HOUSTON CHRONICLE ARCHIVES 

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: SAT 05/12/01
Section: RELIGION
Page: 1
Edition: 2 STAR

Downtown revival / CHURCHES EYE NEW RESIDENTS, MISSION OPPORTUNITIES

By TARA DOOLEY, Houston Chronicle Religion Writer
Staff

AS a parishioner of Trinity Episcopal Church for 76 years, Rosemary Meyer knows change when she sees it.

As a child, she attended the vibrant suburban community church of the 1920s. Decades later, she worshipped with one of the largest Episcopal congregations in the United States.

In the 1950s, residents started to leave the Holman Street church for Houston's outer limits and new suburban parishes. By the late 1980s, Meyer was a member of an urban congregation with a commitment to serving a neighborhood that was home to those with neither food nor shelter. As the congregation declined, the stone building lined with stained-glass windows was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"We have seen some very, very lean years where our congregation dwindled, but there were always a loyal few who stayed," said Meyer, 79.

These days, Meyer and those loyal few are beginning to feel the swell of change again, she said.

A young rector has arrived, bringing fresh ideas and the opportunity to smooth over old divisions in the congregation.

Local artists wielding stained glass, wood and cloth have transformed a storage room into the Morrow Chapel, which is the new home for the early Sunday service. Houston composer and pianist Paul English sets a contemplative mood for the service, attracting crowds of up to 50, more than five times the previous 8 a.m. attendance.

And the vacant lots and run-down buildings south of downtown and near the church are being replaced by upscale apartments, condominiums and townhomes, bringing new residents to an area now marketed as Midtown.

"The neighborhood is transitioning in a major way, and it is going back in the other direction," said the Rev. William Miller, Trinity's 42-year-old rector. "We have to be aware, to re-evaluate what it means to reach out to our neighbors."

Indeed, neighbors are moving into downtown and Midtown, bringing life to areas also revitalized by new movie theaters, restaurants, nightclubs and the Astros' new home plate, Enron Field.

Church leaders who long relied on the kindness of Sunday-morning commuters to fill the pews are discovering that reaching out to neighbors no longer just means reaching out to the poor. These days it means midday Bible study for downtown workers, marriage preparation classes and music with a bit of a beat. Some congregations are growing younger and others are finding more people in their pews.

For the Rev. William H. Hinson, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church, the change seems like a reward for the church's decision to remain in downtown Houston through the tough years.

"I believe God has rewarded this church for its willingness to take a risk and a leap of faith," Hinson said. "He has just flat out blessed us."

About 3 ,000 people now call downtown home, three times as many as in 1992. The number is expected to triple by 2010.

Midtown's population has grown from 490 in 1990 to about 4,500 in 2000, said Charles LeBlanc, executive director of the Midtown Redevelopment Authority. By 2005, the Midtown residential population is expected to reach 10,000, he said.

Some of the downtown and Midtown newcomers are young people seeking an urban life. Others, such as Don and Barb Hornbeck, sold their home in west Houston and are now "the mature people" found at the parties for residents of the Rice, said Barb Hornbeck, 72.

"Our car was always going downtown, and I think part of it was the church," said Barb Hornbeck, a 15-year member of Christ Church Cathedral. "We were very involved in the church." They now live just a short city block from their church.

The Hornbecks aside, the new residents of the city's center haven't rushed to fill the pews. But there are signs of change.

At Trinity Episcopal Church, the predominantly silver tinge of the congregation's hair is changing as more young people attend services, Miller said.

The church draws about 200 for Sunday services - not including the 7 a.m. Lord of the Streets service geared to the homeless. That's about the same number as five years ago, but twice what it was when Miller arrived in 1999.

First United Methodist Church has also seen its downtown congregation grow younger, Hinson said. In 1985, the average age of members was at least 64. It's now 47. Notably, the average age of new members at the downtown church in 1999 and 2000 was 34.

"It is a dramatic change for us," Hinson said.

In 1989, the church considered following in the footsteps of First Baptist and Second Baptist, which abandoned downtown for points west in 1977 and 1961, respectively.

"I saw downtown becoming a place you didn't want to go to," Hinson said. "The perception was it was an unsafe, unsightly place."

Faced with alienating about 3 ,000 church members who lived east of downtown and not wanting to abandon its commitment to downtown, First United Methodist reconsidered, Hinson said. Instead of moving, it added a suburban campus in temporary quarters in 1993. The $12 million Westchase Worship Center opened near Beltway 8 in 1999.

"By 10 years later, we expected West would be supporting downtown," Hinson said. "It is not going to happen. Downtown is coming back with revitalized strength, and this congregation is walking on two strong legs."

Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral draws Catholics from throughout the diocese. But new downtown and Midtown residents are finding their way into the pews, wanting to join their neighborhood parish, said the Rev. R. Troy Gately, pastor of the church and vice chancellor for the Diocese of Galveston-Houston.

