Saturday, June 21, 1997

Some families choose to worship apart

By Mark I. Pinsky / The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. - The family that prays together stays together, goes the old saying, but some families stay together by worshiping apart.

On Sunday mornings, for example, Richard Stultz and his wife of 37 years go their separate theological ways.

"We kiss each other goodbye," said Stultz, a father of six grown children. "She goes to the Catholic church, and I go to Our Father's House," a Protestant congregation in Casselberry, Fla.

Stultz, of Winter Park, Fla., was raised in the Catholic church but drifted away. About 17 years ago, Stultz found support coping with alcoholism in charismatic churches like the one he now attends and serves as an elder.

The 62-year-old retiree said his wife, who did not want to be interviewed, "was glad to see me going back to church, but she still likes the Catholic church."

Stultz and others like him represent a dwindling group of churchgoers. Church researchers say denominational loyalties are at an all-time low. Yet some people still care enough to worship alone, to attend two Sunday morning services or to alternate churches.

There are some celebrated mixed couples: Baptist Billy Graham and Presbyterian Ruth Bell Graham are probably the best-known.

While Billy Graham led crusades around the world, his wife and children attended a Presbyterian church in North Carolina each Sunday.

Denominational differences sometimes can occur when people remarry. That was the case for Nancy and Jimmie Prevatt, who live in the Brevard County, Fla., town of Mims.

When they married 15 years ago, each for the second time, the Prevatts agreed to remain members of their respective churches and compromised by attending both churches on Sunday. Nancy, 59, is Episcopalian; Jimmie, 57, is Southern Baptist.

"I could never change because I don't feel at home as much as I do in the Episcopal church," Nancy said. "I just don't feel I have worshiped as much and been as close to the Lord as I have in the Episcopal church."

Jimmie, a descendant of a pioneer Florida family, had equally strong feelings about his own Southern Baptist denomination.

"After so many years of being involved in a church it's hard to walk away from it," he said. "I like the music, and I like our type of services: the preaching, the invitation for people to come forward."

So, when the couple discussed marriage, Jimmie recalled, "I said, 'You go to your church, and I'll go to mine - no big thing.' "

That wasn't a problem for Jimmie, a funeral director who deals regularly with many churches and ministers.

"I believe everybody is going to heaven if they believe in God," he said.

And it helped that the two churches the couple attend - St. Gabriel's Episcopal and First Baptist - in Titusville, Fla., are only 300 feet apart and have services at different times.

"I like his preacher," Nancy said. "He does a good job. He's a great person with a great sense of humor. I love the music at his church; it's wonderful."

Jimmie has equal praise for St. Gabriel's: "It's one of the most loving churches I've ever been in. I like the priest. He has a nice way with sermons."

When they married 30 years ago, Julia and Joe Caldwell of Orlando were committed to different denominations: He was Baptist; she was Presbyterian.

"I like our worship, our services," said Julia, 54, a member of Washington Shores Presbyterian Church.

"I don't mind the Baptist church, but I prefer our services."

The Caldwells said their arrangement did not complicate the raising of their two children, who attended both churches.

"As our kids grew, we gave them the opportunity to make their own decision," said Joe, 60, a deacon at New Covenant Baptist Church in Orlando.

"I never tried to sway them either way."

What was important, he said, was that "our children were raised in a Christian family and in a Christian atmosphere, regardless of denomination. I don't think it matters that much."

Julia agreed:

"If you believe in God, if you believe in Jesus Christ, on the whole it's the same thing."

Careers in religion make for some interesting denominational matches.

In Kissimmee, Sundays are pretty hectic at the home of Mark and Luralee Anderson and their two young children. Mark and Luralee are music and choir directors at different churches in Kissimmee, First Presbyterian and Trinity Lutheran.

"People who know us think we're crazy," said Mark, 41.

The children go with Luralee, 40, attending youth services and Sunday school.

"Sundays are really something," she said.

Someday, Luralee said, she would like to be working at the same church with her husband where the whole family can worship together.

(c) 1997, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

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