no 'humble praise', no dorky missionaries, no silly
missionary shirts from tropical locales (unless they are integrated into an intentionally eco-sensitive world-music folk outfit), no Mary Goodner (TM) missionary circles, no fat people, no poor people, no old people, no ugly people, (unless they worked their ugliness into a hair-dying, glasses-wearing, tatoo sportin', black clothes wearin' look that says, I am cool because I don't care how ugly I am, just like Janine Garafalo) no black people (unless they look white), no high schoolers (a generation y couple can't have anything over 3yrs old and still be a "young couple".) when it was over, they hurried off to their next Saturdayevening entertainment venue.

Strip away the cool experience, and you would have a church struggling to fill the sanctuary. Their growth comes by taking believers from other churches that aren't as strong at marketing and production capabilities (this was actually stated during the sermon, which wasn't really a sermon, more of a talk). One stage personality had theboldness to actually say that if we are there just to check it out, we
shouldn't be there, and should go back to our church. He also said that they wanted to purge the seats of people that were not committed, to make room for more that are. Word to yo' church hopper.

Am i jaded? yes. Is it fun to observe and categorize? Always. Have I taken artistic license and should I be sued by their media attorney? Probably. Are they any more screwed up than my church? Nope.