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Minister seeks to reinvent services

By DAVID YONKE
BLADE STAFF WRITER

EDINBURGH, Scotland - The "seeker-sensitive" church, popular in America, is a foreign concept here but one that has caught the eye of visionary leaders.

Following the blueprint laid out by the Rev. Bill Hybels and pioneered at his Willow Creek Community in suburban Chicago, seeker churches are designed to attract people who normally don't go to church.

Their buildings can look more like auditoriums or movie theaters than traditional worship spaces. Pastors wear business casual clothing and services feature upbeat music, high-tech videos, innovative dramas, and sermons devoid of religious jargon and cultural assumptions.

Locally, CedarCreek Church is one of the notable examples, with more than 7,000 people attending five weekend services at its Perrysburg Township campus.

Here in Edinburgh, where Presbyterianism was founded by John Knox more than four centuries ago, church leaders are looking at ways to make their services relevant to a generation of sophisticated Europeans who have rarely, if ever, attended church and have a cultural bias against religion.

On vacation here a few weeks ago, I met the Rev. Tony Foley, pastor of a fledgling Edinburgh church called Eikon. It is the only Assembly of God church in Scotland's capital city of 540,000.

The official Church of Scotland, an Anglican branch, dates back to 1690 and 70 percent of the country's 5 million residents profess to be Christian. But only about 4 percent attend church on Sundays, according to Mr. Foley.

In conversation, the 47-year-old Irish-born minister freely quotes Scripture along with such pop-culture references as the American TV show 24 and Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Videos, computers, Web sites, blogs, and imagery are all essential tools if churches are to reach young Scots, he says.

He is determined to dial in the right combination of factors that will break down cultural barriers and change the negative attitudes that many young Scots have about church.

"I'm trying to understand the water the fish are swimming in," Mr. Foley says. "The fish don't know that water's wet. People are in the dark and they don't even know it."

He purposely leaves the word "church" out of his church's name, for example: It's just called Eikon - the Greek word for image.

Mr. Foley and his wife, Yvonne - who teaches applied linguistics at the University of Edinburgh - were missionaries in Taiwan for 14 years before coming to Scotland three years ago. His Far East experiences are paying off in Scotland, he says, because the people in both nations have no contextual understanding of the Christian Gospel. In other words, he builds his church and sermons on the premise that people know nothing about Jesus or Christianity.

"How do you explain atonement in a sinless society?" he asks. "There is no sin, no shame, without God."

Scots consume more anti-depressants and suffer more alcohol-related diseases than any other European people, he says. He quotes Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who said that godlessness tends to foster addictive tendencies, depression, and aggressive behavior in society.

Mr. Foley walks along Edinburgh's cobblestone streets, in the shadow of historic Edinburgh Castle, greeting strangers on park benches and bus stops. He smiles his Peter Fonda-like smile and invites them to visit Eikon, "a church for people who don't like church."

After more than a year of preparation, Eikon opened its doors in February, meeting in a banquet room in the posh Carlton Hotel downtown. The church's entrance is through a side alley that Mr. Foley and his small staff sweep clean and mop with bleach every Sunday morning, wiping away the foul reminders of Saturday night's parties.

They hang a sign over the door that says, "Eikon: Everyone Is Welcome."

Visitors get a free cup of Starbucks coffee - yes, Starbucks is big in Scotland - and a muffin, then sit at round, linen-draped tables.

The service begins with a few worship songs led by two singers and an acoustic guitar.

Nobody passes a collection plate; donations can be dropped in a box at the back of the room.

Mr. Foley steps to the front of the room and says he is going to talk about "a person we are all familiar with." He doesn't mention the name Jesus right away.

He offers a welcoming prayer and then preaches a 15-minute message based on Mark Chapter 8. Jesus was "a bit snappy" with his disciples in these Scriptures, he says, "suggesting a creeping irritation. ... Jesus is on a mission, it was weighing heavily on his mind."

He tells the crowd of about 20 to raise their hands if they have questions. He tells them Jesus was not the greatest teacher who ever lived, and never claimed to be.

Mr. Foley challenges his listeners to think, and just when a preacher would be expected to spoon-feed his flock the answers, he snaps his Bible shut and says he'll resume next week.

Afterward, he tells me that today's young church-goers need to interact. "The people want dialogue. They don't want a debate," he says.

Mr. Foley is energized by the task of bringing God's word to a secular society.

"I love being with non-Christians. I like it better than being with Christians," he says with a smile.

Mr. Foley is determined to melt the icy spiritual heart of contemporary Scotland.

"This is the most exciting mission field for me because this is where the rest of the world is headed," he says. "If America is not careful, this is where it's headed," Mr. Foley says, "a post-Christian, postmodern society where Christians are at the bottom of the food chain."

David Yonke is The Blade's religion editor. Contact him at dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154. More information on Eikon is available online at www.eikonedinburgh.com.