Church finds strength in numbers

For several years, for Christmas and Easter services, University Presbyterian Church has offered a free shuttle bus from a University of Washington parking garage to the church sanctuary several blocks away.

Last fall, it started offering the shuttle service every Sunday morning, when lines into some of University Presbyterian's parking lots sometimes snaked around the block.

It's only one sign of how large the church is. Another sign: It is planning to start a new church in South Lake Union, perhaps by this fall.

At a time when many urban mainline Protestant churches have seen their memberships decline, in some cases to a couple hundred members, since peaking in the late 1950s and early '60s, U Pres or UPC — as members call it — is something of an anomaly.

Founded in 1908, UPC has seen its membership grow from about 3,900 in 1999 to some 4,400 last year.

"It is unusual. It bucks a trend," said James Wellman, assistant professor of religion at the UW.

The church's success can be attributed to a combination of factors: its longtime emphasis on outreach to university students; its focus on developing one-on-one relationships; the numerous small groups, missions and ministries that members can become involved in; sizable staff and resources; strong preaching; and a tradition of not too much politicking at the pulpit.

"It just hits on so many of the right buttons that the synthesis of the total is greater than the parts," Wellman said.

At the same time, the church has been criticized for not taking strong stances on issues such as the Iraq war or gay marriage. And some say its university ministry has tended to focus too much on the Greek system.

If UPC is not mobilizing people to resist the war or tax cuts to the wealthy, then "they're preaching a false gospel," says the Rev. Rich Lang of Trinity United Methodist Church in Ballard. "But if they do do that, they'll lose half their congregation. So their clergy, in a sense, are moral cowards. And that's not just them — it's across the board."

The Rev. Earl Palmer, UPC's senior pastor for 17 years, doesn't see it that way.

"We don't seek to have political advocacy sermons but biblical sermons" that have political and social implications, he says. "That has meant that people don't feel we're forcing an advocacy upon them."

Making connections

At UPC's Tuesday evening worship services for university students, it's not unusual to find up to 1,200 gathered for contemporary music and sermons that "speak the language of the student," said Ryan Church, associate director at UPC's University Ministries.

It doesn't get those numbers with big outreach events. Instead, the 12 staff members involved in student ministry work on forming one-on-one relationships.

Ryan Church meets with about a dozen students a week, spending an hour with each student, discussing everything from why bad things happen to good people to what the student should do on a date Friday night.

The church does have a strong relationship with the UW's fraternity and sorority system, Palmer said. He added that many other students involved are not in the Greek system.

Part of what entices them, as well as older members, is the chance to take part in a wide range of missions or ministries, church staff and members say — everything from Sunday school to overseas missions to prison and social-justice ministries to groups for single parents.

"There are so many ways to get connected," said Mike McEvoy, a 23-year-old UW student. He didn't find regular Sunday services fulfilling, so he went on Tuesday nights, where "there was more excitement." He also has gone on missions to the Dominican Republic.

For some, strong preaching is the big draw.

Glenn and Harriet Hartquist of View Ridge were searching for a church when they moved here from the Midwest almost 50 years ago. They liked what they heard at UPC.

The church teachings "give us the basis on which to make our individual decisions," said Glenn Hartquist, 72, a retired physician. But "it does not make our decisions for us."

"Happy evangelicalism"

Wellman, the UW professor, characterizes the church as espousing a "happy evangelicalism — a moderate evangelicalism," with preaching that is biblically centered, practical, uplifting, avoiding the negativity of the Christian right or the commenting on social-justice issues of the Christian left, he said.

But Lang, of Trinity United Methodist, says that although UPC claims not to be overtly political, it nevertheless influences the political character of its congregants. And "the character formation that comes out of UPC is the kind of character that will not challenge injustice."

Palmer says it is entirely appropriate for pastors to share their personal opinions in settings where people can have discussions, and he does that.

But he sees political advocacy from the pulpit as a misuse of "the privilege of the pulpit."

During sermons, "people are giving me 30 minutes to listen to me. I have to respect that they can't talk to me during those 30 minutes. Especially in areas where there are honorable differences of opinion among people of good will, I have to make sure I don't take advantage of those 30 minutes."

Whatever one thinks of UPC, its influence is about to spread.

The church is looking in South Lake Union for a permanent location for another church, one that will function not merely as a satellite but as its own entity. It will share the values and vision of UPC, but will have its own preachers and ways of doing things.

The Rev. James B. Notkin and his wife, the Rev. Renee Notkin, both Presbyterian ministers, will head the pastoral team there.

"It will have a different feel to it, simply being smaller," James Notkin said.

Plus, there's a new community growing in South Lake Union, and UPC wants to be a part of it.

"People who are new to a community will find it less threatening and more accessible to go to a church that is under 10 years old," Notkin said. "There aren't so many unspoken ways of doing things. They have a sense that what they say and do are needed."

And that, he says, is part of why he thinks UPC has thrived over the years.

"There's never a 'We can't do that because we've always done it this way before.' "

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com