Can a traditional mission congregation start from nothing and keep growing in a suburban neighborhood? You bet it can!

Advent Lutheran Church first met in a dental lab in Zionsville, Indiana, a northern Indianapolis suburb, in the spring of 1993.

One layman decided to rent a hall. He took out an ad, paid a retired pastor $75.00 to preach the sermon, and they were off and running with 25 in attendance.

Now, 7 years later, the congregation has 700 baptized members, a new church building on 22 acres, with pews for 400 people. The beautifully designed New England style building has an atrium, educational wing, offices, and lots of room to grow.

Advent is now nearing completion of a second addition to their building, a two-story educational wing that that will house its new Lutheran school.

Their church interior, worship style, liturgy, and hymnbooks are as traditional as the LCMS can be.

People are driving many miles on Sunday to attend Advent because it uses an LCMS hymnbook, Martin Luther's Catechism in its confirmation instruction, and the Lutheran Agenda.

There was little support for Advent from the Indiana District Office. In fact, the district executive told the first president of the congregation that if they didn't do contemporary worship they wouldn't grow.

Advent's goal was not to be contemporary, but traditional in architecture, worship, doctrine, and music.

In adapting the New England style architecture, Advent has completely departed from the current popular contemporary mega-church building style. These mega-churches resemble warehouses on the outside and stark institutional auditoriums on the inside with big screen TV, stage, and an orchestra pit.

Many churches from various denominations in the region have been photographing Advent and asking for their plans.

The congregation's pastor, Rev. John Fiene, is not asked to speak at Church Growth conferences. The statistical success of Advent, one of the most successful LCMS mission starts in the last 10 years, is virtually ignored because it is the kind of growth the Counsel of District Presidents DOESN'T want to promote.

While the Synod's Board for Higher Education keeps bringing up Dr. Norbert Oesche's Pastoral Leadership Institute, designed to promote church growth by "leadership," Advent keeps growing and building with LCMS hymnbooks and catechisms.

June 12, 2000