Audio story by Miguel Otarola
At the multipurpose space The Icehouse in downtown’s warehouse district, outside sounds tend to reverberate easily through the large brick rooms. Car horns boom on the streets, birds chirp in nearby trees and planes zoom overhead to and from Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.
If you’re trying to have a quiet event there, all these sounds might come off as mental disruptions. However, for Brian Kemp-Schlemmer and Robert Rynders, reverends of downtown’s City Square Church, organizing the church’s events at The Icehouse is just one way to go out into the community.
“One of the things that we had agreed to when we first came down here was that we’re not trying to build any buildings,” Kemp-Schlemmer said. “We wanted to figure out where the people gather, and wherever the people gathered that’s where we’re going to go.”
Kemp-Schlemmer and Rynders formed City Square Church, a part of the United Methodist Church, in July 2012. Rynders, 33, was previously the United Methodist Campus Minister at ASU Tempe while Kemp-Schlemmer, 34, worked at the United Methodist Church in Tucson.
When the two reverends, whose friendship developed at Rynder’s ASU church, filed their proposal to create City Square Church, Rynders said they were intent on coming downtown.
“(This was) an emerging community with artists, entrepreneurs, creatives, musicians, students,” he said. “We’re both really drawn to urban areas and urban issues and … we really felt called to come down and be a part of this new emerging community.”
Talking to people downtown, Kemp-Schlemmer said that the phrase he hears most often regarding individual spirituality is “spiritual but not religious.”
“What we hear in that is there are people who feel a deep connection to something bigger than themselves, to the divine,” Kemp-Schlemmer said. “They are looking for something that challenges them, that helps them to grow, helps them to live into who they want to be, but that isn’t caught up in politics or money.”
Over the few months the church has been active, its following has comprised mostly of young professionals, college students and young families, Rynders said. He said this could be due to the fact that less and less people are associating with established religious organizations.
“When folks are looking for that quiet place or that place to center themselves, traditionally that might be a church or a synagogue or a mosque or something,” Rynders said. “But for folks who aren’t into institutional religion, we want to create a space that uses one of the unique ‘third spaces’ downtown.”
While the church originally started with just Christian members, it has since expanded to hold monthly gatherings where people of all practicing religions are invited.
One of these events, the Community & Contemplation gathering at The Icehouse’s White Column Room, is an hourly session where people can quietly engage in meditation, prayer and thought. The church’s third contemplation event was held on March 24.
Dave Wasson, 34, has been a pastor in the Phoenix area for 10 years and attended the March event. He said this style of experience is very rare in established Christian institutions.
“I grew up in a different faith tradition that didn’t emphasize the meditation and reflection that City Square is offering,” Wasson said.
He said March was his first time at a Community & Contemplation event.
“To offer time of reflection the way City Square is doing right now allows the participant to really write their own journey no matter what spiritual path they are on,” he said. “Whether they claim to be a person of faith in Christianity or practicing another religion, there’s that open space here in this environment and they don’t demand that you adhere to one protocol.”
The Community & Contemplation event also featured opportunities for attendees to engage in silent activities, such as lighting candles or drawing.
“When I was a kid I would just take a black crayon and scribble, and then I would go back in and fill in with various colors,” said Summer Kemp-Schlemmer, Brian’s wife and hospital chaplain at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center. “Silence is kind of difficult for me, so it’s just kind of something I can do with my hands. It’s soothing to me.”
Other events City Square Church hosts are the Theology Pub on the second Sunday of each month at Angel’s Trumpet Ale House, where people gather to discuss a topic regarding spirituality, and a weekly happy hour at the Crescent Ballroom’s Cocina 10.
Rynders said they enjoy working and gathering in locally owned businesses.
“They are people and places that are committed to making this a thriving city, and that’s one of the things we’re committed to,” Brian said.
Summer, who also read a Maya Angelou poem at the Community & Contemplation event, said City Square Church and its events appeal to a group of people who may be losing their connection to religion.
“I think people are always open to spiritual conversations, which is why Theology Pub is kind of popular,” Summer said. “I think people want to have the conversations but they don’t want to be pushed into having the conversations, so that’s when a beer is handy sometimes.”
Part of what has increased the church’s voice in the city is its inclusivity of the LGBTQ community, Rynders said. The two reverends attended and shared their views at last month’s LGBT anti-discrimination bill city council hearing.
“Brian spoke and we both filled out comment cards,” Rynders said. “There were about a dozen pastors that spoke in favor (of the bill). … We were proud to stand with our colleagues in that.”
For the first quarter of 2013, City Square Church will donate 10 percent of all funds that the church receives to local domestic violence shelter Sojourner Center.
“We don’t want to spend money on buildings. We’d rather be spending money on supporting people who are doing good work in the community,” Brian said.
Wasson said this mission statement is a way of adaption for the Christian faith to stay strong and meet a new audience.
“I talked to some friends recently about City Square, and we talked about the correlation of Blockbuster and Netflix,” he said. “Blockbuster couldn’t adapt. The signs were there and they couldn’t, and they lost the market share because they wouldn’t adapt to the change.”
Brian said the current goal of City Square Church is to create “a spiritual core for this emerging (downtown) community.”
“Phoenix is a city that it’s still making its statement about who it will be,” he said. “We want to be a part of shaping that.”
City Square Church will be adding a preview Sunday morning service to its calendar in May, Brian said, with the weekly service starting on Sept. 8.
“We see deeply faithful people on a regular basis, and what we want to do is partner with them to help them on the path that they’re on and invite them to be a part of the path that we’re on,” he said.
Contact the reporter at miguel.otarolaalfaro@asu.edu
