» Seattle Weekly: Is West Seattle's Skate Church an Open-Minded Extension of Religion's Embrace of Secular Culture?

... or a really awesome place to skate and pray? I swear, if I were the skating kind, I'd be all about a road trip to Seattle for this.

On June 22, TORN opened its doors on California Avenue, selling skateboarding products at discount prices, thanks in no small part to the church's nonprofit status and all-volunteer staff. Here, name-brand skate decks go for up to $20 less than at the store's secular counterparts, and flyers advertise TORN as the best place for candy and energy drinks because the shop is "cheaper than 7-11...closer than Safeway."

"When I first walked in [to Skate Church], a bunch of different people were playing music," says 14-year-old Nicole Roberts. "Normally you think of church as a bunch of old people in pews, wearing their Sunday best, but you don't have to be that here; you just have to be normal."

"Normal" to Roberts apparently means the following: painting her right-hand nails Sharpie black and her left-hand nails Liquid Paper white; and wearing her hair in a choppy cut, dyed black on top and straightened so it falls strategically over her heavily made-up eyes. In fact, most of the teens at Skate Church hardly fit the "churchgoer" stereotype that you may be used to, at least on the outside.

The article gives an interesting contrast to some of Seattle's more traditional churches and the younger ones (Mars Hill makes a guest appearance in the article). It's a pretty interesting read regardless of what you think of the Skate Church approach.

Unfortunately, I don't skate. But on the other hand, I've never been to Seattle.

SIDENOTE: The Dallas Morning News' Religion blog has a nice recap of another interesting church: Boat Church!