A Religious Experience -- Here's The Church, There's No Steeple, But Open The Doors And See All The People

THE MOMENT CAME SHORTLY BEFORE 9 o'clock on a chilly winter's evening. Six figures knelt around a coffee table, heads bowed, eyes closed, clutching one another's hands.

"Lord Jesus," Pastor Bob Moorehead began, his Southern drawl enveloping the room. "I know I'm a sinner. I now receive you into my life as Savior and Lord."

Scott and Liz McKittrick repeated the words as Pastor Bob led the couple, in their late 30s, through the prayer of acceptance, this act of being born again.

As they finished, friends and family around the circle smiled. Moorehead wiped a tear from his left eye. "You'll have to excuse me," he said. "This is an emotional time for me." It wasn't so much theater. Moorehead is prone to tears.

Later, as he left the McKittricks' Redmond home, he shouted out his car window, "Praise the Lord!" Then he turned to his passenger and said, "That's what we call a divine appointment."

Nearly 25 years after arriving in Washington state from Enid, Okla., the Rev. Bob Moorehead, pastor of Overlake Christian Church in Kirkland, the largest Protestant church in the Northwest, still chokes up when he leads even just one soul to Jesus Christ.

And though he has built one of the most thriving church operations in all the region, Moorehead still goes out each Tuesday night, as he did when he first came to Kirkland in 1970, to knock on doors and invite the neighbors to his church, or to meet with those who visited Overlake only the week before.

"This," said Moorehead, pointing to the scores of lay people who fan out with him to share their faith and extend invitations to Overlake, "is the heartbeat of the church." While numerous churches cry out for people to fill their pews on Sundays, Overlake is one of the few churches in King County whose members regularly visit people's homes and invite them to church. "It's so simple," the pastor said.

Yet never in a million years did Moorehead or the other early builders of the church ever expect it to grow into the huge mega-church it has become, a church so large that its campus sometimes is mistaken for a high school, a church that still is growing so fast that Overlake officials say they need to move to a more expansive site in Redmond, a church that can draw more than 8,000 people to its five weekend services today and that could grow, according to Moorehead, to 15,000 to 20,000 people in 10 years.

The church's annual budget now stands at $6.4 million. The money supports 26 pastors, one of the best music programs in the area, missionaries around the world, and a slew of pastoral care and family ministries at home. Moorehead earns in the neighborhood of $70,000 a year. In 1978, the congregation raised $1.6 million in one Sunday to pay for a new sanctuary. Some members refinanced their homes or cashed in stocks and bonds.

Moorehead admits that, in the very early years, he almost threw up his hands in despair. He found Northwesterners resistant to his conservative, fundamental Bible approach. They didn't accept "the Bible said." They asked questions.

But in 1972, the church suddenly exploded. Propelled by the Boeing bust, people began to pour into Overlake. "I think they were afraid," he said. "People's props had been pulled out from under them."

And Overlake was there for them - offering a spiritual path of reassurance, with solid, definite footing. Where once Moorehead had doubts, "I realized that God was doing something that was out of my control. The hope returned. I've never lost it since then."

Indeed, on any given Sunday, this conservative, evangelical, nondenominational Christian church is likely to be packed to the gills. The scene inside the sanctuary is almost overwhelming. The eye of the first-time visitor might be pulled in the direction of the banks of klieg lights hanging from the ceiling, like a television studio, or toward the rows upon rows of padded bench seats on the main floor and upstairs balcony. There's the 30-piece orchestra, and the 160-voice choir, and the words of praise songs that are flashed on the front walls, a little to the right and left of the large, back-lit cross that anchors the sanctuary.

And then there is Moorehead, arms uplifted, eyes closed, singing, praying, moving about the stage, always with a smile on his face.

While congregations in some of the mainline Protestant churches might remain silent after a musical interlude, members of Overlake clap after just about everything.

"Psalm 47:1 is kind of our theme for worship, where it says clap your hands, all you people, and shout to God with a voice of triumph. Worship ought to be something exciting and loud," Moorehead said.

People don't just clap at Overlake. They move their feet to the music, lift their arms, and sometimes bring tambourines to bang on. With the words of songs projected on the front wall, they sing up, not down into hymn books.

"We call it a celebration, because we're celebrating the greatness of God," said Moorehead.

In his sermons, Moorehead will dissect a Bible passage line by line. But he also is apt to launch the theological equivalent of a Tomahawk missile at the liberal, secular world.

Preaching recently from the Gospel of John, where Jesus says he is "the bread of life," Moorehead said the multitudes in Christ's day began to fall away, saying Jesus was insane.

