A measure of how much the Oak Harbor Church of the Nazarene has stayed in step with the times is evident the moment you enter the building.

At the end of the foyer, not far from the sanctuary, is an espresso bar where hot and cold beverages are served on Sunday mornings before worship service.

“You can get anything here you can get at Starbucks,” lead pastor Benjamin Norris said with a smile. “It’s true. Just about.”

Norris takes pride in the carefully considered evolutions that have taken place under the roof of his church over the years to accommodate a changing congregation during modern times.

The fact that the Oak Harbor Church of the Nazarene is celebrating its 90-year anniversary Sunday is a testament to its ability to evolve, grow, and survive.

The average life cycle of a church in the United States is under 50 years, according to Norris.

“I think this is a church that after 90 years is still thriving, still meeting needs, still receiving new members,” Norris said. “We have a growing children’s and teen ministry.”

About 250 members make up Oak Harbor Church of the Nazarene, which places emphasis on serving young families locally as well as providing compassionate ministry to those in need at home and abroad.

The church is closely tied to families from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

“There have been times when practically half of our congregation had connections with the military here on the island,” said church member Paul Miller.

“It ebbs and flows,” Norris said.

The son of a U.S. Marine, Norris grew up with an understanding of military life, which is reflected at the church where he’s spent 23 years, by far the longest tenure of any pastor there.

No longer does he wear a suit and tie to service, preferring instead to be dressy but casual.

“I’ll show up sometimes like this,” he said, referring to jeans, a polo shirt, and casual dress shoes. “Part of that is to understand the culture around us. We live in a military community where so many people are in uniform all week long and what they don’t want to feel like is they have to wear another uniform on Sunday morning. And so we try to make it accessible to folks.

“The other thing is people feel busier today than they’ve ever felt. And trying to do ministry among people who feel so busy has necessitated a lot of changes in how we do ministry.”

Norris said the days of delivering sermons from handwritten notes or those typed up on a typewriter are long gone.

Digital technology has transformed how he preaches his message, from iPads to Powerpoint presentations.

“I don’t even have a pulpit anymore. I have a stand,” Norris said. “Sometimes, we’ll set up a live Internet feed where we’ll have people Googling things that I’m talking about and bring them up on the screen. It’s all very much interactive.”

Other relics at the church are the organ, replaced by the keyboard and guitars; and pews, replaced by more comfortable seating.

Hymns, once so prominent during worship services, now are replaced by more contemporary music.

All this is popular with the church’s growing younger members, who have their own multi-media room and also enjoy many of the church’s other youth-oriented programs and functions.

One such event is Trunk or Treat, a Halloween night occasion that annually draws more than 1,000 kids to the church’s parking lot.

“There’s still a face-to-face aspect of the ministry, but it’s very much tied into all the things that the kids are into,” said Norris, whose wife, Lisa Norris, is the church’s children’s pastor. “It’s really still all about the message, but we’re trying to use the material and technology in the sense of meeting the culture where we are.”

From its humble beginnings inside a tent on land just north of city hall in 1924, Oak Harbor Church of the Nazarene has rested in two primary long-term sites.

It started with 14 charter members led by pastor Louise Pinnell at the former Christian Reform Church building on Oak Harbor Street.

To accommodate growth, a new church was built at its present-day site on West Whidbey Avenue with the first service held in August of 1976.

At least 18 present-day members were part of the church when it was located on Oak Harbor Street.

One of them is Rosalie Nunn, 89, who’s been a member since 1957.

“The church is pretty much the same, but there are things that I notice that are different,” Nunn said. “We’re not quite as strict as we were back then. We’re still pretty conservative.”

It took Nunn a while to get used to the espresso machine, but she sees the warm smiles on people’s faces.

Drinks are even allowed in the sanctuary.

“I guess I’ve gotten used to it now,” she said. “You get used to change. It used to be you never drank in the sanctuary. But you adjust to things. People change.”

--Republished with permission from the Whidbey New-Times