MUNSTER, IN -- The Family Christian Center is serving up new trends as well as coffee.
The center was featured on Time Magazine's Trend Alert page in the April 2 issue because of the opening of the Heavenly Grounds Cafe and Bookstore. The church is the only one in the country with a license to serve Starbuck's coffee.
The national attention isn't stopping there.
According to the center's Media Public Relations Director David Jordan Allen, CNN is flying in a crew from Atlanta to tape footage of the church and its heavenly lattes, mochas and espressos.
But serving up coffee isn't the only new trend the church has planned.
Expected to be completed by the end of the year on the building's south side is an almost 50,000-square-foot Family Life Center for the region's young people.
"We're carving a niche in this new millennium," Allen said. "In order to reach young people, you need to get right to their level by building a safe environment for our area's youth. (My Bible doesn't say, "get right to there level," but it DOES say, in II Corinthians 6:17, "Wherefore COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM, and be ye SEPARATE, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." - Brother Sleeve)
The life center will house a space-age bowling alley, which will have four glow-in-the-dark lanes. It will be the most modern bowling center in the area, youth pastor Rich Bourke said.
Inside will also be a pool hall, dance floor, (Did you just read that? Christian DANCING?? Would Jesus do THAT?) auditorium, a monitored Internet cafe, classrooms, a game room and a full-service cafe and food court.
"It's totally cutting edge (But what about the old-fashioned Gospel? I hear that it still works wherever, and whenever, it's used.)," Bourke said. "We want it to be a community thing, not just for our church members."
And it's free, he said. There will be no admission charge at the door and there will be no fee to use the bowling lanes and pool tables.
Various programs will be offered in the youth center such as an after-school program as well as dances and concerts on Friday and Saturday nights (That sounds just like what the world does on those nights. Where's the difference?).
"It's a safe haven for young people," Allen said.
There will be no drugs, alcohol or smoking on the premises as well as no violent video games.
"It will provide something alternative where kids can hang out," Bourke said. "They will be taught the right standards (So far, I haven't found any "right standards" in this description.) but still be able to have fun (Is that to say that soulwinning and preaching are not "fun" anymore?)."
The life center will also offer tutoring, and they have hired a full-time computer specialist to teach kids about the Internet and basic programs, which will tie into the tutoring classes.
Currently offered for the community's youth inside the family center is "Youth Rock Youth Church" on Sunday nights. Between 400 and 500 kids attend the youth church, which features live variety shows, concerts, comedy and video skits along with illustrated sermons (Where's the preaching about soulwinning, getting saved, and against sin? What about preaching to change a life, and not to merely entertain?).
"The bottom line is we are utilizing sight and sound to deliver the gospel (What gospel?), not a traditional church where people fall asleep (Who falls asleep at a church where the Old, Black Book is preached, like it is at First Baptist Church of Hammond?), Starbuck's ensures that," Allen said (Coffee can keep you awake, but your chuch is STILL dead. In Revelation 3:15 and 16, Jesus tells Laodicean churches like this one, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." Let that be a warning to the neo-evangelical, "entertain-me" churches out there.).