c. 2006 Religion News Service

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. _ Pastor Reford Mott looks into two cameras as he stands at a makeshift pulpit on a temporary stage. Behind him, Mott’s image fills a large movie screen where an R-rated film will start in less than two hours.

Churchgoers in the top rows of the stadium-style seating in Theater 16 focus not on Mott, but on his real-time image as he preaches on the importance of community.

“Relationships are the glue that holds the church together,” says Mott, pumping his fist. “Look at us. We’re meeting in a movie theater, but we’re still a church.”

Mott’s Family Christian Center is one of more than 250 churches meeting in at least 36 states. The mostly evangelical trend has caught on with nascent churches looking for space and parking, as well as established congregations wanting to reach a new audience.

“Church groups are now targeting the unchurched in a less threatening environment,” says Mike Schonberger, vice president of sales at National CineMedia’s CineMeetings and Events, a Denver firm that has helped 95 churches find new homes in theaters across the country. “In many cases that environment is a theater, as opposed to a regular `brick and mortar’ building.”

The group draws up contracts between individual congregations and theater chains like Regal Cinemas and United Artists. In the Houston area, Second Baptist Church occupies 19 theaters and is raising money to expand to cineplexes across the country.

The multimedia technology helps attract a young audience, says Leonard Sweet, a veteran professor at Drew Theological School in Madison, N.J., and the author of more than 30 books on religion and postmodern culture.

“In an attempt to use the language of the culture, we grew up and mastered book culture, and worship revolved around print,” Sweet says of his generation. “Now ministers must learn the multimedia language of audio-video, software and the Internet.”

National Community Church in Washington, D.C., has done just that during eight years of meeting in theaters. The church recently branded itself “Theater Church.”

Led by the Rev. Mark Batterson, the church has four services held in two different movie theaters, averaging a total of about 900 on a typical Sunday.

“God has strategically placed us in a location where the unchurched are,” Batterson says. “We’ve taken a place where movies are shown that God might not consider kosher, and we use it for God’s work.”

Curious moviegoers often wander in to check out Theater Church. They need not check their popcorn at the door.

Most are singles in their 20s, says Batterson.

The pastor shows videos that he produced for a series titled “God at the Box Office.” In one, “Mr. Incredible,” Batterson wears the costume of the animated superhero of the same name and outruns cars, push-starts stalled vans and saves souls _ all on the streets of the nation’s capital.

For some, movie theater church is only a temporary solution. Mott in New Rochelle says he dreams of having a building of his own. While the space in Theater 16 has its advantages, Mott laments the time constraints placed by the theater’s management.

“We have to herd them in and out like cattle,” he says.

Volunteers known as “The Transformers” arrive at around 7 a.m. to begin setting up. The service lasts from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., and Family Christian Center has to be out before the first movie of the day runs, usually around noon.

Fellowship after church is conducted in a small, roped-off area watched over by two security guards in black suits. It’s a reminder that the church meets in rented space and must follow the owner’s rules.

“In our 11-year history, we’ve never been able to put up a sign,” says Mott. “I’d love to have our own sign, in bright lights and colors, (reading) `Family Christian Church.”’

In the meantime, about 250 people worship on Sunday mornings, significantly more than the dozen or so that gathered in Mott’s basement a decade ago.

“I think we are redefining what it means to be a church,” says church member Thandie Sigauke. “God is a creative God, and we are putting that creativity to use.”

One of Family Christian’s charter members, Nicole McIver, says she was initially reluctant to move into a movie theater.

“But the space just feels like church now,” says McIver. “Seeing Pastor on the screen, and then the video announcements, that makes things more in-your-face, especially for people who are visual learners.”

For Mott, the best benefit of meeting in a theater is encountering people who would never walk into a traditional church.

“If Jesus were walking the Earth, he would go into the movie theater and engage people,” says Mott.

According to Mott, Jesus would say “`I’m coming to where you are. Not in a cathedral, but to your cathedral. I’m bringing you the gospel to where you hang out.”’

MO/PH END RNS

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