Adult confirmation classes that once were full of commuters now are predominantly attended by neighborhood residents, he said. Parish enrollment has risen from about 350 households to 700.

"It is truly in the past year that we have seen the growth," Gately said. The co-cathedral, one of three Catholic churches in the area, offers Masses in English and Vietnamese. It plans to add a Mass in Spanish this summer.

By eyeballing the congregation, Gately concludes that the age of parishioners at Sacred Heart has also decreased. The result is that the church has started offering marriage preparation classes. Gately also plans to reach out to young Catholics with programs such as Theology on Tap, in which groups gather at a local bar to discuss faith over a beer.

"As downtown becomes an urban center for young adults, the co-cathedral will be a place for young people to come and congregate," he said.

Similarly, South Main Baptist Church is reaching out to its new neighbors with a contemporary worship serviced geared to a younger and hipper crowd, said David Wright, the church's minister to adults.

Last fall, Wright added an amplifier, video, graphics and drama to the church's preaching tradition. The change became the Main Thing, which meets at 11 a.m. on Sundays in the church's recreation center. So far the service has drawn about 100 worshippers, often a more-eclectic mix than the crowd at the traditional 11 a.m. service in the main sanctuary, said new church member Randy Stenoien.

"I think the Main Thing is more likely to reflect the mix of the neighborhood," Stenoien said.

South Main's leaders also try to mix in with the neighborhood by sending welcome notes and packets of information to newcomers. In January, the church sent a blanket mailing to the area informing residents of the Main Thing.

"It has been a long time since South Main has been a neighborhood church," Wright said. "I think right now we are looking at the opportunity to be a neighborhood church."

One downtown church that has experienced phenomenal growth is St. John's United Methodist Church - now called St. John's Downtown.

But pastor Rudy Rasmus does not attribute it to downtown revitalization.

"It doesn't grab me as a church group," Rasmus said of the newcomers to the area's lofts and townhomes. "They are doing other things on Sunday - brunch."

He believes the secret to the church's success has been its commitment to what he dubs the "indigenous people of downtown" - the homeless.

When Rasmus and his wife, Juanita, arrived at St. John's in 1992 at the bidding of their pastor, the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church, nine members were on the official church rolls. With an infusion of "pioneers" from Windsor Village, the couple started to rebuild on a foundation of social service.

Church leaders started a separate nonprofit organization, the Bread of Life, which now serves about 6,000 meals a month and offers an array of health, hygiene, job training and substance abuse services. Later, a school was added for high-risk youngsters.

Rasmus also introduced a contemporary worship style that featured gospel music - infused with some hip-hop and rap. He pulled down the shades on the stained glass for lights and video, adding some edge to a Methodist congregation that has been the spiritual home to professional athletes and two of the three members of the pop group Destiny's Child.

Church membership has grown to about 5,000. On an average Sunday of three services, Rasmus greets about 2,000 people who drive in from 140 ZIP codes.

"If anything, they come to church in spite of it being downtown, not because it is downtown," Rasmus said.

"We wouldn't have a church like this in the suburbs, and I wouldn't be here," he said. "I'm an urban guy."

The reality remains that downtown churches still are largely fueled by suburban members and money.

"The influx of residents to the city of Houston isn't going to save the churches," said the Very Rev. Joe D. Reynolds, dean of Christ Church Cathedral, which has 2,394 members - about 200 more than five years ago.

"I think we are a long way from having a major population shift in the city."

That offers opportunities and challenges, he said. Reynolds refers to his church's front door and back door: Out the front door on Texas Avenue, some of the largest and most powerful companies in the country make their home; out the back door are pawnshops and bail bondsmen.

The cathedral offers services for both: It holds "Business of Faith" breakfasts with speakers from the business community and operates a mobile health service for the poor.

Similarly, Trinity Lutheran Church feeds the poor and offers day-care for the children of downtown workers.

"If life is going to be better in the city, it has to be better for everyone," Reynolds said.

But as Trinity discovered in the midst of its worst economic times, without a vibrant worshiping community neither the money nor the volunteers are available to make life better for anyone, Miller said.

Finding the balance has been a mission at Trinity since 1991, when then-pastor Steve Bancroft jump-started the Midtown Redevelopment Association in church offices, said LeBlanc, of the Midtown development authority. The association became the precursor to the authority that is now funded by a tax-increment reinvestment zone.

"They realized they needed a strong neighborhood to continue to support their church," he said.

After 76 years of worshipping with various incarnations of the Trinity community, Meyer finds rejuvenated optimism that life can be better for everyone in her church home, she said.

"The thing about Trinity is that it is a holy place, it has a spirituality that is always going to be there, and it is a beautiful church," Meyer said.

"I think we are alive and well and living in Houston."

St. John's Downtown    2019 Crawford    Houston, TX 77002    (713) 659-3237    (713) 659 2236 Fax