Chronicles of Faith: Many in LV pursue religion free of ties to any denomination

The service starts with an Eric Clapton song.

The pastor wears a golf shirt. The pews -- what pews? -- are amphitheater-style chairs, cushioned, armed, woven -- a cupholder shy of being a movie seat. The message, printed on the program in large print, says "You Matter To God."

"We are a culturally relevant church," said the Rev. Kevin Odor, pastor of the newly constructed nondenominational Canyon Ridge Christian Church, a sprawling facility on a 30-acre lot in northwest Las Vegas. "It doesn't mean we're liberal, but we concentrate on applying the truths of Scripture to real life."

For Odor, whose congregation numbers more than 1,400 on an average Sunday, this means presenting biblical lessons in easy-to-swallow, consumer-oriented "performances" about modern issues: co-dependency, divorce, sexual-abuse recovery.

Canyon Ridge is among more than 30 nondemoninational Christian churches in Las Vegas -- a sweeping religious category that includes a breadth of worship styles, all united by a biblical foundation and a marketing pitch based on the rejection of mainline denominational Christianity.

"I'm 41 -- I'm a boomer. Our parents were very loyal to their institutions, and denominations seemed so much more important to them, but our boomer culture says that's not as important," Odor said. "We want the reality of the Bible more than a lot of opinions."

Nineteen percent of Las Vegans consider themselves nondenominational Christians, making the group the second-largest religious population in the area, according to UNLV. Catholicism is largest at 27 percent. But many church officials say that in spite of sharing a biblical foundation and a rejection of denominational Christianity, "nondenominational Christian" is a catch-all term that serves more as a title of miscellany than as something indicative of a unified theme.

Dominating the group in recent years, however, have been so-called megachurches -- such as Canyon Ridge -- characterized by their consumer-friendly, "seeker-sensitive" style and large weekend attendance, usually upward of 1,000 and often as high as 5,000. Nondenominational megachurches have been called the "second transformation of Protestantism" by some religious scholars, who note that they are custom-made for today's fickle consumer.

"We are seeker-sensitive because we try to appeal to the person who is dissatisfied with their previous church experiences," Odor said.

"Look at our culture," Odor continued. "We have the Psychic Friends Network and channeling and a huge hunger for anything supernatural. But people are not flocking to the churches because of wounds of their past in traditional churches. They're looking to Eastern religions and other things because it's a spiritually hungry culture."

People don't go to a particular church for specific reasons, Odor said.

"They say the sermons are boring, or all the church wants is money, or the music is culturally irrelevant, or things like that. We try to address those things."

For example, newcomers are not asked to wear name tags or stand up and introduce themselves, nor are they asked to contribute to the collection plate when it makes its way up and down the amphitheater aisles.

Additionally, Odor said, Sunday services at Canyon Ridge do not address the more challenging topics such as sin or the blood of Christ, which intimidate some seekers. Those topics will be addressed later, he said, in Bible study or other meetings.

"We get criticized for watering down the message to make it a feel-good thing," he said. "It's an inaccurate criticism given to us by our competitors. On every one of our programs, you see the words 'You Matter to God.' We want people to know that they matter to God. I suppose we could put 'You are a sinner' on every program -- but we choose not to start with that. There is time for the gravity of Scripture later."

Canyon Ridge, along with Central Christian Church and Hallelujah Fellowship in Las Vegas, all belong to the Willow Creek Association of churches, founded in Illinois in 1975. The original Willow Creek church is now the second-largest church in the United States, behind Houston's Second Baptist Church. Some 1,400 churches now belong to the Willow Creek Association, which stresses appealing to the baby-boomer generation by using a laid-back approach called "conversion without commitment" by University of Virginia sociologist Laura Kaczorowski.

Central Christian marketers describe the church as a "nonthreatening, contemporary worship environment" in recent brochures. Average weekend attendance tops 4,000 -- with many of the worshipers stopping at the church snack bar before finding their way to their seat. Central Christian is midway through construction of a new $23 million building on 56 acres in Henderson -- a building complete with a 3,000-seat auditorium, 1,500 parking spaces, a 400-seat chapel, a multipurpose youth room and a "spacious, friendly lobby." Eventually, the church plans to build a 10,000-seat auditorium.

"Marketing is a term that makes some people uncomfortable," said the Rev. Gene Appel, senior pastor at Central Christian. "But marketing is just communicating -- conveying a message. And you want to communicate effectively. Our message hasn't changed for 2,000 years. The picture is always the same, it's just the frame that changes."

Odor agreed:

"Are we just marketing to our customers? Well, we are a more comfortable church, yes," Odor said. "But we are just taking the timeless truths of the Bible and reapplying them in this culture. We are coming to seekers in their culture. We are speaking their language. Why would I go to Mexico and speak English?"

***

Under a big tent along West Charleston Boulevard last spring, the congregation was speaking in tongues.

Men and women dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and children holding toy-action figures in one hand and inscribed Bibles dangling by the cover in the other gathered for the Miracle Healing Crusade -- a weeklong series of revival-type services hosted by a fundamentalist Christian church called The Potter's House.