Then he turned to his own hushed congregation. "They label us insane today. ... We are called Bible-thumping fundamentalists. We are called Victorian prudes ... because we want to hold on to the principles that are biblical, the principles that are true."

Calling homosexuality perverted, ungodly and wrong, he blasted President Clinton's plan to allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military. And he voiced support for those trying to get passed in Washington an anti-gay-rights measure similar to one defeated in Oregon last November.

"This is a moral, biblical issue where the truth of God, the integrity of God, the holiness of God and the righteousness of God is being attacked!" he thundered. "And as long as God gives me breath, I'm going to fight the attackers on that!"

WHAT HAVE MOOREHEAD AND the founders of Overlake wrought?

How did this church, called courageous and truth-speaking by its supporters and divisive and patronizing by its critics, come into being? And how did a strapping young preacher from Alabama end up in the Pacific Northwest, the vast land of the unchurched?

Moorehead's memory flashes back 39 years, to a lonely 17-year-old in Mobile, Ala. The youth's father was a bookkeeper, an alcoholic. The parents fought constantly over the family's lack of money. The teenager, Bob Moorehead, would grow up hating alcohol and what it could do to a family.

One night, a four-car caravan swept through his neighborhood. The young people knocked on his door and invited him to the local Disciples of Christ church. Moorehead says he was so lonely, "if they had represented the Satan Church, I would have gone with them." As it turned out, the pastor's sermon on Jesus that night deeply moved him, and at the next Sunday service he stepped forward and gave his heart to Christ.

Moorehead first got the idea of preaching from a church elder. But when he was 18, he was listening to the Rev. Charles Fuller's "Old-Fashioned Revival Hour" on network radio when Fuller quoted from Romans 10:14, "How can they hear without someone preaching to them?"

"That one little phrase haunted me. I remember he said, `If you don't preach, then somebody won't hear.' That did it. I mean, that got me. I was moved to tears. I got down on my knees and actually put my hands on the radio and said, `Lord, I give my life to the ministry, and I'll never look back.' "

Moorehead chose tiny Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, Tenn., over a scholarship to the University of Alabama. At the smaller school, he would get a strong grounding in the Bible, the foundation of his preaching in the years to come.

But Moorehead didn't stay at Johnson Bible College beyond two years. The school was so strict that men and women couldn't hold hands, go to the movies or play cards. "I didn't want people telling me what I could do and what I couldn't do," Moorehead said. Even today, Moorehead makes a distinction between his fundamental beliefs in the inerrancy of the Bible, and "legalistic, man-made" rules, such as how people should dress for church, or whether women should wear makeup.

Terry Furnell, a brilliant student who first met Moorehead at Johnson Bible College and then transferred with him to Phillips University in Enid, Okla., said his first impression of Moorehead was that, at 6 feet and 225 pounds, he was big enough to be playing halfback for the Green Bay Packers.

"I think from the very beginning he had the fire and enthusiasm. We knew he was going to amount to something," Furnell said. Moorehead also had a fine sense of humor. Furnell recalled how he had invited Moorehead to preach at a revival at Furnell's church in Clearwater, Kan., in the late 1950s. As Moorehead raised his hands to call people forward to give themselves to Christ, he took two steps back and slipped into the baptismal pool. "He came up laughing. Five people came forward after that."

While Moorehead was beginning to develop a reputation for preaching in Oklahoma, a handful of families in the Seattle area's Eastside were starting to rebel against what they said was a movement away from Bible-based teachings in the mainline Protestant churches in the late 1960s. They felt some ministers were more interested in issues and events of the day than preaching from the Bible, and that instead of laying out a framework for Christian living, they were adopting a social gospel that said whatever felt good to people was OK.

About a dozen people met one night in 1968 in the Bellevue home of Clair and Marilyn Dammarell. At first they talked about getting rid of a local minister whom some in the group didn't like. Dammarell turned the group's attention instead to starting a new church. "The mood changed. From then on, it was all positive," Dammarell recalled.

The eight couples who started Overlake first found a small Mormon church building in Kirkland that they could rent for $200 a month. They called the Rev. Earl Ladd, who was then president of the old Puget Sound College of the Bible in North Seattle, to be their interim minister. They later learned of Moorehead from Clair Dammarell's brother, John, who was working as an associate pastor with Moorehead in Oklahoma.

Moorehead knew nothing of the Northwest when he was invited to interview for the permanent pastor's job at Overlake. He imagined the area was nothing but forest. He came out in May 1969, looked around, and said thanks but no thanks.

