When it comes to worship styles, the Duluth Congregational Church is Bach while Duluth Vineyard is rock 'n' roll.
But the two starkly different churches are sharing the same red-brick, white-steepled building on Superior Street, next door to Northland Country Club.
It's an arrangement that allows the fast-growing Vineyard church to provide another place for its people to worship, while the dwindling Congregationalists continue to use the stately structure they built in 1968.
"For our tiny congregation, we moved our service from 10 a.m. to 9:30 to accommodate them," said Mark Brown, moderator (chief lay officer) of Duluth Congregational. "They follow us. And they've been wonderful."
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A dozen people gathered at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 14 for the Duluth Congregational service. They heard a prelude played by Sam Black on the pipe organ and sang hymns as he accompanied on the grand piano.
At 11 a.m., in what was billed as Duluth Vineyard Eastside's grand opening, 150 people gathered in a sanctuary that was built to seat 250. Songs were led by a worship team that included guitars, keyboards and drums, with lyrics projected on a screen. Additionally, the church's children's ministry accommodated 49 children, said Jill Peterson, who co-pastors the church with her husband, Rich Peterson.
"Cars were lined up and down Superior Street," Brown said, with a chuckle. "When service broke, the police had to come and help with traffic. It was tremendously exciting."
At 62, Brown said he's the youngest Duluth Congregational member by about a decade. That's the crux of the matter a dozen or so church members had been wrestling with along with their interim pastor, the Rev. Jennifer Amy-Dressler, over the past couple of years.
"We had to recognize that because of the age of our congregation, we were just unable to attract young families, reason being is that young families want to be with young families," Brown said. "We were not growing. We were only shrinking."
There was an easy out. The church is on prime land, and a developer was interested. Amy-Dressler said the congregation's response to that possibility impressed her.
"They were clear as they weighed things that it was more important to them that there be a faith presence in the neighborhood," she said. "And as different as Vineyard might be from them, the commonality is more important. I'm very proud of a congregation that says: We didn't build this so that someday money would come back to us."
It was Brown who approached pastors at Vineyard's main campus on Arrowhead Road about 18 months ago.
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"I saw what they were doing and I saw the cars in their parking lot on Sundays and every day," Brown said. "I was aware of what they were doing with youth, with food shelf, with community involvement, and I thought that if there was a ministry that was growing, it had to be them.
And I honestly called them up and said, 'Hey, got a crazy idea.' "
If crazy, it was also welcome, said Jill Peterson, who has been on Vineyard's staff for 10 years.
Average weekend attendance at the church's one Saturday and two Sunday services totals about 1,500 people, she said. Some were longing for a more intimate worship experience.
"We want to build a community that's a little bit smaller for folks who just feel like Arrowhead's too big for them," she said. "We also want a place for people to experience Vineyard Church in a context that's a little bit smaller with a little bit more traditional feel."
Starting in June with a group of around 15, mostly from the Lakeside neighborhood, Vineyard Eastside held services every other week at the Congregational church. That became a weekly gathering at the end of July, Peterson said, in what she described as a "soft launch." Before this past Sunday's grand opening, about 50 adults and 20-30 children had been coming to services.
During the summer, the two congregations reached a formal agreement. According to both Brown and Peterson, Vineyard is assuming the bulk of the operational costs for the building and grounds. After a few years, if the arrangement is going well, Duluth Congregational will sell its property to Vineyard for a dollar, but the Congregational church will be able to continue to use the facility for its services, funerals, weddings and other events in perpetuity.
The transition has been something of a culture shock for Congregational members, Brown acknowledged.
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"It's not been entirely easy to witness and accept some of the changes, because they're different and they're foreign to us," he said. "They project their Scripture on a screen, and we read it. They look up. We look down. They use guitars and drums and keyboards and we use pipe organ and grand piano. But we're working through (it)."
They're willing to work through it, Brown said, because the alternative was unacceptable.
"When you hear of so many churches - all of the Lakeside churches are closing," he said. "They're all closing doors. We didn't want to be that."
Duluth Congregational history
The history of the Duluth Congregational Church building at 3833 E. Superior St. began in October 1965 when George Finch, a Duluth Congregational Church member, donated the land, according to Duluth Herald archives. The church had been organized a month earlier. Two years later, when the cornerstone was laid, the church had close to 200 members.
The 28-foot steeple was one of the largest structures to be brought to Duluth by truck when it was delivered in December 1967, according to the archives. Weighing 1,458 pounds, with a 23-carat weather vane, it was manufactured in Cincinnati.
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