Jesus went to where the people were at and chilled out at the local watering hole where he spent his time with prostitutes and tax collectors.
With that same philosophy and idea, many congregations are looking at non-traditional meeting places for their regular Church services. The trend of spacious sanctuaries is over as many are finding movies theaters and warehouses as a more desirable meeting place.
This from the New York Times:
The “spiritual but not religious” category is an important audience that evangelical leaders hope to reach in a culture that many believers call “post-Christian.”
This only makes sense, as the number of Americans not affiliated with a religion is on the rise, “including a third of Americans under 30” (according to the Pew Research Center). And of those who are not affiliated with any religion, 68% say they do believe in God and pray at least once a month.
Perhaps finding non-traditional venues is the answer?
So they arrange meetings in movie theaters, schools, warehouses and downtown entertainment districts. They house exercise studios and coffee shops to draw more traffic. Many have even cast aside the words “church” and “church service” in favor of terms like “spiritual communities” and “gatherings,” with services that do not stick to any script.
Although I do agree switching up our tactics and getting further away from the mega-church, mega-building, mega-money model is a good idea, I can’t help but wonder if we’re still missing the point by putting too much focus on buildings and meeting places and not enough on meeting the needs of the people in our community.
What do you think about all of this?
[Image via Patrick Feller]
Marcus Williamson says
dude. we searching for sure. like we lost a coin and can’t locate it. we’re trying everything. which really is beautiful. because we’re saying hey, the old ways. maybe they are not completely right.
it’s hard to follow the red letters of Jesus tho. reading back through some it. he’s so blunt and so straight forward that we miss it.
it’s hard when a generation grows up one way and instills values that are deemed as acceptable to an entire society. but it’s cool to see the history of the bible and how he raises up people and generations to challenge the status quo. to look at the bible and say, how did we get here? but not only challenge it but actually do something about it.
for some the lizard brain mentality takes us back to our old selves. but it’s cool that some of the great movements are started out of brokeness and trying to find oneself.
all this to say. there’s so much hope as breath is in us. we’ll get there because its such a process and not project ya know. it takes time to break hardened hearts, which i know i’m right smack in the middle of.
Eric Dye says
Good stuff, Marcus. Thanks man. 🙂
Darin says
I think it’s interesting in the journey of Paul that the first place he would go when he entered a new town was the synagogue. He would go to the place where discussion of spiritual things happened. He went to the spiritual centre of the community.
Today, in our culture and society, I wonder where we would consider as the spiritual centre in our communities. Would it be the coffee shop? The gym? The movie theatre? The sports arena?
Eric Dye says
Seriously!
Curtis says
The problem with modernity is it has taught us that we can live without spirituality. Or, if not without it, at least spirituality can be put into a box and separated from “regular”, secular, day-to-day life. The fact that modern society no longer even has a spiritual center is the exact problem we are faced with today as Christians.
Modern society has replaced spiritual centers with coffee shops, shopping malls, movie theaters and nightclubs, not to mention the office that absorbs many people’s full devotion today. So I guess those places may be as close as we can get to a spiritual center today.
The challenge for the church today is not only to meet people where they are, but to re-introduce the whole concept of spirituality, and how it must be fully integrated into one’s life, not put into a box and only pulled out when needed.
We must meet people where they are, but we also must re-introduce a whole vocabulary of spiritual practice that has been slowly lost since about 1600 AD.
Marcus Williamson says
Shane Claiborne is a cool voice in this type of conversation I feel. Good words all around.
Timothy says
Yeah, I wish the era of spending so much money to build earthly dwellings actually went to invest in people instead…I know it doesn’t indirectly, but building all these churches is a lot of financial overhead. I think a better model is house churches or coffee shops, etc…….I’m kind of bored with the status quo church.
Eric Dye says
True story.