ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 16, 1997 TAG: 9703140015
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WICHITA, KAN.
SOURCE: DIANE SAMMS RUSH KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Two pastors find their parishioners relate better to country music than to ``Bringing in the Sheaves.''
The sign behind the preacher advertised a best-butt contest. The mirrored saddle that hung above him would be rotating in a couple of hours, scattering light throughout the country dance club.
All of the accouterments of the nightclub - the saddle, the signs, even the ashtrays - were in place. And in the middle of it all, about 35 people spent 45 minutes singing praises to the Lord and hearing the preacher draw from Dr. Seuss' ``Cat in the Hat'' to make the point of how easy it is for all of us to make messes of our lives.
The preacher, the Rev. Joe Cobb of First United Methodist Church in Wichita, has been in charge of the 5:30 p.m. Saturday service at The Cowboy Club in Wichita's Old Town historic district for 15 months.
The alternative worship experience is called Spirit Fusion, and it is typical of a sprinkling of others nationwide that are designed to reach the nonchurched through contemporary texts and music.
In Tisdale, a rural community in Cowley County, Kan., the United Methodist Church celebrated a honky-tonk Pentecost, using Garth Brooks' ``Standing Outside the Fire'' and a Billy Dean song, ``We're Only Here for a Little While,'' as contemporary connections to the gospel.
``Country music is touching people where they live,'' said the Rev. Quentin Bennett, minister at Tisdale. To him, it makes perfect sense to speak the language most familiar to his congregation.
It's a principle he learned at St. Paul School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in Kansas City, Mo. More specifically, he learned it while studying with the Rev. Tex Sample, professor, author, sociologist and working-class theologian.
Last year, Sample wrote a book titled ``White Soul: Country Music, the Church and Working Americans'' (Abingdon Press, $14.95) that criticizes the musical elitism of the dominant church culture. Sample suggests that country music speaks to people's needs today better than the well-worn hymns that have been sung for generations.
``For some folks,'' said Sample, who confesses in his book to having been a musical elitist, ``Garth Brooks and Reba [McEntire] are providing the stories that people can identify with.''
In a seminary course titled ``Music and Society,'' Sample and Oklahoman Larry Hollon, who produces secular and church videos, take several styles of music and match them to the populations to which they appeal. In studying jazz and blues, they discuss how the music that expresses the black experience has spilled over into the white middle class.
Rap music started with street kids but now has an audience that is three-quarters white, Sample said. Rock is discussed as the music of the baby boomers, beginning with the rockabilly of the '50s and evolving into hard rock, psychedelic rock, heavy metal and other forms as the post-war babies aged.
``Music reflects and helps to produce a culture,'' Sample said.
Bennett of Tisdale agrees. In his rural church, he has learned that people get more meaning from country music than they do from traditional church music. Mary Chapin Carpenter's ``Sometimes You're the Windshield, Sometimes You're the Bug'' has a message that is easier to grasp than the message in a classical hymn like ``Standing on the Promises,'' he said.
``Now and then we sing one of those heavy hymns,'' Bennett said, ``then we scratch our heads and wonder what it means.''
To Bennett, those hymns, with their outdated language, get in the way of helping people make sense of their complex lives.
A recent wedding in Bennett's church featured three country songs: ``I Cross My Heart'' by George Strait; ``The Maker Said Take Her'' by Alabama; and ``I Am That Man'' by Brooks & Dunn.
He expects to use Vince Gill's ``Go Rest High on That Mountain'' in a funeral service, just as he has used Garth Brooks' ``The Dance.''
For Spirit Fusion, Cobb has used country music (``The Dance'' and songs by Shania Twain), but there has been more of an emphasis on contemporary Christian music, or praise music, with simple melodies and lyrics that are easy to project on screens so people can sing along.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) The Cowboy was chosen for its availability and its location in a busy area in the center of the city. It wasn't chosen for its Western theme, Cobb said, though some people have come to services expecting country music.
On March 1, Spirit Fusion moved to a large room in First United Methodist in Wichita. The move was prompted by the expense of renting the club and the hassle of spending time setting up chairs on the dance floor, then returning them to tables. But more than that, Cobb said, it was because moving chairs meant there was no time to visit with people ``to create community,'' in ecclesial terms. A move back to the church also means that child care can be offered.
Cobb has found success with assigning themes to each month. February was Dr. Seuss month; March features ``Star Wars''; April will focus on jazz; and May has been declared country music month.
``I'd like to do more music that people hear on the radio,'' Cobb said, adding that the heavily baby boomer Spirit Fusion congregation relates easily to country and rock, as well as some jazz and blues.
In the future, Cobb said he would also like to reach out to younger people, perhaps even offering a religious version of a rave, the marathon dance party that features a driving beat, laser lights and other sensory stimuli.
That's a little too ambitious for Bennett, who keeps his worship services low-key by shedding his clerical robe in favor of a polo shirt in summertime. Though he enjoys classical music and jazz and his wife has studied opera, he is convinced that country music is the best fit for the Tisdale congregation.
While the strains of ``Bringing in the Sheaves'' reverberates off some churches' walls, the folks at Tisdale are more likely to be hearing a sermon by Bennett that is based on ``But it's Sunday now, and you can bet I'm all right,'' from the Lorrie Morgan song ``Except for Monday.''
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KRT. The Rev. Joe Cobb of First United Methodist Churchby CNBin Wichita, Kan., presents his message to the congregation at a
nightspot called The Cowboy Club. color.