At the same time mainstream denominations lose thousands of members per year, churches such as Crosspoint are growing rapidly - 15 percent of all U.S. churches identified themselves as nondenominational this year, up from 5 percent a decade ago. A third dropped out of major denominations at some point.

Their members are attracted by worship style, particular church missions or friends in the congregation.

"They no longer see the denomination as anything that has relevance to them," said Scott Thumma, a religion sociology professor at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. He's compiling a list of nondenominational churches for the 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study. "The whole complexion of organized religion is in flux."

Denominations share theological, organizational and legal ties. They send out missionaries; build colleges, seminaries and hospitals; and fund pension plans for pastors.

The past 40 years have been tough on them. Mainline Protestants such as Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists peaked in membership at the end of the 1960s. Last year, 21 of the top 25 denominations either lost members or remained stagnant, according to the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches.

Some decline is because of aging church members and fewer babies, but some is due to losing members to nondenominational churches.

Churches don't look alike

Ed Stetzer, president of Nashville-based LifeWay Research, said denominations used to have a "methodological consensus." They believed the same things and did church the same way - with the same kinds of services, the same hymns and the same Sunday school lessons.

That's not the case anymore. Denominations disagree over their core beliefs. And local churches don't look alike anymore.

Stetzer points to what he calls the "Willowback phenomenon" as a cause. Thousands of churches now follow the methods of two super-size megachurches - Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Ill., and Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

Both stress contemporary music and sermons and services that make the unchurched feel at ease. Both downplay doctrines and denominational differences. As churches embraced those methods, ministers began teaming up with churches doing things the same way rather than churches in their home denominations.

"They all started looking alike - the Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans - and they started learning methodology from each other," Stetzer said. "And as they learned from each other, they started wanting to be around each other. And when they want to be around each other, someone eventually says, 'Let's form up a team and let's do stuff together.' And boom, you have got a network."

In recent years, newer groups such as the Leadership Network, the Association of Related Churches, Acts 29 and other networks have sprouted up to connect like-minded churches.

New technology makes that easier. Instead of spending thousands of dollars to travel to conferences, ministers such as Wilson keep in touch through blogs, Twitter and other social networks.

And churches can pick and choose what mission groups to support, rather than giving money through denominational challenges.

When a flood hit Nashville in May, Wilson sent out Twitter messages asking for help. Ministers and churches, some of whom he'd never seen in person, began sending assistance.

"We started a flood relief fund that, in a matter of weeks, raised $300,000," Wilson said. "Very few of those dollars came from within Crosspoint or Nashville. They came from churches around the country that chose to partner with us."

Religious brands change

These new networks reflect the reality that church members often have more than one religious identity. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that about 44 percent of Americans have changed religious brands in their lifetime.

Wilson believes most people identify first with their home congregation, even if they grew up in a specific denomination. If they can't find a local church from their denomination that meets their needs, they'll find another church that does.

"Twenty years ago, the first question was, 'Is this church Baptist or Methodist or whatever?' " he said. "That's the first thing they wanted to know before they visited. Today, they ask, 'Is this church making an impact in the community?' or 'Does my family feel at home here?' There are a whole different set of questions."

At Crosspoint, people share some common beliefs - the Resurrection, the Trinity and the inerrancy of the Bible. But they agree to disagree about theological nuances.

"I tell people all the time that you will not agree with everything I preach here," Wilson said. "We can disagree, and it doesn't mean that we have to worship at different churches where everyone thinks like us."

Couple leave over policy

Sometimes the agree-to-disagree method fails.

That was the case for Jane Stickney and her husband when they moved to the Nashville area 20 years ago. Stickney had grown up in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, but that denomination had no local churches at the time. The Stickneys joined St. Andrew Lutheran in Franklin, part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The commonalities that attracted them changed last summer, when the Evangelical Lutherans opened the door to allowing partnered gay clergy to serve as pastors.

Stickney said she loved St. Andrews but didn't want to be part of a denomination that endorsed homosexuality.

"I didn't leave the church," she said. "The church left me."

Stickney and her family are now members of Faith Lutheran Church in Thompson's Station, a Missouri Synod church started shortly after the Stickneys moved to Tennessee.

On Wednesday, she took part in a class on denominations at the church. Faith Lutheran's pastor, the Rev. Rick Hoover, said doctrines matter, even if churches downplay them. The earliest Christians wrote creeds and theology that made their beliefs clear. On the table in front of Hoover sat copies of Lutheranism 101, a book published by the Missouri Synod, and the Book of Concord, a collection of Lutheran teaching.

"We were a church that wasn't afraid to write down what we believed," he said.

END