Some churches pursue social activism by caring for the homeless; some take on international issues, such as protesting genocide in Sudan; and others have adopted environmentalism.

Now some are embracing a gospel of urban planning known as New Urbanism. Led by architects, builders and urban planners, the movement seeks to retool or build village-like urban neighborhoods, where people can walk to shops, jobs and churches.

New Urbanism is seen as an antidote to the social and spiritual alienation that auto-dominated life can trigger.

A case in point: Bidwell Presbyterian in Chico, Calif., a Romanesque Revival house of worship with a classic Italian bell tower — a downtown landmark for more than a century.

The church began planning a satellite campus to accommodate the quadrupling of the congregation, according to Tom Hayes, an elder on the church's building committee. The early idea was a modern building with acres of parking.

Then the church was contacted by New Urban Builders, a developer with plans to develop a 250-acre mixed-use New Urbanism community of 1,500 houses, apartments, businesses, schools and a ballfield three miles south of downtown.

The company invited the church to construct its second church on two acres in a style similar to its original building and to occupy a central spot in the new Meriam Park.

The church would be built right next to sidewalks and would not have its own parking lot; New Urbanists view big lots as space-wasting eyesores. Instead, it would share parking with businesses.

Groundbreaking for the satellite campus is expected next year; the hope is that the first phase will be done by 2008.

Forgoing a parking lot allows for extra buildings in stages: first a fellowship hall, then classrooms, offices, a courtyard, a sanctuary and an outdoor arcade where congregants can chat after worship, said John Anderson, one of the developers. The fellowship hall will be open to the community for civic and cultural events.

"They approached us and said, 'We really want to have a church in the town center of this development,' " recalled the Rev. Greg Cootsona, one of four full-time pastors at the church. " 'We'd love it if you could develop iconic structure that would grasp people's attention visually and could connect as a civic as well as a religious component in this development.' "

Soon, Cootsona and other church leaders were reading theologian Eric Jacobsen's book, "Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith," (Brazos Press), which urges churches to get involved in cities' welfare.

"Christians can applaud the fact that New Urbanists are advocating a return to human scale in the built environment," Jacobsen, an ordained Presbyterian pastor, said at a recent gathering of the Congress of New Urbanists in Pasadena, Calif. "In seeing the human being as the crown of God's creation ... we [Christians] have a strong foundation for respecting human scale."

Jacobsen, who recently left a pastorate in Missoula, Mont., to complete his doctorate at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, says churches have contributed to the deterioration of cities by building warehouse-like edifices in the suburbs with huge parking lots.

"I'll be the first to admit that Christians in this country have failed to live up to the standard set by their own scriptures," said Jacobsen, an adjunct professor of theology and culture at Fuller. "Rather than taking the Bible seriously, we have allowed the American idols of individualism, conspicuous consumption and privatism to influence our approach to church building as well as our impulses toward the urban landscape."

In contrast, he said, a church that is "embedded in the neighborhood with doors that come right up to the sidewalk" reflects Christ's approach.

"Jesus Christ literally 'tabernacled' or pitched his tent among us," he said. "He did not remain distant and wait for people to come to him."

Some observers question whether such planning ignores more pressing issues of affordable housing, jobs and poverty.

"The jury is out," said theologian Glenn Smith, professor of urban theology at McGill University in Montreal. The new urbanism is essentially a white, elitist movement, he said.

David Frenchak, president of the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago, says he likes New Urbanism but worries that it could have unintended consequences, such as dislocation of the poor.

But in Chico, church leaders hope their satellite campus will be a neighborhood hub, one residents can walk to.

Philip Bess, a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame who also holds a degree from Harvard Divinity School, is a consultant for the Meriam Park development.

Bess says churches designed with New Urbanism in mind both help "the church's evangelical mission on behalf of the City of God and contribute to the civilizing function of the City of Man."