Here is an article from The Tennessean, Word of Mouth Grows Church (see original link).
David Clayton, his wife and about a dozen friends started Ethos Church with $6,000 and a simple plan.
They’d get together on Sundays, study the Bible, sing some songs about Jesus and take communion together.
Each week, they’d ask a few more friends to join them. Then those friends would ask their friends. Three years later, they’ve got 1,400 friends coming to four Sunday services at the Cannery Ballroom in downtown Nashville, plus two churches in India.
Clayton, a former campus minister at Lipscomb University, combines the simple worship style of a cappella Churches of Christ, the savvy of modern megachurches and a focus on helping people outside the church. But the congregation uses instruments — a no-no in other Churches of Christ, who say early Christians didn’t use them and neither should modern ones.
The combination worked — while most new congregations average fewer than 75 people after three years, Ethos Church packs the bar and music venue where the congregation meets.
A few minutes before 7 p.m. Sunday, worshippers started to filter in for the last Ethos service of the day, most of them in their 20s and dressed in jeans.
In the entryway, volunteers served coffee in Styrofoam cups near three displays that read “Connect,” “Serve” and “Give,” with handouts under each. Another banner near the door read “I’m New,” inviting newcomers to gathermore information — and letting church members know who may need help.
Church members sign up to volunteer at least once a month, setting up chairs or teaching children’s programs. They also join weekly house churches that meet all over Nashville.
The church tries to give away about half of its weekly donations, which they collect online or in mailboxes set up during worship services. Recently, the congregation of college students and young professionals took up a special offering for a nonprofit called Charity: Water and raised $75,000.
“Everything we’ve done has been word of mouth,” Clayton said.
That Sunday service started with people shaking hands and talking. Then Will Shinnick, the worship leader, played “Blessed Be Your Name,” a popular contemporary Christian song, on an acoustic guitar, the lyrics projected on a black screen behind him.
The music was just loud enough for people to follow along without being overpowering. Some weeks there’s one guitar, sometimes a band with drums, sometimes mandolin and banjo.
“We always stress to our leaders that the focus of leading worship is not how cool the music is or how the band sounds, but on leading people to connect with God, and eliminating distractions that would hinder that from happening,” Shinnick said.
During communion, worshippers took cups of grape juice and plates of bread set out on tables and on the bar, then gathered in smaller groups to pray and partake.
Andrew Flener, one of the earliest church members, said the idea is for church to feel like a dinner party with friends, in which people come to be fed by God. They want members to interact with one another rather than sitting in pews the whole time.
“We are the church together,” he said, “not just people talking at other people.”
Clayton preached in a green thermal shirt and jeans, holding a Bible curled up in one hand. He never referred to notes during a half-hour sermon.
It was supposed to be from the Gospel of Matthew, but Clayton switched gears around 5 a.m., explaining he felt God wanted him to speak from Hebrews.
His style is a mix of verse-by-verse preaching mixed with humor. When the book of Hebrews says, “Fix your eyes on Jesus,” Clayton said to “glue your head to Jesus.”
He told the worshippers that once they get jobs and have kids, they’ll be tempted to forget about God and settle for an ordinary life.
“God has this adventure that he is calling you to do, and some of you are going to miss it,” he said.
That message hit home with Sara and Jimmy Hill of Murfreesboro, both 25, who have been going to Ethos since February. Sara Hill said the couple had been attending a more conservative Church of Christ but felt that their faith didn’t connect to the rest of their life.
And she’d never invited a friend to church before. “This is the first church I’ve wanted to invite people to,” she said.
Frank Ngau, 37, started attending Ethos after moving to Nashville from Michigan. He said he’d spent much of his early 20s and 30s hanging out in bars. The fact that the church meets in a bar, rather that a church building, he said, made him feel more comfortable.
Several weeks ago, he was baptized in a steel horse trough.
“My friends laugh that I was baptized in a bar because I used to spend so much time in them,” he said.
Ethos means the character or underlying beliefs of a certain group, and Clayton said founders chose the name because their Ethos is Jesus.
Its success is quite rare among new churches, said Lizette Beard, a project manager at LifeWay Research in Nashville. LifeWay has studied data from new congregations —known as church plants — from 12 denominations. Most are still small after three years, and about a third fail after four.
Stephen Gray, author of Planting Fast Growing Churches, said Ethos has several things in common with other larger new churches.
“They have to have a strong ability to cast vision, to create sense of ownership or buy-in from other people,” he said.
Successful new churches also have to connect faith to making a difference in the world in order to attract younger people. Those younger folks don’t want to just give money to a church — they want to be involved in a cause, Gray said.
Being able to delegate and trust other people to run programs also helps. Clayton calls himself one of the church leaders, rather than the pastor, when he speaks. And he makes an effort to meet new people and welcome them personally to the church.
Ethos is part of an evolution in the way Churches of Christ operate. In the past, Churches of Christ have been fiercely independent and suspicious of working with other congregations, out of fear of becoming part of a denomination.
That has changed in recent years, said Scott Lambert of Kairos, a church planting network that works with new Churches of Christ.
Kairos helped train Clayton to lead the new church and helped him find funding to pay the bills.
Some of the new Kairos churches are a cappella. Others, such as Ethos, think using instruments helps them draw new people in.
That decision is made on a local level, Lambert said. The main thing is that the new church isn’t disrespectful for traditional churches.
“Kairos doesn’t work with rebels,” he said. “We work with people who are missionaries to 21st century America. Like every missionary, they have to navigate every aspect of their culture.”
Having instruments in worship makes sense to Bob Wood, an elder at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ, which helped fund Ethos early on. Wood and other elders also regularly consult with Clayton — he and his wife, Sydney, were members of Harpeth Hills before starting Ethos.
“I have been going to church all my life, and this is the most exciting thing I’ve ever been involved in,” he said. “They are teaching us older folks about how God is calling us to serve others.”
Ethos has cultivated a culture of inviting friends to worship, and they have grown tremendously. What do you think makes this successful there and not other churches?
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