There's some gray hair and slacks among the worshippers, but also lots of low-riders and spaghetti straps. The music slows, turning inward. A woman kneels in prayer, crying by herself. A teenager dances in back, her eyes gently closed. A teenage boy leans over the chair in front of him. Arms everywhere raise heavenward.

This doesn't feel much like your grandmother's Episcopal Church. But increasingly it is what you'll find at parishes around Charleston, especially those beyond the traditional heavyweights downtown.

Here at St. Andrew's Mount Pleasant, a diocesan trendsetter, it's hard to draw the stereotypes that Christian rock tempts. A preppy blonde with a sweater tied around her shoulders sings along with a gaggle of high school girls fresh off their cell phones and a thirtysomething father with longi sh hair and a goatee.

Yet, while the U.S. Episcopal Church sits on the edge of a canyon with another controversial General Convention starting Tuesday, St. Andrew's feels strikingly comfortable in its contemporary skin. There's no denying the energy here, no matter how much you prefer organ to guitar.

Nobody slogs through the songs. Most worshippers exude an enthusiasm beyond clocking in once a week. The church cranks out mission work, including a group of about 50 mostly college students being prayed for today, the seventh that St. Andrew's has sent to help Hurricane Katrina victims.

Still, most casual observers simply hear the music, the Christian rock-style tunes that have come to define churches such as St. Andrew's. Though traditionalists turn up their collective noses at this modern-day treatment of sacred hymns and other holy music, it's hard to deny what praise music has brought: warm bodies to church, especially young ones. The average age here is 34.

But the music is just a piece of what is different from the traditional Episcopal Church, itself such a central vein to the Holy City's religious history. There are no creeds recited by the flock. Not a worshipper in sight holds a Book of Common Prayer. And just try to find the word 'Episcopal' anywhere.

Instead, there is a strong emphasis on what the Holy Spirit might gift and what the Spirit might move a person to say or do. You can raise your hands, speak out, stand up, sit down, dance, sing, so long as you're connected. The Rev. Steve Wood is rector here, and he's begun to set aside time for announcing messages from the Holy Spirit.

It all seems to be working. St. Andrew's draws the most worshippers of any parish in the diocese. It operates the biggest budget. And it has become one of diocese's go-to churches, like it or not.

So, if imitation is the greatest form of flattery, Wood and his team ought to say a big thanks.

Many parishes in the Diocese of South Carolina are looking more and more like St. Andrew's. If they don't already do so, most have added contemporary worship services or at least something less formal, less liturgical. Most emphasize evangelism.

And many now offer Alpha, the popular introduction to Christianity courses that draw hundreds of newcomers to churches like St. Andrew's.

But if all things new in worship is the trend, the theology at these churches generally takes a distinct step away from modernity if that means reinterpreting Scripture to fit today's culture.

St. Andrew's, like most parishes in the local diocese, is countering the national Episcopalian move away from a more fundamentalist adherence to an authoritative Bible.

Tension is building as the Episcopal General Convention begins June 13 in Columbus, Ga. Delegates will once again discuss the church's stance on homosexuality, a debate that online bloggers are calling 'blood sport' for the anger spewing among fellow Christians.

Conservative dioceses, the minority nationally, hotly opposed the 2003 elevation of an openly gay bishop and want the national church to mend its ways.

Meanwhile, the local diocese is facing its own uncertainties. Bishop Edward Salmon retires at the year's end. And elevating a new bishop often brings a very human battle over theology, seniority and popularity.

With a possible national breakup looming, local parishioners are wondering: Who will be steering our ship? And down which paths will he steer us?

At the helm

When people speculate about Salmon's successor, a few names come up.

One is the Very Rev. John Burwell at The Church of the Holy Cross on Sullivan's Island, which strikes more of a balance between traditional and contemporary, offers a popular family service and just opened a new location on Daniel Island.Burwell is chairman of the local delegation to the national convention.

Another is the Rev. M. Dow Sanderson, rector of the highly traditional Church of the Holy Communion downtown. And then there's the Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon, the diocese's canon theologian who has become a national face in the fight over homosexuality. He isn't a parish priest, which could be a weakness.

But the name that gets people talking most is Steve Wood.

Wood is a logical contender. Yet, he can be as controversial as he is successful, or perhaps because of it.

He doesn't keep his mouth shut. He's big on evangelism and keeps a close eye on attendance numbers. He simply knows what he's good at, which is bringing people to church. And for a man of just 41, operating in a denomination of rites and traditions, he likes the unconventional.

Not that he minds ruffling feathers. He ticked off his own team recently by changing the church's worship times. Its midmorning contemporary service had become so packed that people listened to sound feeds in other rooms. Wood rearranged service times, essentially dividing the jammed service into two, leaving a few seats empty at both.

