| Church swings into new growth
By Michael Wacht
HOLIDAY — Shirley Taylor says she “couldn’t
help but swing on ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’ ” when a
former pastor at Community United Methodist Church, here, asked her to
play the piano during the offertory. The congregation’s reaction was
so positive the church’s 11 a.m. service now features Taylor and two
other musicians playing big band and jazz.
“We swing it every Sunday morning,” Taylor
said. “When we went to the new music, we cut out the choir and a lot
of the liturgical things. Now, it’s basically the music and hymns
and the pastor’s message.”
The music and new worship style have started to
attract new people to the 400-member church, according to the Rev.
Fred Bonsteel, the church’s pastor. “Easter we had 432 people in
attendance,” he said. “That’s the biggest in about three years.”
The jazz worship service is also the larger of
the church’s two Sunday services. The earlier traditional service
usually has a quarter to a fifth of the attendance of the later
service.
Many of the church’s visitors are young
families, according to Taylor. “We decided we needed a change…to
go to something to attract the younger people,” she said. “We have
an elderly church. We’ve been going with the status quo and not
doing much to attract new people. West Pasco is growing by leaps and
bounds, but we’re left behind.”
Church attendance is primarily older adults
because Holiday was originally a retirement community, according to
Bonsteel. “The demographics are changing now,” he said. “Young
couples are moving in and buying the retirement homes because it’s
all they can afford. We now have three elementary schools within
walking distance of the church, but we have no kids.”
Church leaders are looking at ways to make the
church more family friendly and generate more publicity. Bonsteel said
a recent visitor told him he has lived in the community for seven
years and didn’t know the church was there.
“This church is going to make a turnaround,”
Bonsteel said. “It didn’t decline overnight, and it won’t turn
around overnight.”
The core group of musicians is Taylor on piano,
John Lamb, who played bass with Duke Ellington’s orchestra, and
Jerry Slosberg on drums. Taylor said various singers and musicians
join the group at different times. The May 19 worship service will
feature an 11-piece band.
The group plays a mixture of hymns and sacred
songs, as well as secular music. “There are a lot of secular songs
where you can change one word and make them religious,” Taylor said.
Bonsteel says he likes to change one word in a
Frank Sinatra song to make a theme for pastors. “You can change ‘I
Did it My Way’ to ‘I Did it God’s Way,’ ” he said. “There’s
not a song written that you can’t make religious.”
Taylor said she and Bonsteel work together to
make sure the music and message complement each other. Sometimes she
picks a song, and Bonsteel writes a sermon based on it.
Bonsteel said he has received very little
criticism about the service. “People I thought would hate it have
loved it,” he said, adding most of the people who don’t like it
have started attending the earlier traditional service.
Taylor says she loves the new worship style
because it comes out of her musical experience playing in a dance band
with her husband. But she is surprised at the positive reaction among
the congregation. “I’m surprised because we have an elderly
church, and they’re used to traditional worship,” she said. “I
love doing it. And it works…not enough yet, but it’s working.”
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