Opening the Balcony: Rejuvenated VaHi Church Sees Growth, Continues Social Justice Focus

On Easter Sunday, Virginia-Highland Church had to open its balcony for the first time in years.

With 217 attendees, the church had seven times the number of people attend on Easter than it had attend on a regular Sunday just two years ago, before a new pastor was selected.

In 2011, the church was seeking a new pastor and its membership had dwindled to about 30 people after two years without a senior pastor, explained David Plunkett, the church’s director of church life.

“The church was looking for someone that was a prophetic voice,” Plunkett said.

Perhaps beginning with the addition of Rev. Michael Piazza, who was the senior pastor of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, TX– touted as the largest liberal/inclusive church in the South for 23 years, the church has seen a complete rejuvenation in every way.

Virginia-Highland Church has long been a bastion of social progressiveness, and that aspect of the church remains unchanged.

“The church has a long history of standing up for what is right,” Plunkett said.

In the 1990s, the church severed its ties with Southern Baptist Convention because women wanted to serve in more capacities at the church. Next, the church cut any affiliation it had with the Georgia Baptist Convention because the members believed that lesbians and gays should be able to have leadership roles in the church as well.

“Virginia Highland needs a progressive church,” Plunkett said, adding that Virginia Highland Church is filling that need.

“People want a progressive Christian voice that gives them an opportunity to serve other people, and that’s what we’re doing.  People want to hear something and be challenged to be better.”

Currently the church is focused on its Mission 4/1 Earth, a United Church of Christ denomination-wide opportunity to unite in faith as advocates for the environment. The mission website calls it "one united church on a shared resurrection witness for Planet Earth during 50 great days of greening up, powering down, and shouting out for the environment!"

The church continues to emphasize the three themes it developed during Lent in 2012, based on Micah 6:8:

1. Love mercy.
2. Do justice.
3. Walk humbly with God.

Because of its renewed focus, continued emphasis on social justice and progressiveness, the church is now thriving.

It averages 100 people in attendance each Sunday.

“We’re deliberately trying to be a diverse church, across races, across sexual orientation, across economic statuses,” Plunkett said, and attendees notice.

When it comes to what the church says about the Biblical scriptures often pointed out in arguments against homosexuality, “we actually say very little about that,” Plunkett said.

Plunkett, who is gay and has worked with Piazza, who is also gay, for 11 years said they learned long ago that they would not change the minds of those who oppose homosexuality.

Instead, Piazza adopted a belief from Mother Teresa who said, “Too many words. Let them see actions.”

“Instead of arguing that we can be Christian, we just are Christian. We just do what God called us to do.”

In addition to its social justice emphasis, the church always keeps Jesus as its center.

“We are decidedly a Christian church. What we challenge people to do is what the Bible says based on examples that Jesus set.”

Plunkett said that the church won’t have all the answers. “We will offer you companionship as you find those answers. We search for those answers using the examples of Jesus.”

Undergoing a change in leadership, a gradual and sustained amount of growth, the actual church building is undergoing a rejuvenation as well.

It recently, thanks to a capital campaign, received a new air conditioning system after operating with one that was falling apart. Next, the church members are hoping to repair the church’s steeple, which Plunkett called a Virginia-Highland landmark.

“This church is moving forward,” Plunkett said.