The logistical changes were hard for the staff, which includes only three clergy, a small number for a church that draws more than 1,500 people on a given weekend. And it was hard to give up the ego that loves to see a packed house.

Wood waited to see the numbers.

In the first six weeks, the church grew by ab out 300 people on an average weekend. The new member class got so big (76 people, and that was the third one this year), he had to start another one.

Feeling so good about his church and so worried about the upcoming convention and surely wondering about the next bishop, Wood sat down recently to write his column for the St. Andrew's newsletter.

He started off with a stern rector's complaint about the elevation of a gay bishop.

'In 2003, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church rejected the authority of Scripture in matters of personal and corporate life and doctrine.'

He wrote about his certainty that the General Convention would not repent and complained that it has become too wishy-washy on doct rine.

Then he surely smiled. Instead of belaboring theological arguments, he crafted a suggested 'no-pology' for convention delegates.

It's typical Steve Wood:

Sisters and Brothers, Greetings in the name of (pick from Menu A).

The 'Ground of Being'

Sophia

My Significant Other

The Cosmic Christ 'Jesus' (though not the possibly literal-historical gender specific human being who may have lived in pre-modern Palestine).

Let us begin by saying we are acutely aware of the anxieties which strain the bonds of our mutual affection stemming from the 2003 General Convention in which (pick from Menu B):

We ignored 5,000 years of Judeo-Christian teaching and witness

We discovered that God has changed his/her/its mind

We shot ourselves in the collective foot

We blew up the Anglican Communion

We have no collective memory of any events that may or may not have transpired.

Well, you get the point. There is one thing that worries him most about the upcoming convention. That the delegates will do nothing.

Because it's hard to take aim at nothing.

Rock music

Wood is at the pulpit in a golf shirt and slacks, praying. He steps aside for a guest speaker, Andy Piercy, the worship leader at Holy Trinity Brompton of London, the birth church of Alpha.

But if you like '80s music, you know Piercy as the old lead singer of After the Fire, a band that made it big with singing 'Der Kommissar.' They toured with Van Halen and opened for Queen.

Piercy steps away from the praise band and walks to the podium (no altar here).

'You've got a fantastic worship team here!' he grins.

The audience breaks into loud applause.

But Piercy brings a warning. This isn't just religious entertainment. God is hugely big, transcendent. He's also intimate, personal. Music is just a vehicle for connecting on those levels.

'You should come out different than you went in,' he says. 'Otherwise, it's just noise.'

Showing up to a rock concert isn't enough. But it helps. Go to just about any Episcopal church around Charleston, with a few exceptions, and you'll find hand-wringing.

To add a contemporary service or not?

That's due to one simple truth: Contemporary music attracts newcomers (though it also can drive away traditionalists). St. Andrew's draws 1,536 people on an average weekend. Of those, about 100 attend its two traditional services. The other 1,400 opt for modern music.

Look beyond the downtown Charleston parishes and you'll find modern music all over: St. Paul's in Summerville, Holy Cross on Sullivan's Island, Christ Episcopal Church in Mount Pleasant and St. James on James Island. Even St. Michael's, the historic church at the Four Corners of Law, has toyed with the idea. (Instead of Christian rock, one of its priests takes a bluegrass band out into local pubs.)

But where churches such as St. Andrew's have embraced modernity in worship, they typically stay traditional in their theology.

The fight over homosexuality really is a symptom of a larger question: Are Episcopalians liberal or conservative?

Some people still call the Episcopal Church 'Catholic Light.' Indeed, Anglicanism has bridged Roman Catholics and the Protestants. And the church has allowed a good deal of home rule among people with different biblical interpretations.

For some, that marks its beauty.

For others, the American church has meandered too far into theological vanilla, has become too beholden to Christian progressives at its helm.

The Most Rev. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop and primate of the national church, argues that the New Testament authors wrote in a different time, for people with different understandings about the world.

He recently told The New Yorker magazine, 'St. Paul very clearly assumed that everyone was, by nature, heterosexual.' That made homosexuality a choice, an affront to God's natural order.

Today, scientific and cultural understandings about homosexuality have thrown those views into great flux, which is partly why gay marriage debates are raging across the country, from Congress to state ballot boxes.

The question remains, as it has for centuries: Should ancient Scriptures be reinterpreted to fit a new day?

Wood points to Acts 27 where the Apostle Paul sets sail for Italy with a bad feeling about the trip. 'I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also,' he warns. The crew sets sail anyway, and sure enough, a storm hits.

'We pleaded with the national church: Please, p lease don't go into this storm,' Wood says.

Now, he just wants the General Convention delegates to state something.

'Have the courage to state what you believe,' he insists, 'and stand on it.'

Then let the parishes land where they may.

END