Small in number, local Moravian Church values modern beliefs

In the age of Christian megachurches, with the number of followers nearing tens of thousands, and with the continued growth of televised worship services that mobilize and expand ministries, a small congregation in Downey, Cali. is spreading Christ’s love in a different way: through personal relationships between members and pastor, community outreach, and fellowship.

On a Sunday evening, a handful of the Moravian Church members can be found gathered in a small, redecorated north chapel that feels more like a living room than a place of worship. This is the Back-Alley Gathering, an inter-generational worship experience quite unlike the usual Sunday service. This is where Rev. Christie Melby-Gibbons and her husband David, members of the Moravian church and guests gather and spend a couple of hours a week to contemplate and have a dialogue about life’s tough questions. In past meetings, the group has drawn prayers, listened to music as a contemplative piece, and viewed movies as activities.

The Back-Alley Gathering is one of the many ways the Moravian Church of Downey is opening its arms to the community, for all people of faiths and circumstance, fighting to stay relevant and active in sharing God’s love.

The beginnings of the church

The Moravian Church is the oldest Protestant denomination, established in 1457 in Moravia (now present-day Czech Republic), predating the Lutheran Church by more than 60 years. It grew from the revolt led by John Hus, a Czech priest, who disagreed with the Catholic Church’s practices. Driven underground in the 1600’s, a revival in the 1700’s in Germany by Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf took the Moravian church to other countries as centers of outreach.

In 1735, the Moravians arrived in Pennsylvania. From there, settlements in the eastern United States followed. By the end of the nineteenth century, Moravians had established settlements in Canada as well.

The Moravian church came to California after WWII, where only a mission had been established in 1890 in the Morongo Indian Reservation. In 1954, the church was built in Downey.

Melby-Gibbons describes the Moravian Church as a “middle-ground” faith, one that emphasizes relationships and love over doctrines and creeds (the church only has one official published doctrine). The church accepts that various Christian denominations achieve relationship with God differently, which only enriches the understanding and celebration of God’s love.

The church is greatly liberal in its embrace of worship and people. The church welcomes women in all leadership roles in the ministry and welcomes the gay and lesbian community as members and trustees.

Phil Voigt, 69, president of the Board of Trustees, was just a young boy when the Moravian church was built in Downey in June 1954. His parents hailed from West Salem, Illinois and belonged in the only Moravian congregation in the small farming town.

“I helped put the nails in this place,” he said, “and my parents had a lot to do with building the church, too.”

It was a fairly large congregation then. Today, the Downey Moravian church has about 100 members, according to Voigt, although attendance to Sunday worship, excluding religious holidays, tends to be slim.

“The Moravian church as a whole has been growing very slowly mainly because Moravians will not build a church that already has a Methodist or a Presbyterian, or some other Protestant church,” he said.

This means that Moravian churches in the U.S. are hard to come by and some Moravians would have to travel far to attend worship.

Shirley Louis, 52, from Simi Valley, travels once a week, sometimes more frequently, to Downey for Sunday worship and other church events.

Born and raised in Nicaragua, Louis grew up going to a Moravian church, where congregations of 200 to 300 members are typical.

“In Nicaragua, church is very important. Kids had to go to Sunday school–it wasn’t a choice. And you went to church every Sunday,” she says.

When she came to California in 1984, she searched for a Moravian church nearby. “I was living in Inglewood at the time, so it was easier then to come to church,” Louis says. Now, it takes her an hour to get to church.

Despite the travel, she goes to worship every Sunday morning, usually with her daughter and mother. And they’re not alone. A few other members from the same village in Nicaragua all drive to attend worship.

No distance is too far to be with their church family.

“I know the names of the people at church. You don’t get that at a big church.”

Though the Moravian Church has been around since the 1400’s, there are only slightly over 700,000 Moravians worldwide. Only 10 percent of Moravians reside in the United States and Canada. Half of the church population resides South Africa, the Caribbean, and Tanzania.

But Melby-Gibbons is realistic with what could happen to the institutional Moravian Church in North America. She knows that active membership has greatly diminished over the years in many congregations.

“Moravian congregations are closing at a rapid rate. It seems that the Moravian Church as an institution—like the institutional church throughout North America and beyond—is dying,” she admitted.

The Moravian church does not proselytize, which means membership over the years has been slow to grow without a regular addition of newly converts.

But membership in Downey hasn’t always been this low. Back in the 1950’s, membership was strong. Over the years, the city population grew, but with it, less people were identifying themselves as Moravians, making it harder to meet the church’s financial needs for maintenance and to pay provincial dues. Today, the majority of the congregation is over the age of 60, with only 20 to 40 younger members.

Emily Korn, 33, is the church’s Youth Leader and admitted that younger people in general are leaving churches.

“Those in their teens, I think, are looking maybe for something more visual[ly] stimulating. So, a traditional, mainline, protestant worship service is not what they are looking for, even though I think we offer a true family of faith at our church,” she said. “I know the names of the people at church. You don’t get that at a big church.”

But along with the sense of a tight-knit community, lies some pitfalls.

“The detriment of small congregations is that sometimes they can become like a social club and become inwardly focused. Most of those congregations will close,” Melby-Gibbons said. “We need to be really careful that we are being relevant and not just forgetting about people outside of our walls.”

Melby-Gibbons shared a provincial leader’s theory on the future of the Moravian Church in North America: “There’s this theory that out of the 35 congregations in the western district, in 10 years, 5 of those congregations will close. And it will keep going in that pattern.”

But this doesn’t deter the church from reaching out.

Although funds are limited, the church manages to donate money and materials to help support several local organizations and programs like Rio Hondo Temporary Home, which provides transitional housing and support services for homeless families. They also have various ministries to collect and provide clothing for the homeless in Skidrow in downtown Los Angeles, and assisting a neighboring congregation in collecting food for a local food bank.

New leadership, new energy

In all of these outreach efforts, Melby-Gibbons is there to guide and encourage her congregation. Since her installment in the church in September 2009, she has introduced new ideas and has brought new energy.

In addition to all the existing outreach efforts, she has also proposed a GAPS Community (Gardener, Artist, Psalmist, and Shopkeeper), a Christ-ian community that would allow people to follow or emulate the life of Jesus Christ and would be housed in the parsonage.

The church also holds “Open Table” every Thursday night where anyone who wants to attend can come and break bread with the Melby-Gibbons and fellow congregants. Melby-Gibbons has also started planning a small program called Moravians Anonymous, a “crash-course” into who the Moravians are and what their theology is. Efforts like these and the Back-Alley Gathering are aimed to remove or at least ease some of the distaste or disillusionment of people for organized religion, and hopefully interest them enough to become members.

In all of the struggles of a small congregation, Melby-Gibbons is finding true joy in her loving congregation.

“You can’t go into ordained ministry without a love for people,” she said.

She added, “I see my task as a pastoral leader in the Moravian realm as: to help the institution die gracefully, but also to look for signs of resurrection.”

Although membership may ultimately thin out and the institutional Moravian Church may fold, Melby-Gibbons believes in the church’s motto: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

“I ask myself: What are those things about the church, which has been about people, which cannot die [and] glow as embers which promise to spark into new life? Those embers are the Moravians’ focus on: love in all things, relationship over doctrine, simplicity in life and theology, and an outward focus, like going out in mission and service to a world in need.”