Daybreak Community Church

Finding New Faith

Burlington Free Press, 04/23/2000

Pastor struggles to start nontraditional church with casual tone and comfortable atmosphere.

The scene inside the small South Burlington building was more band rehearsal than birth of a church. Cables snaked across the floor and linked a massive soundboard to musical instruments on stage. The band members, many newly arrived on the last Saturday in January after a ten-hour journey from Virginia, played U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

The Rev. Robby Pitt stood quietly at the back of the room with his hands dug deep into his pants pockets. Every few minutes, one of his hands would sneak out and run quickly across his brow.

Early the next morning, everything from tall potted plants to amplifiers would be packed onto a truck and taken to a nearby hotel. There, with the first notes of a rock song called "Mend Me," Pitt's Daybreak Community Church would begin its first service.

Pitt had spent five months planning three monthly church preview services, peppering them with such extras as a mini-concert by Christian singer Geoff Moore. The only thing Pitt wasn't sure of was the congregation.

"We have no idea if anybody will show up," Pitt said. "That's the risk you take."

Planting Goals

Robby Pitt is a church planter.

Some pastors farm the fertile fields of the already faithful, but Pitt spreads his seeds with spiritual seekers--those who have questions about religion or their dormant faith.

Pitt came to Vermont in August with his wife, Kim, and two-year-old daughter, Brecke, after starting a church six years ago in Ashburn, Virginia, where Sunday attendance grew to an average of 175 people. Vermont's Green Mountain Baptist Association hired Pitt in hopes of repeating that success with a nontraditional Southern Baptist church in Burlington.

For someone just starting a new church, Pitt seeks his congregation in subtle ways. His faith runs deep, but he shuns Bible waving on corners, knocking on your door or a calling your house during dinner.

Instead, Daybreak has no dress code, no pressure to make a monetary offering and no name tags for visitors since, well, everyone's new. And Pitt strives to tailor his message to today's world.

He wants to form friendships with people before inviting them to fellowship.

"I'm not a real aggressive guy handing out stuff," Pitt said. "I know people are going to throw them away up the street."

The first service

The next morning, people trickle into the church's rented space at South Burlington's Clarion Hotel.

Some carried Bibles, others nothing but intrigued expressions. Dressed in a red plaid shirt and khakis, 42-year-old Pitt snuck into the hotel's restaurant to work for a few last minutes on his message.

Pitt looked out from the music stand at more than 80 people. Some in the seats had met and talked with Pitt at such everyday places as gift and music shops. Others investigated a new church that sent out 17,800 neon orange and green mailers, quoting lyrics from a Sheryl Crow song.

Pitt's planned service was filled with song lyrics projected onto a screen and a film clip from the movie "Dead Poets' Society." His message quoted Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst before referencing a Bible verse from Matthew. These diverse approaches, he hoped, would help attendees explore that month's message of change and searching.

Pitt prayed aloud to start the service.

"God, as we begin this new church, I pray that you will lead, guide us and direct us. And that many people in the greater Burlington area will start new relationships with you."

Man behind the man

Robby Pitt has the air of an expectant high school football coach.

His voice is strong, sure and Southern-tinged as he outlines Daybreak's future.

Pitt's goals are decidedly big picture, but he isn't beyond awe. When he talks about his faith and family, his voice drops to a soft, comforting level that invites you to come closer to who he is and what's important to him.

Meet Pitt on the street, and he'll discuss Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead just as easily as Christian artists Geoff Moore or Jennifer Knapp.

Growing up in Hampton, Virginia, Pitt's only contact with religion was a handful of trips to the local Southern Baptist church and televised crusades his mother watched. He was a high school sophomore in 1972 when he started listening to a syndicated radio show that related current songs like "Ball of Confusion" by The Temptations to the Bible. He found the Bible his brother had gotten in the Army and spent the next two nights reading about Jesus' life.

On that second night, Pitt got down on his knees next to his bed and pledged to follow Jesus Christ.

"What I tried to say that day is, 'I put you first,'" it said. "Little did I know that day how hard that would be, but I've never regretted it."

He went to school the next day with his Bible in his hand, and friends called him "Bible Man Pitt." He started attending a nondenominational local church and used a popular gathering tree outside the community swimming pool as his first pulpit.

"(Friends) quickly made it clear that they really didn't have the same interests," Pitt said. "...I realized that the best way to talk about things like that was in the context of a friendship rather than force something on somebody."

After studying communications and psychology in college, he played guitar and blues harmonica in bands that toured college campuses, churches and nightclubs performing popular Christian music and acoustic material from such bands as Poco, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

When he started studying for a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1983, Pitt wondered how he'd combine his faith with his music.

"I was thinking, 'Here I am at seminary, and when I graduate what happens? '" Pitt said. "Then, I go to a traditional church that I don't really fit in with."

Pitt moved with his wife of less than a year, Kim, to Denver in 1990 to work with youth and singles pastors at the Colorado Baptist General Convention. There, after hearing church planters speak, he discovered that he could create new nontraditional churches catering to the needs of those seeking spirituality.

"I've always had lots of friends that don't go to church," Pitt said. "And I've always known growing up in high school and college that I couldn't invite them to my church because there'd be no context for them."

The religious few

Vermont is at the heart of a region that's tough on religion.

The National Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board has targeted New England and started churches in Amherst, Massachusetts, Salem, New Hampshire, Waterville, Maine and Burlington.

It's a strong statement from a denomination that didn't even exist in Vermont before 1963. Its Vermont churches rarely have more than 100 members per congregation.

Burlington's entirely different from Ashburn, Virginia, where Pitt started his first church in 1994. Also known as Daybreak Community Church, it began with six couples who offered to help Pitt do everything from run the sound system to greeting people. The congregation grew with Pitt and his wife, giving them a standing ovation when the couple announced they were pregnant. When Pitt announced in May that he was leaving, the congregation asked how it could help.

