Early Show It Isn’t About Stained Glass And Glossy Altars Anyway, Pastors Say

Tonight, folks will file in to watch the latest Harrison Ford flick, “The Devil’s Own.”

On this Easter morning, though, Post Falls Cinema Six will be used by churchgoers - members of the fledgling Grace Family Worship Center.

An unlikely house of God? Maybe. But it sure beats the trailer park.

“We were using the clubhouse at Camelot Estates,” said the Rev. Dan McDrummond. “But we couldn’t advertise there. We couldn’t really grow.”

McDrummond’s is not the first flock to use such unlikely temples. Start-up churches are looking beyond expensive chapels for places to call home.

A group of Baptists in Coeur d’Alene lease a space in a strip mall. Before that, they met at motels.

“Of course the advantages are financial, but also it gives you the opportunity to find where the population of your congregation is centered,” said the Rev. John Newby, pastor of Mid-Way Community Chapel. That way, pastors know where to buy a building. Newby’s church began as a home Bible study group.

In Post Falls, Northwest Christian Center meets in a concrete industrial building on Seltice Way.

“It’s not what you’d think of as a church building, but it works great for us,” said the Rev. Vic Schmeltz. “The Bible says the church is the people, not the building.”

He said he’s seen other Calvary Chapels meet in fruit packing plants. One has Sunday school classes in a train car. “All kinds of things. People have gotten more inventive over the years.”

Dan and Regina McDrummond long dreamed of starting a church near their Idaho home. In January, they did - at the trailer court. But the recreation hall was far too small, forcing McDrummond and his flock to take up the theater.

Today’s Easter service is their first facing the curtained silver screen.

“We put out 5,000 fliers,” McDrummond said. The theater holds 247. “I hope there’s enough seats.”

There sure wouldn’t have been before. The old rec room could hold only about 40 folks - the present size of the congregation. And the pastor worried about kids falling into the pool or Jacuzzi.

The theater is no steepled cathedral. But church isn’t about stained glass and glossy altars anyway, pastors said.

“If you look at the Bible … Christ basically did all his preaching in the open, in the open air,” said the Rev. Robert Keneally, a pastor at Grace Harvest Fellowship in the Spokane Valley. “The structure used isn’t as important as what’s being preached.”

McDrummond says he heard the call to preach nine years ago.

Before taking up the cloth, McDrummond was a longtime member of Grace Harvest; his new church is affiliated with it. And for now, McDrummond still works at Heater Craft, a maker of marine heaters.

McDrummond has done missionary work, and has appeared as a guest speaker in other churches.

When the time was right, the pastor of nondenominational Grace Harvest ordained McDrummond.

He’s never been to seminary, but doesn’t think that’s all-important.

“I’m more interested in getting people born again,” McDrummond said.

“The average person doesn’t understand the Bible anyway,” much less intellectual lectures on Greek and Hebrew.

Grace Family held its first service Jan. 10.

It had an instant congregation - people from Post Falls had been driving to the Valley church for years.

“They all have attended here, but there’s just a lot of need for people in Post Falls,” Grace Harvest’s Keneally said.

McDrummond got the theater idea from reading a book about pastoring in a pinch.

“It rung a bell. Theater,” the pastor said, savoring the insight. “A theater had just opened in Post Falls.”

He asked the owners and got the OK. “Actually, we were trying to promote our theater however we can,” said Bob Guindon, a partner in the theater.

“Anything we can do in the off-hours is good for everybody.”

McDrummond hopes his Easter premiere will be a box-office smash.

After all, it’s the time of year many people go to church who wouldn’t show otherwise.

But do folks ask if he plans to serve popcorn? Mallomars? Dots?

“It does strike people as kind of strange,” said McDrummond, who plans to lease the space each Sunday. “They say, ‘Why are you meeting in a theater?’ and they have a smile on their face when they ask. We say they have seating, and it’s available. And they don’t have matinees until afternoons. It’s just perfect.”

And some people are wary of going to a traditional church, McDrummond said. “They’re intimidated.”

The theater surrounding may be more familiar to those petrified of pews.

Pretty much everyone has sat in those spring-loaded theater chairs before.

Now McDrummond just has to deal with the promotional posters. He joked that the one plugging the new Jim Carrey film is all wrong.

“That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? You basically have the truth told in the place of ‘Liar, Liar.”’

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo