Suite 19 reinvents church style

By Darrell Laurant

Published: October 1, 2008

Rick Ouimet thought he had died and gone to heaven. So to speak.

“Another church was renting this,” said Ouimet as he, Paul Dudley and Julie Preston led me through the 3,600-square-foot expanse of what is now known as Suite 19 on Wednesday afternoon, “and they offered us some space. Then, when they moved out, we just sort of moved in.”

You’d never know it. Suite 19 is located on the butt end of The Plaza, between High Peak Sportswear and a line of Dumpsters. When you open the door from the outside, you expect to see maybe a storefront office.

Instead, there’s a vast room converted into an upscale coffee house arrayed with comfortable couches and chairs. A game room with pool table and free Internet service. A large dance studio under construction, and a 61-inch TV waiting for pick up.

“We have church services in the coffee house,” Ouimet said, “and we take a coffee break in the middle of it.”

Whether we like it or not, the concept of “church” is being bent and reshaped in the crucible of the 21st century.

Denominational lines are blurring or disappearing. Independent churches are springing up everywhere. More and more Americans now see the traditional Sunday morning church service as boring and confining.

“A lot of people want to go to church,” Ouimet said, “but they don’t necessarily want to do it on Sunday. That’s a day they’d like to use to relax, be with their family. That’s why we offer a Saturday service.”

“We” is a collection of four different ministries that use Suite 19 as their base. Besides Ouimet’s Mosaic, there is Preston’s dance ministry, Assemble; Dudley’s One Community Church and Albert Jennings’ The Wave.

“That’s very unusual,” Ouimet said. “It’s hard to find four different ministries that can work together for any length of time.”

What’s also unusual is what Suite 19 is doing this week in the Midtown neighborhood surrounding The Plaza.

“On Monday, we were handing out bottled water,” Ouimet said. “The next night, we went back to the same streets, knocked on the same doors, and offered to clean their windows. People asked: ‘Didn’t we see you last night?’ and we said, ‘Yup. And tomorrow, we’re going to come back and do yard work.’”

“Jesus came to serve, and not to be served,” said Dudley, who lists Jesus of Nazareth as the “senior pastor and lead elder” on the One Community Church Web site. “We want to go out and serve people with no strings attached.”

The program is called “Give Big in Lynchburg” (givebiglynchburg.com) and the organizers hope to create a benevolent network connecting all of the area churches with the areas of need. This Saturday, the first week will culminate in a “block party” at The Plaza with free food, music, inflatables for the kids and a yard sale with a sliding scale (whatever anyone wants to pay for each item).

Meanwhile, Preston and Jennings will be taking their dance classes (everything from ballet to break dancing) into the neighborhood and beyond to perform.

In a nutshell, Suite 19 seems to be a curious amalgam of Christianity at both ends — the culture of 2008 meets the basic gospel of service from the New Testament.

“We have to earn the right to be heard,” Ouimet said.