Jim Wideman, head of Vermont's Green Mountain Baptist association, hired Pitt because of his success in Virginia, and because his appreciation of music and the arts might work well in Burlington. The concept of drawing currently churchless people to a service could build Daybreak into a regional flagship congregation, according to Wideman.

Daybreak needs between fifteen and 20 people to coordinate weekly services, Wideman estimated, and 125 steady members at the end of the year would make him confident that God's love is reaching people. Whether Vermonters accept it or not is their choice, Wideman said, but the church's Southern Baptists ties shouldn't keep anyone away since Pitt will be the only one determining what a Daybreak service is.

"That's part of being a Baptist-- being independent," Wideman said. " Vermonters would make good Baptists because they're a pretty independent bunch.

"If they only knew."

Meeting many

The last Saturday night in February, Daybreak co-sponsored a concert at Essex Alliance Church by Christian singer Geoff Moore.

The crowd settled into the pews, the lights dimmed and Pitt took the stage in a white shirt and blue jeans. He explained a little bit about Daybreak, and, then, sparing the handfuls of postcards he had put out near the door, Pitt made his only pitch for his church.

"If you currently do not go to a church in the area, we'd love to have you at Daybreak in the morning," Pitt said of the February 27 preview service. "If you do go to church, you're not invited."

Moore took the stage with his guitarist, greeted the congregation with a "howdy" and energetically launched into a set of songs. At the back of the room, Pitt scooped up Breeke and and danced the grinning girl around to "Thanks to You."

Kim Pitt and Lori Devenney, the wife of Daybreak's associate pastor Brent Devenney, cleaned up in the lobby before going in to see the show.

"Robby was hoping for 200," Kim said. "But I thought he was being kind of generous."

The concert drew closer to 300 people with vanloads of church groups from as far away as Maine.

During the intermission, Pitt visited with Melissa and Thad Omand of Colchester. Melissa had heard about Daybreak on the Christian radio station WGLY, and she was interested in a down-to-earth church with a scriptural basis. But, she wasn't sure if she and her husband would attend the next day's service. "I'm thinking about it," Melissa said, "but my husband's comfortable where he's at."

The Omand's didn't come to the February service, but, then again, they aren't Pitt's primary target audience.

He chooses to sow more rocky soil.

He wants to grow Christians from those who have fallen away from God, from those who have questions about their spirituality that haven't been answered at traditional churches.

"We want them to investigate at their own pace," Pitt said. "Kick the tires. Check under the hood.

"We try to create a safe environment where people come in and learn Christianity 101."

Needing commitment

Pitt was back at the Clarion on the first Sunday in April but not for another service. Daybreak' s three services at the hotel had drawn between 80 and 125 people each, with about 20 people coming more than once.

Instead, Pitt held an evening information and organization session to see if anyone wanted to commit to help Daybreak grow into weekly services.

Of the eighteen people, there were familiar faces such as Lillette Hawkins of Winooski who had attended the last two services with her three children. Hawkins liked the idea of being at the beginning of the church, a church not set in its ways. Essex Junction's Matt and Sheri Rowe came with their young son Noah and Ian. Sherry had helped him and Lori prepare the children's areas for the March service while Matt had sung and played guitar in the band Pitt assembled.

But there were others in the crowd less willing to stand up and be counted.

Pitt faces a delicate balancing act with building believers at Daybreak. He wants possible congregants to explore the church, and their spirituality, at their own speed. Yet, Pitt needs people to commit time and energy to run services.

Pitt's original plan to appeal to couples in their mid 30's to mid 40's also has changed. Young adults like Esinu Debrah, a freshman at Champlain College, were showing up consistently and ready to help.

"I like it when I can function to do something for the Lord," she said. "You know, get active for God. That's what it's all about."

But Pitt wanted reassurance.

"I really believe that Daybreak Community Church will make an impact in two places-- in God's kingdom and in this community," Pitt told the assembled group. "If that doesn't happen, I'll shut the doors."

That is, if logistics don't do the job for Pitt.

Less than a month before Daybreak's Easter service, Pitt scrambled for a place for his church to start meeting weekly. Pitt got permission to use Trinity College's Mann Auditorium only for Easter, so he scouted spaces from storefronts to the University of Vermont without the "yes" he needed to secure a weekly meeting place.

"It's kind of frustrating," Pitt said, shaking his head. "You almost have to get through the first layer of deflections."

A tough calling

Pitt knew it would be tough.

Tough to leave his supportive congregation in Virginia. Tough to organize services with a smaller number of people. Tough to find places to meet in an area undergoing such a space squeeze.

What the Pitts didn't fully anticipate was such a radically different social dynamic. Call it reaffirming a stereotype, but things do happen slower in Vermont versus the Pitt's former home in the third fastest growing county in the country.

The couple has had friends over to their Colchester home who haven't come to a single Daybreak service since they aren't shopping for a church. Kim has talked with people who haven't been to church in years, but, if they were to go back, they'd return to the church of their childhood.

"They already have their routines," Kim said. "They're already settled."

And of those who have responded to Daybreak's style of services-- college students and families between the ages of 25 and 35-- will be harder to connect with come summer.

To respond to that shift in demographics, Pitt wants to change the way the congregation investigates God.

"I'm not going to rewrite the Bible," Pitt said. "But if they were going to start a spiritual investigation, what environment would they like to do that in?"

And Pitt has no doubt that there's room for Daybreak in Burlington, both physically and spiritually.

"Churches all around us have died and are dying because they've turned inward and refused to change," Pitt said. "I don't think (Daybreak is) just a dream. I think I have a vision of what could be, and it's a vision of people's lives being changed for the good."