In my last post I showed pictures of “church buildings” that are no longer used for church meetings. While we could simplistically say that these empty buildings show the decline of the church in this area, this post will show one reason this is not a sound claim. I’ll share some photos of a few other buildings in the area that serve as meeting places for churches, but weren’t originally built for this purpose.
The first snapshot (below) shows a former movie theater, which, as you can see by the sign, is now home to a church.(Is this a sign of the decline of the movie industry? Probably not.)
This church has moved into a space formerly used for secular purposes and converted it to church use.
And as I went further, I found church using spaces for weekend services that haven’t stopped being used for their weekday functions. Like this Tacoma middle school that hosts not just one, but two churches for weekend services!
This is one indicator of the evangelical tendency (especially in recent years) to take public, “secular” space and use it as a place to meet for fellowship and worship. While some congregations do this as a temporary
arrangement
– until they can get big enough to have their own building – others do it with an intentionality, wanting to be part of the structures, the space, the rhythm of life in their community.
While I’m at it, here’s a photo of a high school in Lakewood where a congregation meets that is very much connected to the lives of the needy in their community.
I could go on with more examples, but I think most of my readers probably agree with me, since anyone who’s been evangelical for awhile knows that the church is not the building, it’s the body of believers under the lordship of Christ.
What’s upsetting is how the claims of the looming demise of the church are used by leaders to scare Christians into acting on whatever issue a leader is passionate about. In the past twelve months, I have actually heard one speaker claim that the reason we are losing young people and the church is declining in numbers is because we aren’t teaching young-earth, 7-day material creationism, while another speaker claimed that it’s because we aren’t encouraging our Christian young people to embrace scientific evolutionary theory. Two opposing “pet issues” are offered as the solution to the same perceived problem. At the college where I did my undergrad work, we were regularly warned that the church would decline and our nation would fall to pieces unless we did more evangelism and voted Republican (Which is another poor correlation for another day…).
A couple years ago, there was media buzz around a study showing a decline in the number of professing Christians in the U.S. and an increase in those who claimed to be atheist or have no religious affiliation. This story was critiqued well by more than one source, (including First Things ), and it was noted that evangelical and pentecostal Christianity gained popularity, while mainline denominations – that in large part had stopped preaching the gospel long before – lost numbers. So essentially, there was a decline in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. And since the mainline denominations tend to own the nicest church buildings, we now see beautiful church buildings being converted to other uses.
My conclusions from these ponderings are the following:
1. If the best motivation we can muster for living out our mission as the church is the fear that Christianity is declining, then our theology is seriously stunted. A robust theology makes us more concerned for the glory of Christ than the survival of our own institutions.
2. I would love to see beautiful old buildings with aesthetic and/or historic value put into use by evangelical churches. I would prefer this to the non-descript box-like buildings we tend to set up in non-descript suburban areas. Why can’t we connect with the history and beauty that have been part of Christianity – but bring sound teaching and vibrant Christian community to life within those walls?
3. I also love to see churches using public/secular space in their communities. Churches ought to meet frequently outside of their buildings! Why can’t we be vitally connected to the rhythms of life in the communities where we live?
4. The genius of evangelicalism – in fact, the genius of Christianity – is the ability of its people, leaders and institutions to reinvent themselves while staying true to the core beliefs and practices of the faith. Changing the venues in which we meet is just another expression of that.
Thus, I applaud the creativity of those using secular space for church meetings. And if you are starting a church seeking to worship in an aesthetically and historically rich place, incorporating liturgy and beauty into worship while offering sound and clear teaching about the gospel, please invite me. I want to see what this looks like…because I think it would be beautiful.
Bearded Sage 