Rockin' the Gospel in Sonoma County

The handful of churchgoers who stayed said there were leadership issues in the church that caused many to leave before Pastor Andy arrived. But when VomSteeg was hired in 1998 to replace a departing preacher nearly all of those remaining left after he began to introduce the changes.

"I had to get used to it. The music is a little loud," said Jean Brady, a church member since 1971. "I'm not saying I like it better but with the way things are now we have younger people."

VomSteeg came to First Baptist Church with goals of transforming its reputation as a traditional mainline Protestant church with an older congregation. Instead he wanted to create a younger evangelical Sonoma County version of the 2,000-member mega-churches that during the past decade have become some of the country's fastest growing religious institutions.

"The day of the small church is really out," VomSteeg said. "People are looking for variety and to do that you need resources ... To become a big church you have to act like a big church."

Slowly, loud bass guitars and rock songs began to replace centuries-old organ hymns. People left their Sunday best in the closet and adopted the come-as-you-are look.

And First Baptist, which for decades prided itself on being Santa Rosa's oldest church congregation, got a new motto: "The church for people who don't like church."

Supporters built a flashy Internet site advertising the casual atmosphere, had CD-ROMS about the church made to hand out to perspective members. Church leaders studied popular radio stations in Sonoma County to determine which demographics they would target.

A commercial that promotes Sunday services on country radio station KFROG says the First Baptist has "a live, rockin' band featuring some of the hottest musicians."

VomSteeg says most of the recent increase in attendance has come from word of mouth. Church members told friends who told more friends and now the congregation has doubled in size and on any given Sunday is host to about 350 people, mostly white and young families.

Members can request baptism into the church but if they've already been baptized by another Christian faith they are accepted as members. The congregation pays no formal tithe but are asked to contribute offerings each Sunday.

"Before Andy came this was a dying church. We're lucky if we averaged 75 people," said LoAnn Bartolomei, 55, who has been a church member since the 1980s.

"You came in; you sat down. The choir would sing. There was an offering and everybody would go home. This is much less restrictive from the way the message is presented to the way people dress. I'm energized by this music. I love this," she said.But many of the church's original members say VomSteeg has gone too far in the opposite direction.

"Everything has to change towards contemporary. My personal problem is he's gone too far and too much in the other direction," said Barbara McElroy, who left First Baptist to attend the Presbyterian Church of the Roses in Santa Rosa, where she is the music director.

"A little bit of that is OK. I think he goes way overboard. It brings in some of the newer crowd, a lot of younger generation, but he's totally ignored everybody else," she said. "He is very stylized to a point if you like this fine and if not get out."

Though VomSteeg says his services are not meant to be entertainment, everyone in them says they are fun.

The theme changes monthly, and so does the pulpit set design, to correspond with a different message. With the David Letterman theme, VomSteeg sat behind a desk and interviewed church members, read a top 10 list and bantered back and forth with the keyboarders who posed as Paul Shaffer. The theme: family relationships.

A dog trainer was brought in one Sunday to prove there's a difference between discipline and punishment. "God doesn't punish us," VomSteeg said.

On another Sunday, VomSteeg showed 15 minutes of clips from the popular television sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" as an opener to a discussion on why God put us on Earth.

"We'll spend the next 40 days answering this question," he told the congregation. "Oprah Winfrey did a show on this. Who here likes Oprah?"

Sing, dance, bow heads

VomSteeg asks congregation members to read Biblical passages with him and bow their heads a few times during the service.

During the 35 minutes of band music, members sing along, dance and throw their hands up in praise.

"There's not a lot of reverence. People here appear to be irreverent in the way they dress. But God's here. He's upbeat and positive," said Lee Bartolomei, 62, who left the Catholic church three years ago to attend First Baptist with his wife.

Between the two Sunday morning services, children meet in a chapel to the side of the church for a program called Xtreme Kidz.

The walls are painted black, there's thumping rave-like techno and rap beats, strobe lights and more video screens.

Younger church members dance choreographed routines with adult leaders who pause the message to act out skits that promote a Biblical message.

"We hope they remember these things, good principles, to carry with them through life," said Vicki Kenny, who runs the kids program. "We call this a ministry and we share the love of God with them."

The more serious praying, church members say, comes during the week in small group Bible studies that church leaders encourage all members to attend.

VomSteeg calls those sessions where members meet in groups of eight to discuss life problems and faith "the kitchen" because, "life changes happen in the kitchen," he said.

"There's no verse in the Bible that says you must have perfect church attendance, but the growth happens in you between Monday and Saturday," he told the congregation.

Before moving to Santa Rosa with his wife and three children, VomSteeg was a pastor at a Methodist church in Richmond. He is the child of Methodist missionaries and spent much of his youth in Brazil.

He started researching evangelical churches, groups that adopt a literal interpretation of the Bible and promote preaching the gospel, after noticing that those were the churches that showed significant increases in attendance.

And that format has worked so well in Santa Rosa that the church last month added a Sunday service to make room for the growing congregation.

"We're so untraditional," Kenny said. "Either you love us or you hate us."

Photo's by John Burgess of the Press Democrat