Leadership Journal

The young woman standing before us looks a lot like Morticia Addams. Like the classic TV character, her hair is long, black, and stringy. Her skin is typing-paper white, except for her lips, which are painted black, matching her floor-length sheath. She is pierced. She is the worship leader.

In this incarnation, Morticia's warm contralto is replaced by an intense soprano that hugs a melody line of only three or four notes. Her tango is a rich, rhythmic amalgam of classical, grunge, and funk, produced by the band behind her: cello, bassoon, violins, flute, keyboard, guitar, bass, and drums. The sound is neo-classical funk, a little bit Celtic, a little bit rock-and-roll; Isaac Watts' hymns set to new tunes. To untuned ears, it is strange, stirring, not that singable, and in this setting, very right.

This is Seattle.

The place is a Seventh-Day Adventist sanctuary, rented on Sunday for two services. The congregation—numbering about 150 in the early service—is mostly under 30, college students, a few artists, perhaps, and young professionals, some with small children. The service depends heavily on liturgy, including the Lord's Prayer, the Nicene Creed, and a question from the Heidelberg Catechism. The Lord's Supper will be served, as it is every week. A trim young man with short blond hair, a former Army Ranger, greets by name each person who comes to the table. He peers into the eyes of each communicant. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

A pop quiz. A pause. "Um, no one?"

"That's right. This is the body of Christ, broken for you."

This is Grace Seattle.

The blond man is Tom Allen, the pastor. He is warm. His style is unadorned, but over lunch he is passionate about his ministry. He is hesitant to be labeled. Labeling a ministry "postmodern" violates the tenets of postmodernism, he observes enigmatically. But Allen knows what he's about, and the mission of the church he founded two years ago. Allen wouldn't say his work is a paradigm shift. He considers it an "indigenous church" in a community he's made his own.

Allen is finding a hearing among a largely unchurched age group. George Barna reports that two-thirds of people under age 35 shun all organized religion. He's finding support for his very untraditional endeavors from a very traditional denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. And he's finding an audience in a city that historically has been indifferent to the gospel.

If it can work in postmodern Seattle—the city that gave us Microsoft, Starbucks and grunge music—then maybe it will work in my town.

Contextualizing the gospel isn't new. And the reinvention of American Protestantism isn't new. But this generation's incarnation is. Right now it has that new car smell. And this version offers some lessons for pastors driving older models who struggle to keep it on an ever-changing highway.

The walls of the Paradox Theater in a rundown section across town are draped in black. The carpet is ...