Cleric Takes Word of God to Yuppie Set : Non-Traditional Sect Wants Baby Boomers to Rediscover Faith

Southern Californians work out religiously. Southern Californians worship the athletic human form.

Still, potential parishioners must feel a bit disoriented as they venture down the sweat-scented hallways of a racquetball club in Fullerton looking for the Rev. Jack Sims’ new church.

Crack-thwump!

Where they might expect a procession of choirboys, they get rows of panting aerobics enthusiasts and booming rock ‘n’ roll. The clank of weight machines replaces church bells.

By the time they have found the well-appointed meeting room, popped open a Heineken or Perrier and started grazing on the buffet of “designer” cookies and quiche, they must be convinced this is not the sort of church they were once dragged to by their ears.

Crack-thwump!

But then, being different is the whole idea, Sims told the 45 people attending the first weekly meeting in April of the church he calls “Matthew’s Party.”

A minister ordained through the Evangelical Church Alliance in Bradley, Ill., and the marketing strategist behind Boomers Consulting (Boomers derives from Believers Outside Most Every Religious System), Sims says the “Jerry Falwell generation of churches” is about to face the “Pepsi generation” challenge.

And churches of the old school--those “founded before 1960”--aren’t up to the test, Sims argued, as the sounds of heated racquetball competition drifted into the room Sims rents from the racquetball club for his weekly services.

Crack-thwump! Crack-thwump!

Sims, who lives in Placentia, thinks a reformation of sorts is on the horizon, and besides working out the details of his own new church, through Boomers, he and his wife advise preachers--for a sliding fee that starts at $250 a day--on how to appeal to his generation’s tastes.

‘Boomers’ Said to Avoid Church

Most of the 76 million Americans between ages 22 and 40, whom Sims calls “baby boomers,” just don’t like going to church, said Sims, 39.

As evidence, he offers a 1983 People magazine poll showing that the average “boomer” attends religious services only 6.2 times a year--less than half as often as the average American over 40. Twenty-eight percent of these younger folks don’t attend church at all, the survey reported.

Yet a Gallup poll in the early ‘80s suggested that 99% of this same group has a religious preference or affiliation, and a full 40% say they are “born again” Christians, Sims said.

As Sims sees the situation, these people--about a third of the U.S. population--are not put off by theology but by the ritual and cultural trappings of church.

Old Wine in New Wineskins

“People don’t have a problem with the content (of church services). It’s the container. . . .” Sims said.

“Trying to reach the baby boom by using the same tired, conventional methods that most churches use is like trying to win the Kentucky Derby by throwing a racing saddle on a cow. . . . Churches are usually a decade or 15 years behind, anyway. Now that the baby boom has emerged onto the scene, and the culture has gone into hyperdrive, churches are really hurting.”

Drawing on marketing classes he took in college and his 10 years as a college pastor and organizer with Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the world’s largest evangelical organizations, Sims in 1976 began research and consulting work at what is now the Charles E. Fuller Institute for Evangelism and Church Growth in Pasadena.

The Fuller Institute, which has ties to the Fuller Theological Seminary, was a seminal force in the influential “Church Growth Movement” of the 1970s and ‘80s--an effort to bolster sagging church attendance. Pastors across the country--particularly in California--have taken to heart the institute’s tips on how to attract new parishioners, said the Rev. John Crossley, associate professor of religion at USC.

“Beginning in the mid-’70s, church leaders began to feel like it was OK to use professional skills and to look at religious work in a professional manner,” Sims said. Now “copywriters, media consultants, production specialists--most everything from the secular world--have a counterpart in religious America.”

After leaving Fuller in 1978, Sims continued in the fields of church growth and Christian marketing, working with organizations such as Teen Challenge and mushrooming ministries such as the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, which boasts of 140 churches nationwide and 7,000 people in its flagship Anaheim congregation.

In the early ‘80s, Sims co-founded a marketing group, which, he claims in his resume, “merged state-of-the-art technology with an understanding of the religious marketplace.”

Last September, however, Sims grew tired of offering his expertise to churches he felt had little potential for attracting his generation. He left his old firm and launched Boomers Consulting, offering his advice exclusively to those churches he said “could adjust and stay current as McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried” have done in the fast-food business.

“There is a Reformation-size spiritual renewal coming to America,” Sims said. “It’s happening right now . . . and it’s going to create a whole new industry. We’re going to see mission organizations, media production facilities, evangelistic organizations, publishing companies, record companies and new churches.”

Orange County will be “the epicenter” of this revolution, Sims added. “It was the center of the Jesus movement in the ‘60s, and today this area typifies the spiritual receptivity of the baby boom generation.”

More than 400 years ago, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95 Theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. In hopes of getting his reformation of the 1980s rolling, Sims has been firing off a series of nationally distributed snappy press releases.

‘Rev. Rambo’

In one attack on such popular fundamentalists as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and Tim LaHaye, Sims wrote, “Rev. Rambo is speaking from the pulpits of America and glaring from the glowing rectangle of religious media. . . . While young Americans are concerned about peace and national security, most find it impossible to believe that Jesus Christ would favor bigger and better bombs.”

Another release declares: “Evangelicals are trapped in a time machine stuck in 1950. . . . None of them wants to admit that they are fighting for a limited number of fixed-income, fundamentalist donors. . . . Prime-time preachers have a credibility problem with suspicious baby boomers skeptical of financial hanky-panky. That spells trouble since baby boomers will be the ones with the money in a few years.”

Sims’ most comprehensive statement to date was printed in Christian Life magazine. By agreement with the magazine’s editors in Wheaton, Ill., Sims and a few colleagues put together virtually the entire January issue, whose cover asked: “Baby Boomers: Time to Pass the Torch?”

