New songs for modern missional worship, rich in Christian teaching and contextualized in modern culture. Contemporary hymns, psalms, songs of lament and praise written by members of the Louisville, KY-based Sojourn Community.
This week’s edition of The LEO Weekly, Louisville’s major alternative newspaper, features an in-depth look at Sojourn in their cover article, entitled “Smells Like Holy Spirit.” LEO is distributed weekly at over 900 outlets in Louisville and Southern Indiana, and boasts a readership of well over 150,000 people.
As part of his research, LEO Managing Editor Stephen George interviewed Lead Pastor Daniel Montgomery, Worship Arts Pastor Mike Cosper, Director of Communications Kevin Janes, and SEED Director Nathan Ivey for 2 1/2 hours, covering Sojourn’s operations and vision to be a gospel-infused, Christ-directed church in the city, for the city.
George describes what he calls the “Sojourn Universe,” saying that it is “impressive: Under its brand is Sojourn Music, a members-only effort to make Christian music better than half-wit nu metal or milquetoast alt-country, as well as Sojourn Arts, which applies a similar goal. Fifty community groups meet during the week, usually at members’ homes - some 70 percent of members engage in this. They have a full-time Christian counselor on staff, as well as children’s ministries.
“The church also has its own urban renewal division. Seed, as it’s called, has partnered with Metro agencies, neighbors and the German-Paristown Neighborhood Association on more than 80 projects since March 2007, including beautification efforts and the winterizing of homes for local elderly. It goes without saying that swamped city workers and volunteer neighborhood association members welcome the extra hands.”
George had said he wanted to cover the whole spectrum of Sojourn’s beliefs and initiatives because, to use his words from the article, “There is a lot to chew with a complex situation like Sojourn’s, but the most pertinent questions - based on a mountain of anecdotal evidence I attribute to a string of conversations about the subject in bars, restaurants and coffee shops, at shows and openings and even sporting events in the last year or so - are whether the church is using its new cultural and political cachet to recruit new members and, ultimately, whether this kind of religious-political-cultural amalgamation should be troubling to a city in need.”
The resulting story includes quite a few quotes from Sojourn leaders as well as non-Sojourners from our Germantown neighborhood and the city of Louisville, and is an interesting snapshot of the way people of various beliefs view a missional, young church that regards the Bible as the literal Word of God.
Thanks to Stephen George and everyone at LEO for all of the work involved in creating such a prominent article on Sojourn.
April 10, 2008 at 14:11
My favorite part of the entire article:
“There is warmth here, yes, and an element of persuasion that’s surprising. Although this place, during this particular Sunday morning service, is about as vanilla as a public radio play list, I feel connected. To something. I cannot intellectualize it, because to do so would ruin it.”
April 11, 2008 at 05:05
That is an excellent quote. Very deep.
On another subject, what ignited this recent string of stories in Velocity and Leo?
April 12, 2008 at 07:47
I’m not sure exactly — in neither case did we send out press releases, so the stories “found us” in that sense. And, given that LEO and Velocity are owned by two different media companies, I’m sure there wasn’t any collusion between the two.
I think, as Mr. George wrote in LEO, Sojourn has become too active in the community to ignore. Or to put it another way, it’s simply become an interesting story: Young church seems to come out of nowhere and starts growing rapidly, bringing in cool art exhibits and music shows, getting involved in neighborhood associations, working for the poor, etc. “What’s it all about? What’s their agenda?”
I can certainly see why people would ask those questions.