`Young Life For Big People' -- Rev. Randy Rowland's Church Appeals To Busy Baby Boomers

The Church at the Center will meet in the Uptown Cinemas, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., at 9 and 10:45 a.m. Sundays, beginning Sept. 12. For further information, call 285-2282.

On those Sundays the Seahawks play in Seattle, Randy Rowland exits from church a little more quickly.

He estimates he needs 30 minutes to get to the Kingdome. He doesn't want to miss the kickoff.

He can't.

On football Sundays, the Rev. Randy Rowland makes one of the most unusual switches of any preacher around: He becomes the voice of the Seahawks as their public-address-system announcer.

This season, Rowland's juggling act will be even more unique.

He'll continue his announcing duties. But the 6-foot-4 inch, 270-pound former associate pastor at University Presbyterian Church will also be starting a new Presbyterian church at the foot of Queen Anne Hill.

Beginning Sept. 12, the Church at the Center will be holding services in the Uptown Cinemas at 9 a.m. and 10:45 a.m.

It will be just the latest turn in Rowland's life.

A former radio broadcaster, he used to work 15 to 25 hours a week at University Presbyterian, the city's largest Protestant church. He did it for only $1 a year to gain ministerial experience. Rowland and his wife, Nancy, also own a marketing and media consulting firm.

Rowland, 40, expects many of those who would be interested in the new church - baby boomers and those in their early- to mid-20s - might be leading similarly frenetic lifestyles.

Rowland was a disk jockey at KNBQ-FM - now KBSG-FM - and at KING-AM, where he also was the sports director. He did some sports reporting for KING-TV and NBC as well.

Three years ago he became the public address announcer for the Seahawks. He drops his voice into a resonant bass-baritone - "AND NOW HERE COME THE HAWWWKKKS!" - as he mimics himself in the broadcast booth.

While working at U Pres and announcing Seahawks games, Rowland was nurturing a vision for a new church that would be anything but the traditional red-brick and white-steeple churches that many hold in their mind's eye.

"We are going to be dealing with the kind of people who are less churched, who have some real struggles with institutional Christianity as it has been projected over the years," said Rowland.

He said some churches have developed "highly culturalized conclusions about what it means and what it looks like to be a Christian." People who want to belong to the church, "a.k.a. club," have to "look and act like `we' do" to fit in.

Lost in that view, however, is the Gospel's "real message . . . that God created each of us as a unique, unrepeatable miracle" and that Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus Christ and God's all-encompassing love, said Rowland.

`Everyone is welcome'

At the Church at the Center, "Everyone is welcome," he said. The new church gets its name from its proximity to Seattle Center and downtown Seattle, and because it will be centered in Christ, he said.

"We are coming to celebrate the fact that God is alive and loves and cares about every individual. We're doing that in the heart of where Seattle celebrates its culture and lives out its business and artistic life," said Rowland.

Just as University Presbyterian Church was established 85 years ago by a group from First Presbyterian Church who wanted to serve the academic community around the University of Washington, the Church at the Center will try to serve those involved in the business and arts communities, as well as people from others parts of the city, he said.

The church has 120 charter members and a mailing list of more than 500 households. Rowland said the church will be renting all three theaters in the Uptown Cinemas, using the 500-seat main auditorium for children's activities and the 300-seat middle-sized theater for worship services.

"We don't want to be BBs in a boxcar," Rowland said in explaining why he initially isn't using the expansive main auditorium for worship. He doesn't want too few people rattling around in too large a space.

Rowland said the church is taking no seed money from the Seattle Presbytery, the governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the Seattle area.

Rowland said he wants to start first with a "community of people committed" to making the church happen, then let the church grow from there.

He has a team of eight people working with him.

In format, the Church at the Center's up-tempo worship services will be similar to the Rev. Doug Murren's Eastside Foursquare Church in Bothell or the Rev. Wayne Taylor's Calvary Fellowship in North Seattle, which Rowland admires.

It also will be like University Presbyterian's contemporary service at 6 p.m. on Sundays, except "it's going to be a little more rocked out," Rowland said.

The new church will feature a rock/pop band of guitars, electronic drums, bass and singers, with words of the worship music, as well as Bible passages, flashed on the theater's movie screen.

"You want people to have a participatory experience in the worship service. Not having to be thumbing for things and holding books makes it easier for them. If you want to clap during a song, you can. It's hard to clap with a hymn book in your hands," he said.

Rowland said the kind of atmosphere he and others will be trying to create at the Church at the Center will be like a "Young Life for big people," where people can come as they are, be unconditionally accepted, and hear the Gospel in a way that relates the message of the Bible to their everyday lives.

Rowland, who describes himself as a "compassionate conservative" in his religious views, said he became a Christian through the Young Life ministry in Tacoma, where he grew up.

Young Life is the international Christian organization that works with junior and senior high school youths.

Reversing a trend

While Seattle is renowned for the low church affiliation of its residents, Rowland hopes the Church at the Center can play a role in reversing the trend.

"We're trying to reach people who have never been reached before," he said. Evlyn Fulton, the Seattle Presbytery's interim executive, noted membership in local Presbyterian churches is increasing and stands now at more than 20,000.

The Church at the Center will be in the same general vicinity as two other Presbyterian churches, Queen Anne Presbyterian and Bethany Presbyterian churches. Rowland says they are all distinct enough that there should be no conflict.

The Rev. Jeffrey Bullock, pastor of Queen Anne Presbyterian, agreed. His is a more traditional neighborhood church.

Bethany combines traditional and charismatic worship elements. The Church at the Center will focus on those in their 20s through 40s who have not yet found a church they can relate to.

3,000 out of 70,000

Bullock said there are about 70,000 residents within two miles of his church. Surveys indicate only about 3,000 are active attenders at any church, he said. Both he and Rowland said there are plenty of people to draw from.

The Church at the Center will be the latest in a series of new startup churches in Seattle. Others include Lakeside Community Church, a Foursquare church in the Green Lake neighborhood, and the Central Area's New Light Christian Church, an outgrowth of Overlake Christian Church in Kirkland.