Brian Gilroy started coming to the Evangelical Free Church in east Bloomington with wife Becky about the time their son was born.

Noah turns 5 in July, and his sister, RuthAnne, just celebrated her first birthday.

"We felt connected when we first came," said Brian. And ever since. In recent weeks he has brought his 16-year-old nephew, Ori, who seeks a mid-size church with good service opportunities.

With attendance at 550, counting three services, and seemingly plenty of service work, Evangelical Free Church of Bloomington-Normal may be a good fit, Ori said.

He said he felt comfortable, in the figurative sense, as he sat with his uncle in cushy chairs, the prime seats above the fireplace in the new cafe adjacent to the new sanctuary at E-Free.

The church isn't as glossy as that may sound.

The cafe seats about 50, mainly with tables and chairs, but there is no table service and no menu. Just a lot of activity for the sort of reasons that define E-Free, as observed Sarah Miley of Bloomington, who just happened to be seated nearby.

Service, fellowship, welcoming, discipling, learning - all fit this church and its cafe. Its central role as a place is living up to what was envisioned when it was included in a renovation and expansion project, a project whose completion is being celebrated during the first two weekends of May.

At Miley's table, the conversation centered on church work - a women's Bible study, which she helps oversee, and an upcoming event for single mothers in which 150 volunteers take part.

Some small groups meet in this cafe area during the week. Between Sunday services, it becomes a spot for coffee and fellowship.

It's a meeting point for a family collecting itself to depart. A parent carries an infant who has just used the new nursery. Children, kindergarten through fourth grade, walk here from the area of the old sanctuary - what is now a Sunday school area designed in cars and racetrack themes.

Laura Bryant headed the finishing design for the cafe area, which is heavily weighted toward earth tones. The essential part, she said, was to be gender neutral and not "frou-frou."

As third service began on this Sunday, a television in the cafe came to life. The camera opened centered on the centerpiece of the sanctuary: A simple, alluring wooden cross suspended from the ceiling and with a white curtain behind it.

The children's choir sang a series of songs; it was one of a handful of appearances they will make in the sanctuary during the year. A praise team with modern worship followed.

The new sanctuary has a sleek, modern feel - nice, but not ostentatious.

There are some 450 padded, comfortable chairs in the new sanctuary. No pews. All the seats are moveable and they have to be. The room transforms into a gym and a spot for other gatherings.

People like the Gilroys don't seek glitz in their church, Brian Gilroy had said before the service started, and his family drives all the way from Stanford.

He describes this church as having leaders and a congregation that are "friendly, outwardly focused." The family ministries are good and the lead pastor, Rick Wagner, "balances between Bible and life," Gilroy added.

The message of the day involves the Bible book Daniel.

Four cameras enable the technical crew to give an assortment of looks to those watching on the simulcast.

But those attending are beckoned out of modern Bloomington and into ancient Babylon.

In Daniel, the characters Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego defy King Nebuchadnezzar's order that all in the kingdom worship a golden statue, and the preacher repeats these names over and again, as if reveling in their non-Western sound.

The king threatens to throw Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego into a furnace if they don't worship the golden idol. They replied, "If the God we serve is able to deliver us, then he will deliver us from the blazing furnace and from your majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, your majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (TNIV version)

The preacher stayed here, rather than proceeding to the Jewish trio's divine rescue. That story comes in the next week's talk. The message on this morning was "But even if he does not."

"The broken hopes, the financial struggles, family problems, the failure to find true love - the subject of prayers a million times over that don't seem to deliver the desired answer from God, are part of what today's faithful endure," Wagner explained.

This core lesson, Wagner added, "flies in the face of the health, wealth and gospel-of-prosperity crud."

Wagner spent part of his week with a church member who, she thought, had a husband with heartburn. It turned out he had a heart attack. He died.

"Life gets messy," Wagner told the assembly at the beginning of the talk. "Life is messy."

Tell each other the stories about when God has delivered in life, but don't leave out the stories of "but even if he does not," the pastor told the gathering.

In the cafe, even as the sermon was beginning and the room emptied, Bryant remained with friend and neighbor Kim Wade, both a little embarrassed to skip service.

However, they had a pressing issue to discuss - a private matter, they said. This now-intimate setting also is what this church is about, said Bryant.

She said, "It gives people a place to talk about real life and apply what we've learned."

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Celebrate with E-Free

Public events to commemorate addition of a new wing and renovation, Evangelical Free Church of Bloomington-Normal.

• Family carnival, 6 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday. Tickets: $3 per person with a maximum charge of $10 for a family.

• Concert, Big Daddy Weave, 7 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets: $10. Limit to 420 seats.

• Single Mom's Morning Out, 9 to noon May 10. Car care, hair styling, manicures, massages and meals, free to any single mom and including free day care. Call the church at (309) 663-6534 to register.

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Evangelical Free Church

Local church

Evangelical Free Church of Bloomington-Normal

• Address: 2910 E. Lincoln St., Bloomington, east of Veterans Parkway

• Phone: (309) 663-6534

• Sunday services: Traditional at 8 a.m., contemporary at 9:30 and 11.

• Internet: www.efreebn.org

The denomination

The Evangelical Free Church of America traces roots to Swedish and Norwegian-Danish movements in the United States starting in 1884. The groups merged to form the Evangelical Free Church of America in 1950. There are 1,303 EFCA churches in the United States with a combined average attendance of about 357,000.

The denomination's distinctions state, in part and paraphrased:

• A conservative doctrine avows Jesus as lord and savior and the Bible as inerrant authority. However, people are not to be excluded from membership and fellowship over fine points of doctrine.

• Work with other denominations is acceptable; diversity of denominations is to be valued, but not blurred.

• Christian liberty is to be combined with accountability. The church's official list of distinctions warns, "Responsible Christians do not abuse freedom."

• Scripture is to be applied "with warmth of heart, warmth of message and warmth of concern," the church states.

• Each church within the Evangelical Free Church of America has a right to govern its own affairs.

SOURCE: www.efca.org