TRENDSETTING CHURCH LEADERSDr. Steve Ball, 51Occupation: Co-founder, co-pastor, Metropolitan Tabernacle Church*.Claim to fame: Founded church with wife, Reita, in 2002; has helped expand church (it now has 700 members) into intentionally multicultural congregation with people from 35 to 40 nationalities represented.Quote: "We were very intentional to be multicultural and look like heaven's going to look like. ... We go from one end of the spectrum to the other in trying to bridge the gaps."Morty Lloyd, 46Occupation: Pastor, Chattanooga Church.Claim to fame: Helped found church in 1993 with 11 other Christians. Began wedding chapel several months after church started and now has presided over some 5,300 weddings. Has helped church grow to 200 members and two Sunday services.Quote: "We found a lot of people who don't have a home church looking for a place to get married. We use that as a back door to evangelism. ... A lot of couples who attend, we've done their wedding."Sean Teal, 43Occupation: Senior pastor, Friendship Community Church.Claim to fame: Became pastor of the church in 1998 and helped raise attendance from 26 to more than 500.Quote: "The emergence of prayer in our congregation is becoming the signature purpose-point that's driving us, and to me, as a pastor, (it's) like, 'wow, this is God.' "
Calvary Chapel senior pastor Frank Ramseur said today's spiritual seeker can easily spot a charlatan or fake, so he has tried to lead the 10-year-old nondenominational church to be nothing if not genuine.
"We're just real," he said of the congregation, which draws between 1,100 and 1,300 to two Sunday morning services. "That's our predominant theme. We're a place for real people with real needs."
Mr. Ramseur, 40, said he and his wife sought to plant a Calvary Chapel church and came here because "God wanted us to come to Chattanooga."
Moving from an East Brainerd home to the Downtown YMCA to Memorial Auditorium, the congregation put down roots in late 2008 in a renovated former Bi-Lo shopping center on South Broad Street.
What Mr. Ramseur has guided the church to offer, he said, are uncompromising Bible teaching, contemporary music and a casual atmosphere.
However, he said, Calvary Chapel has not been forced to be relevant to a younger, less traditional, more seeker-populated crowd.
"We're who we are because that's who we were," Mr. Ramseur said. "We haven't intentionally tried to be different. We're regular people who love the Lord."
What that effort has generated is what mainline churches, which have been shedding members for decades, long for.
Calvary Chapel has both a raft of young people -- 60 to 65 percent are younger than 30, Mr. Ramseur said -- and a sound financial structure in a down economy.
"We're very, very fortunate," he said. "Things have gone incredibly well."
The congregation offers many of the same things mainline churches have -- local and international missions, ministries for men, women, children, singles and students, and small groups -- but it's biblical teaching made relevant to the culture, and authenticity, that have set the church apart, Mr. Ramseur said.
"When you hear the name of an organization," he said, "something comes to mind. "The reputation of Calvary Chapel (locally) is one that's genuine, authentic, real."