Diverse religious landscape means variety of choices

So you're new in town, the weekend is approaching and you're wondering: Where can I go to church – or synagogue, mosque or temple?

I can tell you for starters, that as a new Charlottean – or as a long-timer who's looking for a new spiritual home – you have a lot of choices. With some 700 houses of worship, Charlotte's religious landscape grows more diverse by the week.

My job: Help you navigate. Let's start with young, hip and casual.

Elevation Church packs thousands of evangelicals into a former warehouse in Matthews, as well as Providence High School and Spirit Square every Sunday. Credit its multi-media ministries and provocative, pop-culture-savvy sermons. Also worth a try:

CharlotteONE, featuring young people worshiping together uptown, and

CityChurch, whose British-born pastor leads a non-traditional service in a traditional church building just off trendy Central Avenue.

Looking for a church that's into all the new technology? Visitors to www.mecklenburg.org – the Web site for non-denominational Mecklenburg Community Church – will find an Internet campus. You can see a live stream of its Sunday morning services, chat with other “attendees,” submit prayer requests and more. Over at Next Level, a rock-n-roll-style church in Union County, members of the congregation were urged to tweet on their BlackBerrys and iPhones during this year's Easter Sunday service. Also cutting edge and non-denominational: Forest Hill Church, on Park Road.

Most houses of worship do their part for the community's have-nots. A standout example: NeXus Church is on the front lines in helping the homeless.

OK, maybe you're a member of a certain denomination. The largest Roman Catholic congregations in town: St. Gabriel on Providence Road, which has a Spanish Mass on Sunday night, and St. Matthew in Ballantyne, named for the patron saint of bankers and, with 25,000 members, Charlotte's biggest church.

Local Southern Baptists are just behind Catholics in raw numbers. Charlotte's biggest Protestant church: Hickory Grove Baptist, with about 12,000 worshipers and two campuses.

United Methodists, whose “circuit-riders” once spread the Gospel on horseback through the Carolinas, make up the city's third largest denomination. Its biggest church is Myers Park United Methodist.

No. 4 among local denominations: Predominantly black AME Zion Church, with its national headquarters in Charlotte. Its biggest church here: Little Rock AME Zion, a short hike from uptown.

The United House of Prayer for All People, known for its brassy “shout” bands and mass baptisms, also has a long history in Charlotte: The denomination's founding bishop, “Sweet Daddy” Grace, set up a tent at Third and Caldwell in 1926. Today, you can't miss the towering “mother house” on Beatties Ford Road.

Probably the most prominent African American churches in town are Friendship Missionary Baptist, also on Beatties Ford, and University Park Baptist, or “The Park,” which is gradually relocating to the former Merchandise Mart on Independence Boulevard. Also drawing big crowds every Sunday: New Birth Cathedral in Huntersville.

Charlotte isn't just a city of churches. It's also the city of Shalom Park, a 54-acre campus where you'll find the area's two biggest synagogues: Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation, and Temple Israel, a Conservative congregation.

Charlotte is also becoming a city of mosques, including the Islamic Center of Charlotte and Masjid Ash-Shaheed. On Islam's holiest days, Muslims from all over the city gather together for prayer at the former Merchandise Mart.

Want to keep looking?

A favorite with Pentecostals is Central Church of God.

Christ Lutheran and Christ Episcopal are the biggest Charlotte churches in those congregations.

Scots-Irish Presbyterians, the first newcomers to Mecklenburg, started the county's first seven churches in the 1750s. Presbyterians still wield influence in Charlotte today, as members of such big churches as First Presbyterian, Myers Park Presbyterian, Covenant Presbyterian and the more conservative Christ Covenant.

Social-justice liberals like Myers Park Baptist, St. Peter's Catholic and Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian.

By-the-Bible social conservatives attend Carmel Baptist in Matthews,

First Baptist and Calvary Church, whose once-pink exterior is a local landmark.

For spiritual seekers, the choices include Unity of Charlotte and Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte.

Hindus and Buddhists have several temples, including the Hindu Center and the Charlotte Truth Buddhist Temple (a good place to celebrate the Chinese New Year).

Charlotte's prayers are said in many languages these days: You can also visit Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral (stop by and see the breathtaking icons), St. Joseph Vietnamese Catholic, Korean Presbyterian and, if you're a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal, Iglesia Lirio De Los Valles.

Tim Funk covers faith issues for the Observer. 704-358-5703; tfunk@charlotteobserver.com

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