The preacher's talking about "The Lord of the Rings." The band's sporting T-shirts and flip-flops. Dancers swirl under red stage lights.
It's worship, though the Oatmal Bible Hour feels more like a cabaret.
The monthly gathering -- billed as "high-fiber, low-fat alternative Christian worship" -- draws about 65 people from Cedar Mill, Beaverton, Tigard, Sherwood, Portland and other areas. It's an event as earthy as its name, with a mike that's open to children, grandparents, rockers -- just about anyone willing to sing, play music, dance or recite poetry.
"It's about having a deeper connection with God through artistic expression," said Debbie Day, a Christian singer and rhythm guitarist from Sherwood who was there to add some folk songs to the mix. "It lends a whole new dynamic to the worship."
That dynamic was strong on a recent Sunday, as band leader David Golden of North Portland took the stage in shorts, hightops and a faded T-shirt. Before launching into the first song with his band, Zimrath, he told the crowd, "If at any time you want to rend your clothes and gnash your teeth, please do so."
The music that followed ranged from Celine Dion to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to Rosanne Cash to an original arrangement that Golden said reflected "how the Grateful Dead would play a traditional folk hymn."
The audience, many of whom attend Cedar Mill's Christ United Methodist Church, ranged in age from infants to seniors. As Golden's band moved aside to accomodate several teenage soloists, dancers and a visiting minister, children skipped around the back rows of folding chairs, and people ate chocolate chip cookes, clapped and sang along.
Plenty of churches offer carefully arranged near-professional quality music, Golden said, and many specialize in the kind of Christian pop that draws young people. But the eclectic music and informality make the Oatmeal Bible Hour unique.
The 7-month-old event was born in part from Golden's love of the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" and in part from a trip he took in 2002 to Minneapolis. One day during the trip, he visited three music-loving churches.
At one, the worshippers were reveling in folk and bluegrass music, in another, they were rocking out, and in a third, there was a traditional choir with a big pipe organ and an oboe soloist.
"I was impressed with how God could use all these different styles of music, all in the same city and on the same day," Golden, 44, said. "I loved that God would use the music that people loved in each church to speak to them. I realized there's no reason not bring them all together and be eclectic."
Organizers wanted to stay flexible with the event's format, which is why they decided to hold the event at the Leedy Grange instead of a church.
"In the secular setting, we're totally free to do what we want to do. If people don't like it, they won't complain about it being done in a church building," said Golden, adding that he does not have a good voice and that when his show fails, "it fails spectacularly."
Still, those attending a recent Oatmeal Bible Hour said it's deeply spiritual.
"I prefer interactive worship opportunities where I can praise God in different ways," said Christy Dirren, a Tigard resident and youth pastor at the Cedar Mill church. "It's just a fantastic way to praise, with a gift and an ability that God has given us."
In the middle of a recent Bible hour, she stood up with two other women and danced out the lyrics to a song by the band Third Day called "Your Love, Oh Lord."
Acting, singing and reciting poetry "does become an analogy for faith," Golden said. "People -- especially young people -- can be worried about taking risks in faith because of the 'that's not how it's done' factor. Here, you do it, and you're still OK; we're not going to kick you out and say you're bad."
One of the younger singers in his band agreed.
"At church functions and in a lot of youth programs, you feel nervous -- you have to follow by the rules," said Olivia Stone, a 15-year-old Sunset High School freshman. "With this, it's different. Dave (Golden) lightens it up. It's more like a family."
Being able to sing what she wants to sing, how she wants to sing it "makes me feel closer to God," Stone said. "Other people can do things like paint or write poems. But for me, singing is the best outlet."
Oatmeal Bible Hour also has an intellectully chunky part, and that comes with the person billed on the program as the "Theologian du Jour." On a recent Sunday, it was the Rev. Ross Miller, a minister who retired in 2001 from Portland's First United Methodist Church.
Among other thoughts, Miller, 69, drew analogies among "The Lord of the Rings," life and politics. Like Hobbits, he said, people have to lean on one another to keep themselves on the right track. People have to remember that things aren't always as simple as they look.
"Around the time that 'Lord of the Rings' came out, politicians were using the word 'evil' a lot," he said. "There's evil and there's 'We, the Good,' and we have to fight evil. I was wishing that some of the people that were talking like that could see this movie so that they could see that sometimes even 'We, the Good' can abuse power."
Miller said after the service that he likes to visit because worshippers at the Oatmeal Bible Hour "aren't just getting through the experience, they come with a kind of eagerness. It's not slick, it's participatory in nature, and it's like the way it was in my grandmother's day: If somebody's granddaughter wants to get up and sing a solo, she can sing a solo."

Kate Taylor