Issue date: November 18, 1998

'Up with the culture, true to the Gospel': One hundred and twenty five years old, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church stays vital by balancing recovery and religious programs

But this particular rainy Saturday morning at 7:30, Menlo Presbyterian's Men's Bible class is about to begin. Bill Russ, who has been a member of the group for several years, describes the men as ordinary people who happen to be interested in studying the Bible, or are in need of prayer. Women are not excluded from the group, though this morning there are about 150 men in the church's fellowship hall, pecking at doughnuts and pouring coffee before the group begins. One by one, men stand and offer their requests. Some of them are clearly unused to public speaking, and ask shyly for prayers for brothers-in-law facing bypass surgery, or neighbors facing family trouble. Others, more confident speakers, mention Muslims facing persecution, a Bay Area 16-year-old who recently committed suicide, students at Stanford who arrive at the hospital asking for morning-after pills. A few offer thanks for prayers, or updates on people mentioned in earlier sessions. Today, no one asks for prayers on his own behalf.

The room is quiet, but even in the fluorescent gloom of the fellowship hall, there is a sense of attentiveness. Photocopied cards with the Menlo Presbyterian seal -- tree branches with a cross superimposed in the center -- are passed around, and everyone signs. Later, a photo of the group will be attached with the date on which prayers were said, and the cards will be mailed.

"It's a great group," says Harry Hawley, who is not a regular attendee. "A friend of mine in North Carolina was facing a health crisis a while ago and I just mentioned it in passing to someone who went to the group that week. I didn't mention it as a request, but that person remembered, and later they gave me a card to mail. My friend was just bowled over to think of this bunch of guys he didn't even know, praying for him."

Later, Scott Dudley, who is minister to Stanford University as well as the men's group, leads a discussion of Exodus, and the men ask as many questions as they answer. Soon it's 8:30 a.m. and the group breaks up, some promising to come back at 9 for a discussion of prostate cancer.

"I wish I could get my wife to come to this," one 30ish man says. "I come every week. When I'm away for business or on vacation, I really miss it."

More secular missions

Many of the ministries keeping the church parking lot stocked are less explicitly religious, and that's OK with church leadership.

"The mission of the church is recovery," says Executive Pastor Jay Mitchell. "As Walt says, if this is a hospital for sinners, we offer an emergency room, long-term care, an outpatient approach, and the opportunity for patients to provide service to others who are ailing."

To that end, Menlo Presbyterian offers an embarrassment of recovery riches: divorce/relationship recovery; Hope for the Hurting, for those wrestling with issues of homosexuality; Journey to Joy, for women healing from childhood pain; a women's cancer support group; One Day at a Time, a 13-week, Christian 12-step program; a single parent's ministry; and a host of other recovery groups as need is perceived.

Add to that the Bible study groups for men, women, and children; the junior high school groups; the high school groups Breakaway and Second City; the Mothers Together support and discussion group; activities for people over 50, including Bible study, fitness classes, and a social group; and the Sunday School classes and nursery school, and you have a full-service church.

Which is to say nothing of the much-talked-about Singles ministry, with four groups currently meeting under the guidance of three full-time ministers, and the service base gets even broader.

The recovery missions are a "side door" to the church. Some people who make use of them never attend services or become members, while some Menlo Presbyterian members never avail themselves of the more secular programs. The missions are important in themselves, pastors say.

"Maybe it is a sort of seduction," admits Minister of Worship Doug Lawrence, who is primarily responsible for the music part of the ministry. "But it's a good seduction. For example, in our divorce recovery ministry there are people struggling with real-life issues. These are people who don't want to be preached at. We care for them, wherever they are in the process."