In that issue, a Christian music mogul explained why “rock ‘n’ roll is here to stay.” A Christian producer and media consultant gave advice on how “the family altar--the home entertainment center” can “reach into the lonely and disillusioned lives of baby boomers.”

Advice to Clerics: Watch MTV

Sims’ wife, Helen, wrote a piece on the special problems faced by the children of baby boomers. And Sims himself wrote articles explaining why baby boomers, because of their exposure to rock ‘n’ roll, media and computers, are more individualistic, more easily bored, less technophobic and thus more difficult to lure into churches than people over 40.

Stating that “all of us have a responsibility to help my generation come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ,” Sims urged pastors to watch MTV occasionally, to read popular literature such as People, TV Guide and USA Today, and to “visit a (popular) bar during ‘happy hour’ to see what young people do on their way home from work.”

Response to the Sims issue of Christian Life “was divided pretty evenly between people who were upset by the new ideas and people who wholeheartedly agreed with them and wanted to hear more,” said Rebecca Parat, assistant editor of the magazine.

“God has called us to holiness, not to mix with the world’s ways,” an Indiana reader commented.

Attacked as Huckster

A Pennsylvania subscriber wrote:

“The January ‘baby boomers’ issue was a bomb. . . . The ‘70s and ‘80s have spawned a host of ‘new angle’ religious counselors who charge a fee to repackage Jesus to fit the flux of life styles. These multimedia hucksters are slick, fast-talking clones who quickly label all opposition as old-fashioned or outdated. . . . These purveyors of space-age religiosity prove that the medicine show is alive and well.”

Sims laughed when reminded of those remarks. Religious fundamentalists have been skeptical of new ideas since the time of the New Testament, he said.

Crossley at USC said that critics probably would argue the same case against Sims that they argue against other pastors that they feel are selling out the faith for build bigger flocks.

“It’s really a theological argument as to whether the gospel itself is being altered to appeal to people as they are rather than trying to change them,” he said.

No Problem

Some church leaders, on the other hand, say they simply don’t have a problem attracting baby boomers. Jay Letey, an associate pastor at Grace Community Church in Van Nuys, for instance, said that at least 2,000 of the 10,000 or so people who attend that church on a given weekend are in the 22-to-40 age group.

Chuck Smith, pastor of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, said that about 4,000 people attend each of three Sunday services at his church, and most of them are boomers.

When the church-growth movement was just getting started, the people at Fuller Institute “came down and studied us,” said Smith, who has used rock music in some of his services for years.

Smith said he sees nothing wrong with trying to appeal to the tastes of a given generation. But he added, “I think that there’s a certain danger to the philosophy that the end justifies the means.”

Matthew’s Party

Sims said his critics are likely to be even more offended by his as-yet unpublished book, “Why Are These People Smiling? Because They Don’t Have to Go to Church Anymore,” and his alternative church.

The name “Matthew’s Party” comes from the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Sims explained at the church’s inaugural service at Racquetball World in Fullerton where Sims rents space for his weekly services.

As Sims told the story, one evening Jesus attended an affair at the home of Matthew, a tax collector. The party was attended by assorted sinful types, Sims said: “Mafioso, topless dancers. . . .”

Mingling With Sinners

When the Pharisees--”the religious fundamentalists of the day”--saw Jesus mingling with the rabble, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus replied: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. . . . I desire mercy, not sacrifice: for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

“Matthew’s Party is a church where even imperfect people can feel perfectly welcome,” Sims said.

Once the doors shut, cutting out the racket from the courts, the atmosphere at Matthew’s Party is like that of a nightclub. The lighting is soft. Candles flicker on tables.

God’s Music

At the first meeting, a guitarist led the group in singing Christian songs that had the flavor of mid-’70s country rock. Another night, a Christian recording artist belted out pop tunes about Jesus and salvation, eliciting “yeahs!” and “whoo-ees!” from the congregation.

If this church is like a nightclub, then Sims fits the role of master of ceremonies. With the casual delivery of a Las Vegas lounge comedian, he dissected Bible verses, schmoozed with the “audience” and spun Christian yarns, tossing in cartoonish gestures and sound effects.

Referring again to Chapter 9 of Matthew, Sims said he is doing what Jesus advised, “putting new wine into new wineskins.”

“With God’s help we will kick open the door to our generation,” he said, adding that he hopes to have 300 people at his Fullerton service before long. “ . . . And when that happens we’ll really be boogieing.”

Expects Movement to Grow

Sims also expects Matthew’s Parties to spring up “on beaches, in bowling alleys and in homes across the country--I don’t care where people meet, and God doesn’t either.”

Earlier this month Sims flew to Minneapolis, where a 36-year-old man threw an inaugural Matthew’s Party at a theater complex. Another is scheduled to begin meeting in Ventura next month, Sims said.

The people attending the first meeting of Matthew’s Party seemed to share Sims’ belief that a baby-boom reformation is at hand.

“Five years ago I decided it was stupid to be unhappy in church, so I left,” said Bob Payne, 28, of Anaheim, as people mingled and soaring guitar and synthesizer music filled the room. “I think this is a great idea.”

The fact that Matthew’s Party meets on Thursday evenings appeals to Steve Collins, 36, of Anaheim Hills.

“With the hectic pace of life these days--six-day work weeks and all--Sunday is the only day a lot of people have to spend with their families. I like the idea that you can come here and worship, and still get some sleep and go to work in the morning. I like the idea of having Sundays free,” he said.

“Especially during football season.”