But the congregation persisted. Six months after his visit, Overlake member Margaret Eggleston wrote that she felt the Lord wanted Moorehead to come and that if he came, the church would grow. Moorehead was taken aback. He hadn't heard that from the Lord, but he thought he'd better pay attention. After one fitful night, he woke up his wife Glenita and said he felt they were being called to Overlake.

Ladd and the church's early founders had been inviting neighbors to Overlake from the start, but when Moorehead arrived, everything accelerated. At restaurants and gas stations he would ask people if they went to church, or if they would like to come to Overlake.

And he demanded the same of everyone else in the church.

Many of the people who began coming to church were what Moorehead called "new Christians." "There was a fervency and enthusiasm on their part that was very, very contagious," Moorehead said. Guests would come one week, then bring more guests the following week.

What had been a congregation of about 100 at the beginning of 1970 kept growing and growing. Overlake officials bought five acres of an abandoned mink farm on 132nd Avenue Northeast and in 1972 built a new church that seated 500 people. They have added onto that site four times since then, and their current sanctuary seats 2,000.

While the early 1970s, a time of antiwar protests, might seem like an odd period for a church to take off, especially in an area already known for low church attendance, Ladd, the church's original pastor, said the turmoil in the streets actually called into question the idea that society had all the answers. They needed a spiritual foundation, which they found in Jesus Christ, said Ladd, a professor of ministry at Puget Sound Christian College in Edmonds.

But other factors also were at work. The Boeing bust, for one, as Moorehead noted. But Moorehead was also the first minister to aggressively evangelize on the Eastside, said Henry Klopp, a church-growth consultant who formerly was in charge of Overlake's evangelism program. Moorehead was in his early 30s then, as were many of the people who were beginning to move into the area.

Overlake ministered to people's individual needs, developing over the years an array of programs for children, singles, recovering addicts and people with marital problems, among others. And the church's contemporary music program appealed to young people.

At the same time, Overlake walked a line in its worship services. It used modern hymns, overhead projections and lots of congregational singing, what became known as a contemporary or charismatic style in the 1970s. But it did not allow other aspects of charismatic worship in its services, such as speaking in unknown tongues.

"They were able to attract people transferring from mainline churches who might not have gone directly to a charismatic church," Klopp said.

Many had not been going to any church until someone from Overlake invited them. What developed was a mix of a congregation, upbeat, welcoming and well-spoken. Their reasons for coming varied about as much as the people themselves.

For Tom Hall, 45, of Bellevue, the breakup of his marriage prompted him to start going to Overlake a little more than four years ago. "The end of my marriage made me realize I needed something more than myself. I needed something more than my own skills and knowledge to make things work. That's when I decided to invite the Lord into my heart."

Kati Robison of Issaquah, a project manager for Airborne Express, said she returned to church after a 10-year lapse, following the birth of her son. "Somewhere along the line I was convinced you couldn't raise a child with no religious education," she said.

But Robison changed, too. Where once she might have gotten angry at people, "I learned how wrong that was. I was able to go to the Lord and say take this away from me, and he did."

Overlake is not the kind of church that gathers for worship on Sundays, then is dark the rest of the week. On just about any day or night, men and women can be seen scurrying to adult education classes, Bibles in hand. Music pulsates from aerobics classes in the church gymnasium. Visitors browse through the church's Christian bookstore. Off campus, scores of people meet in one another's homes for Bible study and fellowship.

BUT THE SUCCESS of Overlake is not without criticism.

The Rev. Lloyd Averill, a United Church of Christ minister and author of "Religious Right, Religious Wrong," a critical book on fundamentalism, said churches like Overlake appeal to people because of their promise of salvation and promise to turn people's lives around. They offer answers, and also talk seriously about sin. "It's kind of embarrassing to talk about sin in a mainline church. Fundamentalism tries to give a means of coming to terms with the sin that people in their hearts know is a condition they have to deal with," he said.

But Averill believes fundamentalists are schismatic, separating themselves from those who don't agree with them. The Rev. Barbara Wells, minister of Woodinville Unitarian Universalist Church, who has debated Moorehead on religious issues, said her faith teaches it's OK for everyone to find his or her own religious base - that differences are worth celebrating - "whereas their faith doesn't."

While holding to Jesus' great commission to make disciples of all nations, members of Overlake say they are careful not to slam other churches or faiths. Moorehead says Overlake is not fundamentalist in the way the public views fundamentalism - as something narrow and full of legalistic rules. Members of Overlake can and do disagree with him and one another on public policy issues, such as whether the U.S. should have entered the Persian Gulf War. But the church is "fundamental in the sense that we adhere unswervingly to the teachings of Scripture," Moorehead said.

