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In an effort to
reach out to younger members, some churches are renting cinemas for
services. For theaters, it means added revenue.
By
David
Cho
,
Washington
Post
The marquee
outside the Regal Countryside Cinemas in
Sterling
,
Va.
, reads "X2: X-Men United." But inside, rock music blares and
the big screen in Theater 14 is displaying not action-figure heroes but
lyrics about Jesus. For an hour or so each Sunday morning, the sound of
worship displaces the soundtracks of
Hollywood
in this unlikely setting.
From their
cushioned stadium seating, members of New Life Christian Church call on God,
lifting their hands in prayer while a live band leads them in song.
From the sticky
floors to the buckets used to collect monetary offerings, New Life is
bringing God to the box office, and soon he could be coming to a theater
near you.
Regal
Entertainment Group, owner of the largest theater chain in the country,
started the year with 10 churches meeting in its auditoriums. Now it has 50.
The venture has shown so much potential that company officials are looking
for ways to attract more congregations, said Ray Nutt, executive vice
president of Regal's marketing division.
In the past
churches might rent theater space, but only until they could afford a
building of their own. But now there's a trend of congregations moving into
cinema multiplexes because the locations are well-known in their communities
and the atmosphere is more appealing to people who consider traditional
churches intimidating — or boring, leaders say.
Church at the
Mall, for instance, moved into Crown Theaters in
Annapolis
,
Md.
, in April, leaving behind the red-brick, white-steeple church it built
in 1965. Attendance had been dipping for two decades and was down to about
60 people, said senior pastor Bill Chamberlin, but it started picking up
again just two weeks after the move to the mall.
"Our motto
is, 'Change the way you think about church,' " he said. "It was
evident to us that people that we want to reach out to feel very
uncomfortable about coming into a traditional building."
Many theater
churches have been successful in drawing young adults by emphasizing a
spiritual experience over religious rituals. To that end, traditional hymns
have been replaced by Christian rock, and sermons dip into pop culture too,
for example, by exploring biblical themes in hit movies or television shows.
"We try to
bridge a cultural gap that a lot of people have with the church today,"
said David Drake, an associate pastor of New Life, a nondenominational
church. Holding services in a traditional church setting "doesn't fit a
casual-dress, rock-'n'-roll church," he said.
"We don't
want people to have preconceived notions that church is stuffy."
For multiplex
owners, hosting churches makes financial sense.
"On Sunday
mornings when movies aren't playing, why not? It's just more money for
theaters," said Lynn Marschke, who heads the special-events division
for Loews Cineplex, adding that he's been fielding lots of inquiries from
pastors.
Theater chains
are always alert to opportunities to make money during the hours when
moviegoers are usually elsewhere, Nutt said.
On a Tuesday
evening in October, for instance, singer Tom Petty kicked off the release of
his new CD with a concert in
Los Angeles
that was broadcast live in 40 Regal cinemas nationwide. Tickets were $10
and the showing drew enough fans to fill about 40% of the seats on what is
traditionally a slow night at movie houses, Nutt said.
But churches
remain the most unusual way that theaters are diversifying.
The Rev. Mark
Batterson, who leads the 600-member
National
Community
Church
at the theaters in Union Station in
Washington
,
D.C.
, says churches too "want to be in that marketplace of ideas."
"A
generation ago, it was a given that churches would rent facilities until
they could buy or build a permanent building," he said. "The
reverse is happening in our generation. Churches are moving back into the
marketplace."
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