It’s Sunday morning, and the buses are lined up outside EvanstonTownship High School. A guard monitors the crosswalk, regulatingtraffic. Children are here — parents and grandparents, too –shuffling into the school auditorium. A sign stuck in the grasssays “Evanston Vineyard, Sunday Services, 10 a.m.”
ETHS is not the home they envisioned, but for now worshippersmake do: Volunteers for the Vineyard Christian Fellowship hand outliterature in the school’s hallways, advertising upcoming events. Asongwriters group. A men’s retreat. A “hike for life” to support acrisis pregnancy center.
A notice for a healing class urges congregants to “minister likeJesus did.”
After minutes in the auditorium, though, it is easy to see thatJesus couldn’t have ministered quite the same: He wouldn’t have hadthe amps — an electric guitar jams with a band and a choir throughhalf an hour of songs.
“Worship the Lord in this temple,” sings worship leader JohnWillison, McCormick ’83, playing along with his acousticguitar.
The segues are seamless, except for a smattering of applauseafter each. As a Vineyard booklet puts it, “If a home run is worthyof clapping at Wrigley Field, certainly God Almighty is worthy ofour praise for the ultimate victory he has won.”
Pastor Bill Hanawalt urges his church to follow the Book ofJeremiah: “Pray for the prosperity of the city in which you live.”But though Vineyard lives in Evanston, it has spent years fightingthe city in the courtroom to secure its home.
Church founders chose Evanston in 1976 for its diversity, saidHanawalt, now Vineyard’s executive pastor. The church hoped toreach young people, so Northwestern and Kendall College also madethe city attractive. Many racial and economic groups live here, andthe city is a bridge between Chicago and the suburbs.
Vineyard has since blossomed, growing to nearly 900 members at atime when many churches face empty pews.
But Evanston has its limitations.
The city’s tight real-estate market meant Vineyard spent yearslooking for a building. When they finally found one at 1800 RidgeAve., they discovered that city zoning laws prohibited churches inthe area and would require them to pay property taxes.
Vineyard bought the building anyway, hoping it might receive anexemption. But since Evanston already was dominated by tax-exemptinstitutions — including NU — a zoning amendment to accommodatethe church would have been no small sacrifice.
The court so far has been on Vineyard’s side.The church won a lawsuit against the city that allows Vineyard toworship in its building. The church has claimed more than $500,000in damages, which the court has yet to grant. And at a time whenEvanston faces other high-dollar lawsuits, Vineyard might have moreof an effect on the city’s prosperity than Jeremiah could haveimagined.
INTENDED FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES
Hanawalt said he never set out to be a full-time pastor inEvanston. He and his friends just wanted a church they liked.
“We wanted to find a church that we wanted to go to, thatnourished us,” he said. “I was looking for a type of church thatwas relevant for my generation.”
When he and friends started Christ Church of the North Shore ina rented Kendall College facility in 1976, the service drew about40 people.
Many Baby Boomers were frustrated with their churches at thattime, Hanawalt said.
“The younger generation was voting with the seat of theirpants,” he said. “They were voting by not attending.”
The church didn’t need new beliefs, Hanawalt said. But it didneed a new style.
“It wasn’t that people were resistant to spirituality orresistant to Jesus,” he said. “It was that they felt the church hadallowed itself many times to become irrelevant.”
But it seemed that Christ Church had a message that worked.
By 1985, when they joined the national Association of VineyardChurches, the congregation had grown to about 350 people. Hanawaltsaid the church joined Vineyard to share resources for philanthropyand missionary work.
Vineyard not only has swelled in numbers but also reached thegroups it sought, Hanawalt said. About a quarter of worshipperswere not active Christians before they came to the church, andalmost a third of the congregation describe themselves asminorities. The church is young, with a median age of about 31, anda small contingent of NU students.
Bethany Lanford, an Education senior, has worshiped at Vineyardfor four years. She said students attend the church for more thanthe 10 a.m. start time.
“Vineyard is not interested in breathing down your throat andputting a finger in your face and telling you what you’re doingwrong,” Lanford said. “You can have right-wing, conservativetheology but not feel like you’re bound to a pew.”
One older church member, Evanston resident Jim Groarle, said thechurch has always attracted a younger element.
Groarle recalled a joke from the Christ Church days: “We didn’tsay we had a youth group,” he said. “We were a youth group.”
Hanawalt said Vineyard tries to be a place where creative peoplecan worship God in their own way.
There are four worship bands who play in a variety of styles,including reggae. There is even a dance ministry. Jamie Howe, aMusic sophomore, said she found her niche in the gospel choir.
“It’s so refreshing to build relationships with people otherthan stressed-out college students,” she said.
A Vineyard service might look like a concert, Hanawalt said, buthe emphasizes that the worshippers are not just an audience. Therole of the church is not to minister to the congregation but toequip them to minister to others.
There is little distinction between Vineyard’s clergy and laity.The pastors don’t wear special robes and rarely use titles.
‘RAISE THE RAFTERS’
Nobody at Vineyard on Sunday is dressed up; worshippers areencouraged to come as they are. For some that means a Polo shirtand a tie, but for most it’s T-shirts, tank tops and jeans. There’sa kid with green hair, a group in Fubu jackets. There are manyages, races and languages represented. Last year Vineyard askedsome immigrant members to read a selection from Scripture in adifferent language every week. It took 41 weeks.
During services the gospel choir leads the singing as some ofits members pat their chests and raise their hands. One evenweeps.
Hanawalt tells the congregants to “raise the rafters” withsong.
When the singing ends, the pastors give communion. No sermon isscheduled because the church has invited a guest speaker.
When Comiskey has finished, ministry time begins. Members ofVineyard’s “prayer team” — identified by their name tags — cometo the front of the auditorium.
The team is there to provide church members with individualattention and healing, said Theresa Decker, McCormick ’80, a memberof the church council and former member of the team. Decker saidshe had horrible allergies until she was cured by prayer.
“God has given the authority to ask for healing and see ithappen,” she said.
Some worshippers fold their hands and nod penitently. Othersweep, tremble, wail. At the center of the stage, one man places hishand just above another, eclipsing his face as they close theireyes and pray together.
The ministry will go on as long as it is needed, but for most,bagels await.
Hanawalt dismisses them as he always does: “Be the church.”