And he is clear about his differences with other faiths. He calls Unitarianism and Mormonism, two of the fastest-growing religious groups in the area, cults. "A cult humanizes God and deifies man," he said. Mormons believe that every person can attain "godhood." Unitarians say people can have any picture of God they want, and can become anything they want - "It's all latent inside of you. ... What that does is humanize God," he said. Overlake believes people are sinful and need salvation through Jesus Christ.

Moorehead also took issue with some of the more liberal mainline churches. "They don't accept the Bible as the word of God. In my opinion, they cease to be a legitimate church."

The Rev. Rodney Romney, pastor of Seattle First Baptist Church, said the Bible was shaped by a culture that no longer defines today's times. He said he sees the Bible as a guide to faith, not as a literal document. At worst, passages from the Bible can be used to sow seeds of discrimination against others, such as women and homosexuals, he said.

But the Rev. Ron Lorette, Overlake's pastor in charge of home fellowship ministry, wondered why people had difficulty accepting the inerrant truth of the Bible. If God created the universe, isn't he capable of putting together the Bible? Is he so small he couldn't get it right the first time? "Our people would not accept that," Lorette said.

Some Christian ministers argue that Jesus never spoke on issues like homosexuality. Instead, Jesus gave the imperative to love all people, said Romney. Moorehead said Jesus also said in the Sermon on the Mount that he did not come to abolish the Law of the Old Testament, which forbade relations between people of the same sex.

But didn't the Old Testament also say adulterers were to be killed? Moorehead said Jesus replaced stoning with forgiveness. Meeting up with a woman caught in adultery, Jesus said in John 8:11: "Go, and sin no more."

"He did two things. He forgave her, but he told her not to do it again," Moorehead said. He added the church doesn't hate homosexuals, but the Bible makes it clear the practice of homosexuality is a sin, not just an alternative lifestyle.

AND SO IT GOES, talking Scripture with Moorehead, whose brain recalls verses like a computer. He sets aside an hour each morning at 6 a.m. to read the Bible and pray. Yet he doesn't consider himself stern or judgmental. "I see myself as holding up the standard of God's word, but speaking the truth in love."

Some members of Overlake acknowledged they had trouble accepting some of the church's Bible-based tenets. Women, for example, aren't allowed to be ministers, nor are they allowed to serve on the church's board of elders. 1 Timothy 3:2 says an elder must be above reproach and be "the husband of but one wife." That rules out women as elders, said Bob Senatore, chairman of the board of elders. But he added there are many other significant roles for women at the church.

One woman who attends the church said that in the beginning she had trouble with the bar on women ministers and elders. "As a professional woman, I have always felt very equal to men. But when I went to the Scripture myself, I couldn't justify my feelings. If I believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, I had to buy into it."

Others disagree. Ann Nugent of Redmond said she stopped going to Overlake a few years ago because she felt the church leadership wasn't listening, people were being pressured to contribute money, and the church was growing too big. Of those in control, she said, "It was like the good-old-boys club."

"I just got totally turned off by church. I haven't gone since," said Nugent, 33.

Moorehead said Overlake has avoided the kinds of long-simmering disputes that can tear a congregation apart.

"We just tell them if they want to be divisive, to leave, go down the road," said Moorehead. "We won't permit disgruntled people to continue here. I mean, we're just up front with people on that."

The church also practices discipline. Someone who openly sins by committing immoral acts may face loss of church membership, though not without counseling first. Discipline is even extended to people who seek "unbiblical divorces," meaning divorces not prompted by adultery or abandonment by a non-Christian spouse. "We don't believe a person can divorce just because of incompatibility," Moorehead said.

MOOREHEAD SPEAKS without malice. He is quiet and reflective during a long, one-on-one interview. The spit and vinegar that sometimes rouse the congregation during weekend sermons are nowhere to be seen at the moment. He admits he can be shy. When not on church business, he says he almost wishes he could wear a disguise. At the same time, he feels he can't quite be human in public, that people are startled when they see him going into a hardware store dressed in cutoffs and a T-shirt, as if he weren't supposed to be dressed like that. He says Glenita, whom he met at Johnson Bible College and married in 1958, is his best friend.

As Moorehead reflects on the future, he sees Overlake continuing to grow, continuing to plant sister churches around the region - it has planted six so far - and becoming a world center for missionary work.

As for his own legacy, Moorehead turned to a page from Scripture, where it was said of Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead, that because of him people went away and believed in Jesus.

"That's what I'd like to have on my tombstone. That people believed in Jesus because of me."

Lee Moriwaki is the religion reporter for The Seattle Times. Harley Soltes is Pacific's staff photographer.