Those in attendance came to experience the other end of the nondenominational spectrum, which is a less subtle approach to the Christian message. Some 400 of them sat on folding metal chairs arranged on artificial turf, drinking water from plastic bottles while the pastor shouted about the power of the Holy Ghost. Choruses of "amen" from the congregation followed his every sentence.

Newcomers were rapidly approached with a smile and a handshake, followed by the questions: "Have you been saved? Do you believe Jesus loves you? Do you know he died for you?"

Later, when the tent was filled with the buzzing sound of glossolalia -- people speaking in tongues -- the pastor called newcomers to the platform altar to be saved.

For the Rev. Duane Rens, Potter's House pastor, the notion of spinning Christianity to appeal to the delicate sensibilities of the consumer culture of the '90s is, in a word, "sinful."

"Unlike the megachurches, I preach the whole Gospel," Rens said. "Some baby boomers run from it. They want a church where they feel comfortable. And if there is sin in your life and you are in the presence of God, you may be a bit uncomfortable."

Although the Potter's House shares the generic Christian title with Canyon Ridge, members consider it more fundamentalist than the megachurches.

"People need to know that there are absolutes," Rens said. "Open doors ultimately create insecurity. If you go to one of those megachurches, you'll find that they won't say anything that might turn people off. Nothing about sin or the blood of Jesus or the devil. Nothing that will drive people away. So they're forced into a kind of ministry that keeps people satisfied.

"I grew up smack-dab in the middle of the 'whatever feels good' years," Rens, 46, said. "But just like we were warned, one day we'll eat the fruit of it. Now we have a moral breakdown and there are hurting people everywhere. The trend is going back the other way."

****

Janice Peyton lives in the Las Vegas suburbs with her husband, an attorney, and spends most of her time raising their toddler. But a couple of decades ago, she was singing in a Las Vegas lounge act -- La Rue and the Flames.

"I was running from God as fast as I could," she said. "My parents were always Christian people, and it freaked me out. It wasn't a big part of my life. In the church my parents went to, you dressed up and it was boring."

Peyton's early 20s were filled with a series of lounge-show appearances, followed by a stint as a cocktail waitress at the Four Queens hotel-casino. It also was plagued with pain from gall bladder attacks.

"Then one night, or one morning -- it was about 4 a.m., I remember it so well -- I was sitting in the lounge with my feet up taking a drag on a cigarette when this piano player comes over and starts talking to me.

"I remember I said to him, 'I wonder why God stuck me in this lounge at 4 a.m.?,'" she said.

"And he said, 'If you will turn your life over to God, I'll bet you'll figure out what's wrong with you physically,'" she said. "It was hard because I was very prideful and I didn't want to hear it."

But the next day, Peyton went to Las Vegas' Calvary Chapel, an affiliate of a nondenominational church that is sometimes credited with starting the megachurch movement in California in the 1960s. The original Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa now draws 30,000 people a week.

At Calvary in Las Vegas, she found a Christian message that differed from her parents' -- and appealed to her at a time during which she felt she was floundering.

"Once I heard the gospel message, I was convicted of a way of life. I knew I was guilty. I gave my heart to Jesus," she said. Her gall bladder attacks stopped shortly thereafter, she said.

Today, Peyton's Christianity has led her to lead a Bible study at Canyon Ridge, her current church.

And true to the megachurch strategy of addressing '90s life issues, she teaches church members about weight management.

"I'm leading the group for weight loss, only it's not focused on dieting. It's Bible-based and it teaches that the Bible teaches against gluttony.

"More and more we're giving in to any sensual gluttony whatsoever," she said. "I teach: 'This is how not to be a glutton.' We're getting fatter and fatter. The Bible says gluttony is a sin."

***

The Christian megachurch in Las Vegas has its roots in a 1970s evangelical movement that many local leaders refer to as the Revival on the Strip.

"A lot of dancers and gamblers came to the Lord in the 1970s revival -- they were the Jesus freaks," said the Rev. Stan Steward, pastor of the Assemblies of God Church. Steward, a doctoral student at UNLV, is writing his doctoral thesis on the religious history of Las Vegas.

So-called mainline denominational Christian churches, which enjoyed incredible growth in the 1950s after World War II, began struggling to appeal to young people in particular in the 1960s, according to Steward.

The revival was instigated by evangelical leaders whose appeal was similar to those in today's megachurches -- a rejection of institutionalized mainline denominational Christianity.

"People were drawn to the Pentecostal movement because it was not identified with the 'establishment,'" Steward said.

He defines the Evangelical/Pentecostal movement as "very biblical, experiential, (having) a very orthodox theology concerning the Trinity, and an emphasis on the person and word of the Holy Spirit in the life of the individual.

"Because the movement emphasized an experience with God, not just theology, it drew people from the Strip," he said. "They wanted a religion that you could feel."

Today boomers in particular are drawn to a feel-good spiritual experience, he said.

"There is something appealing about the possibility of a spiritual encounter with God," Steward said. "To be a Catholic doesn't mean any kind of real experience particularly."

By the 1980s, he said, Dove Ministries, a nondenominational Christian fellowship, "exploded" in Las Vegas, serving as a predecessor to the megachurches that would follow. At its peak, Dove had a weekend draw of 4,000 people.

"It truly isn't about money, or let's see if we can have the biggest church," Peyton said. "It's about having more people for the kingdom of God."

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