18 May 2004

NEW YORK--A new generation of church goers is forsaking not only the mainline churches of their parents and grandparents, but also the suburban megachurches in favor of emerging churches which characterize themselves most readily as alternatives.

According to the New York Times News Service this new "alt-evangelism" attracts a young generation seeking an authentic, intimate and personal religious experience, different from their "media-intensified lives."

Michael Novak, conservative theologian at the American Enterprise Institute told the Times he compares these alternative church leaders with missionaries who are adapting the gospel to the native language of the culture.

"They've learned something valuable from their faith and want to share it," Novak said.

Cameron Strang, 28, focuses his ministry on a subculture of people who are interested not only in body piercing and punk rock but also in celibacy and "extreme prayer."

"My generation is discontented with dead religion," Strang told the Times. He is the founder of Relevant Media, which produces Christian books, a Web site and Relevant magazine.

The Oral Roberts University graduate said he left a megachurch because he felt no community there.

Pastor Lee Rabe of Threads, an emerging church in Kalamazoo, Mich. told the Times that churches such as his are reaching out to a younger generation that often has no experience with religion but are also drawn to it.

"The deity-free 'church lite' of the megachurches, that's the last thing these people want," he said. "They want to talk about God. It's hard-core, not in a fire and brimstone way, but it has to be raw, real."

Many emerging churches are theologically conservative and culturally liberal. According to Rabe, their methods are all efforts toward outreach to those disenfranchised by traditional church.

"We're all sinners," he said. "Your sin isn't any worse than my sin. We don't say, 'Stop the horrible gays.' You want to reach them, you don't want to protest them. If we looked like goody-two-shoes, clean cut, we couldn't have a conversation with our lesbian friend at the coffee shop, because she couldn't relate."

A national study on students’ beliefs, conducted last year by the Higher Education Research Institute of UCLA, showed that at the same time that church attendance and spirituality dropped during the college years, students also reported more interest in prayer, religious discussions and faith.