Three services were held at the Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas last Sunday (two in the morning and one at night); there was a giant picnic for 2,000 church members at noon, and at 3 p.m. there was a going-away party with an air-conditioned Buick as the main gift. Object of all the attention: Broadway Church's personable pastor—Matt Norvel Young, 41, an expansive man in an expanding church.
Reasoning Approach. When Norvel Young went to Lubbock 13 years ago, there were five Churches of Christ in the city (pop. 139,000) with a total membership of about 1,300. Today there are 14 churches with 7,000 members (children under twelve not counted). And the biggest of these—the biggest Church of Christ in the world—is 1,800-member Broadway. Part of the credit for this growth goes to Lubbock, but much of it goes to Norvel Young's friendly, reasoning approach.
The Churches of Christ, as Norvel Young likes to point out, are not a denomination at all. Their essence "is that we want to restore worship to the simple worship as set forth in the New Testament. We teach from the Bible, not from printed interpretations of it. Each individual interprets the Bible for himself. Anybody can start a church, in his home or wherever; he has to get permission from no one. We believe in just being Christians.''
The Churches of Christ are the result of a split from the Disciples of Christ in 1906 over questions of how literally the New Testament picture of the church should be followed. Says Young: "Each generation must interpret the Bible for itself. We believe that in this way each generation can remain nearer pure Christianity. If our generation were to write down its interpretation of the Bible, in another 100 years we would be just another denomination." Young's flock calls him Brother rather than the "Doctor" to which he is entitled (he has an M.A. from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. from George Peabody College), because the Churches of Christ play down the difference between clergy and laymen. "Each individual is a priest," Young explains. "We encourage them to influence their friends and acquaintances."
Binding Force. Today the Churches of Christ number some 1,200,000 baptized members in 15,000 fully autonomous churches. Brother Young is the nearest thing to a binding force among them; he edits Twentieth Century Christian, a monthly magazine promoting Churches of Christ beliefs, writes and edits (with his wife Helen) a bimonthly of daily devotional reading called Power for Today, and a weekly column for the Lubbock Avalanche Journal. Next week he leaves Lubbock for Los Angeles, where he will head George Pepperdine College, one of four senior colleges run on Churches of Christ principles and supported by private donations. There Young hopes to double the 1,200 enrollment in ten years, eventually make the faculty 100% members of the faith (present proportion: 60%).
"Hold fast to the faith, once and for all delivered to the saints," Young told his congregation in his farewell speech. "Don't let the world make you conform to its pattern."