Wherever they are in the process, many participants in the recovery missions do become parishioners, or even regular members of the church. Jay Mitchell has been teaching the church's Seekers and Joiners class for seven years. The only requirement for membership at Menlo Presbyterian, the class stresses the tenets of Christian worship in general and the particulars of Presbyterian belief. In those seven years, Rev. Mitchell says he has seen the church grow by as many as 400 members a year. While he stresses that all the new members are "as different as the area in which we live," he says that historically the church has appealed to Christians of other faiths who have lost touch with their faiths, or whose churches have lost relevance in their lives.

"We're not looking to take members from other faiths, though they're welcome; it's heartbreaking for us that people come to us from all over because they can't find in their own community what they find here," he says.

In the past five years, he says, the church has increasingly tried to reach another population. "We're most interested in reaching the unchurched person in the Valley, the one unaware how loving God is," he says.

God in the details

Reaching that Valley population is a matter close to Menlo Presbyterian's heart. In addition to his church responsibilities, for example, Jay Mitchell takes time out of his schedule to meet with Time Out, a group of midlife businesspeople and professionals who feel a sense of emptiness in their worldly success, and want to contribute more to the community.

Only 10 to 15 percent of the members of Time Out are members of Menlo Presbyterian, and the church donates nothing but Mr. Mitchell's time to the group. And yet, says Harry Hawley, who is a member of Time Out and a founder of Christian venture capital group Christian Venture Partners, that support has energized untold Valley projects. "That's what the church is about: letting people use their skills to help in the world. The church leadership doesn't give us money, but Jay gives his time. When they see a need, if it's consistent with doing good, they'll support it."

You can see the Valley outreach beyond the church's walls in the form of groups like Time Out, but you can also see it in the sanctuary itself, in more tangible form: the high-tech sound system, lighting, and monitors that the church says are an integral part of its worship service.

"Our worship philosophy is: See it, hear it, and get it," says Doug Lawrence. "Then, maybe, you'll adopt it."

Churches have always used music and oratory to move members, but the church the Reverend Hall called the Church of the Pioneers in the 1950s is now pioneering new technologies for its services: a sophisticated sound system; a high-tech digital system with headphones available for the hearing impaired; mood lighting some community theaters might envy; and of course, those huge monitors.

"This is a community that values and expects communication," Mr. Lawrence says. "We don't want anyone to focus on technology, but in terms of what people see, feel, and buy outside the church, we know it works." Do they buy it inside the church? Pastor Lawrence admits a few traditionalists have found the screens distracting, but says he thinks churches need to use whatever means they can to stay relevant. "I'm excited that the church is changing; otherwise, we'd be curators of a museum," he says. "I care about the past, but my job is the present." Pastor Lawrence -- who was a professional baritone, taught music at several colleges, and served as artistic director of Schola Cantorum -- sees a certain amount of showmanship as a way of communicating.

"I'd rather be here than singing at Carnegie Hall," says Mr. Lawrence, who has actually sung there. "The average choir member practices seven to eight hours each week, and that's a form of service, too."

On a Saturday evening at 6:30, there are only about 60 people in the sanctuary -- the big crowds generally attend on Sundays. It's a quiet, rainy night, and the monitors blinking at the front of the church seem outsized, unnecessary. That doesn't bother the congregation, though. Two women in the front pew sway along with the hymn singing, waving their arms, the reflected light in their faces.

Looking ahead, looking out

Church of the Pioneers or Church of the Silicon Valley, Menlo Park Presbyterian is poised at a place most churches would envy. It's a wealthy church with a growing, vibrant congregation and a staff who, by all accounts, are devoted to their congregation and their mission.

That doesn't seem to matter so much at Menlo Pres. The church that doesn't venerate its past isn't worried too much about the future, either. "We're not here to build a kingdom," Pastor Mitchell says.

The balance Menlo Presbyterian has managed, by most accounts, to strike between conflicting interests is mysterious. Universal and individual, secular and sacred, are wrestled with here.

"People here don't have it all together, but we try to move toward a truth that helps," Pastor Lawrence says. "Still, this is a place where people can take off their masks -- and we all need a place like that."



© 1998 The Almanac. All Rights Reserved.