A near-capacity crowd fills Bainbridge Island’s largest movie theater on a Sunday morning.

On-screen images of trees and water give way first to scripture, then prayer, then the lyrics to contemporary Christian music, played by electric piano, guitar and bass.

This is Cross Sound Church, and if you think it’s old-time religion in a modern setting, you’re getting the idea.

“We ask what the resources of classic, historic, Bible-based Christianity can bring to the questions of today,” pastor Paul Schuler said. “We are trying to adapt our communication without changing the content, and our service is a visual of that.”

On a recent Sunday, Schuler dealt with the issue of “time-performance stress” – too much to do in too little time. The Christian contribution, he said, involves putting the problem into context.

“St. Paul said that he cared very little about what others thought of him,” Schuler said, quoting from the Bible. “If your whole sense of self is based on what others think of you, you’re in big trouble.

“Ask a different question. Life is very short, and when you are with Christ forever, you won’t even be thinking about this.”

While pointing out the perspective provided by traditional Christianity, it’s not as though Cross Sound stresses contemplation over action. To the contrary, the church’s strong outward orientation is what attracts some members.

“The deciding factor for us was that it was very apparent this church had a real commitment to the community, an outward focus rather than an inward one,” said Michelle Hutchins, who serves as community outreach co-ordinator.

The church didn’t create a lot of new projects, but worked with what was already in place in the community.

“Paul told us that there are a lot of great projects out there, and to go and get plugged in,” Hutchins said.

Hutchins took the most direct approach possible – she telephoned or visited every social-service agency she could find, said she represented a group of volunteers, and asked how they could help.

What came back was a potpourri of projects that aren’t the type eligible for government funding, but that improve the lives of a lot of people. Projects like kid-and-pet visits to senior citizens at care centers; monthly dinners at the teen center; or providing care-center residents with rides to McDonald’s and gift certificates. One favorite was Thanksgiving and Christmas pies for on-duty firemen.

“We got more than they knew what to do with,” Hutchins said. “There were pies on the desks, pies on the foosball table, pies out the front door.”

A Cross Sound original was Project:Backpack, which provides packs with school supplies for students in need; that project has since been spun out into the community at large.

Another manifestation of the church’s outward focus is the fact that it has no permanent building.

When the church was founded in 1996, it met at Woodward Middle School for Sunday late-afternoon services, then moved to the Pavilion for Sunday morning services two years ago.

Changing locations has required Schuler to adapt services to the space, but he says that is a benefit.

“The facility is a tool, not the end product,” he said. “I like not being defined by an area. Theaters are places where stories are told, and it serves us well to tell the compelling story of the scriptures.”

The theater also allows for a more casual atmosphere, and indeed, the predominant mode of dress appears to be blue jeans, with scarcely a suit in sight.

The congregation is also notably younger than one sees in many island churches, with 30- and 40-somethings and their children being the predominant demographic.

“For better or worse, congregations tend to reflect their pastors,” said the 44-year-old Schuler, a father of seven.

One way he and wife Juli have gotten to know the island is “by having kids in each school,” he said.

Originally from Southern California, Schuler graduated from UCLA, then went into the Navy, where he became actively involved in church work.

He apprenticed for two years, then went to seminary. He founded – “planted,” in church parlance – Cross Sound in 1996 after a multi-year stint with a church in Poulsbo.

With average Sunday attendance of 275 filling the Pavilion theater and parking lot, Cross Sound has started offering two duplicate Sunday services at 9 and 10:45 a.m., which will also allow adult-education classes in addition to Sunday school.

Schuler does not believe Cross Sound’s growth has come at the expense of other island churches, and says that many of the members are relatively new to the island.

“Everybody has faith in something – the question is what,” he said. “People who may have thought they understood Christianity and had written it off are now taking a second look.

“We want to be out there in the marketplace of ideas.”

*****

‘Stunned by love’

Cross Sound Church’s theology may be conservative, but the doctrine doesn’t dominate the weekly proceedings, according to pastor Paul Schuler.

“We embrace our particularities, but that’s not the focus of what we do,” Schuler said. “We want to help articulate the important questions, and point to the Christian answers.

“We want to be a place where the committed Christian can come and grow in faith, but we’re very open to those that may not buy into this.”

Cross Sound is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America, a 1973 split-off from the more liberal Presbyterian Church U.S.A., with which Rolling Bay Presbyterian is affiliated.

According to the PCA website, the split came about “in opposition to the long-developing theological liberalism which denied the deity of Jesus Christ and authority of the scripture.”

Additionally, the PCA held to “the traditional position on the role of women in church offices,” meaning that women are not ordained as church pastors.

Schuler talks not in terms of conservative or liberal theology, but in terms of “tradition,” which in this case means the reformation theology of John Calvin.

“We subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed,” Schuler said. And while the Westminster Confession of 1645 has a certain a antiquity to it – adherents are urged, for example, not to marry those with “papist” sympathies – Schuler says those specifics shouldn’t cloud the dominant message.

“We try to understand the gospel, and are stunned by the love of Christ. We are involved in figuring out how we live that out. We want to focus on the basics, and not be involved in culture wars or other distractions.”

Properly interpreted, some adherents find doctrines such as humanity’s inherent sinfulness comforting, not off-putting.

“We understand that we are all in need of help, and church is a place where you can find it,” said Tom Crane, who has been involved with Cross Sound since its 1996 inception. “The teachings of Christ and God are not against a lot of things, but for a lot of things.”

The PCA is aggressively evangelical, believing that missionary outreach is part of its charge. Its efforts have paid off, it says, in making it the fastest-growing branch of the Presbyterian Church, with almost half a million members, the majority of whom live in the American South, particularly in the Atlanta area, where the PCA is headquartered.

The PCA emphasizes “church planting,” the founding of new congregations where opportunities arise.

“I was interested in planting new churches,” said Schuler. “I met with a launch team of six couples, and we brainstormed for about eight months before we started.”

Crane was introduced to Cross Sound by a member of the original launch team, and got involved two months before the opening. He had previously gone to another church on the island, but was attracted by what he called “their freshness as it related to their description of the gospel message.”

While Schuler as “founding pastor” has had a substantial impact on the church, he has also tried to share his ministry with other members through establishing smaller groups of 12-18 people.

“You can’t really get your personal needs met in a group of 275,” he said. “The small groups are where the real work of the church gets done.”

Each group is different, Crane said. Some are oriented towards study of scripture, one is built around cycling, and some are special-purpose – like a group last fall that studied the scriptural text of Handel’s “Messiah,” then went to Benaroya Hall for a performance.

But the focus is the same, Crane said.

“The emphasis is on getting together and sharing our lives,” he said. “The focus is on giving people an environment in which they can feel safe and comfortable, and interact on a level deeper than ‘how are the kids?’”