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In light of the recent exchanges on The Observer about converts, cradle Orthodox and the future of American Orthodoxy, we are republishing Terry Mattingly’s essay that touches on these important issues. This article was adapted from an address titled “So What Do the Converts Want, Anyway?” given at the 2006 Orthodox Christian Laity conference in Baltimore. Terry Mattingly, an advisor to AOI, is director of the Washington Journalism Center, editor of the www.GetReligion.org website, and a weekly syndicated columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service.

What Do the Converts Want?
By Terry Mattingly

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in Liturgical Studies to tell the difference
between a Southern Baptist church and an Orthodox church. You can get some
pretty good clues just by walking in the door and looking around. But there
are some similarities between the two that might be a little trickier to
spot. For instance, let me tell you about what life is like on Sunday
nights in a Southern Baptist congregation.

Baptists worship at several different times during the week — at least
they did in the old days when I was growing up as a Southern Baptist
pastor’s son. One of those times is on Sunday nights. Back in the early
1980s, I was active in a church in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in which the
typical Sunday morning crowd would be about 200 to 300 people, which is
rather small for a Baptist church, but fairly normal for an Orthodox
parish. Then the crowd on Sunday night would be from 40 to 45 people.

Now, that ratio should sound familiar to many priests who lead Vespers
services. But the similarities don’t stop there.
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