jim and casper (3 of 3)

One more church-architecture-related comment I want to draw out of Jim & Casper.

The guys had an "emerging church weekend" wherein they visited Imago Dei and Mars Hill, out west. Imago Dei was first:

As soon as we got out of the car, we spotted the redbrick, three-story school surrounded by an asphalt playground ... We went inside and found our way to an old auditorium with a high balcony circling all the way around its perimeter.

"What a great building," said Casper. "It's straight out of the fifties. I half expect the Beav and Wally to be here this morning."

It was the only church whose building got a decidedly positive comment - albeit tainted with sarcasm - from the friendly atheist, and they meet in an old elementary school auditorium.

Casper liked everything about Imago Dei: the worship, the video about the playground they resurrected and how it affected the community, and the visiting pastor from a church plant in L.A. And when said visiting pastor said, "Giving isn't really giving until it interrupts your lifestyle," Casper did not take issue. (Quite the opposite, actually. Casper quoted that pastor several times.)


All of Casper's facility-comments only serve to revive that popular conversation in me: What is the future of church buildings? More than size and style and technology, the pattern that seems to be forming is consistency. A church facility should serve the purposes of the ministry that calls it home.

When a church preached a message of perseverance in an auditorium that seats thousands of people, it seemed out of place. When a church flaunted a community service effort to a camera attached to "a $5000 camera crane," Casper noticed. When a church called itself a church and didn't talk about God, even the friendly atheist got a little irritated. But when a church talks about transforming a community from a school auditorium, it makes sense.

Especially in a society that doesn't see the need to attend church, the future of church architecture may not be in beautiful buildings, but in innovative, flexible, multi-purpose, sustainable buildings.

jim and casper (2 of 3)

(If you're not sure who Jim and Casper are, scroll down to Tuesday.)

I would like to reiterate that Casper is one atheist, not a conglomerate of the outsider population. While he is not a statistic, though, he does offer a non-Christian, post-modern view of local churches.

Previously, we learned that Casper almost always noticed the buildings he was in, and he almost always commented about them without being asked. Your building is your first impression many times. The pair visited several huge church buildings, but Casper never made a negative comment about the size of the building until it seemed to conflict with the church's stated mission/purpose/vision.

So should we go back to/stick with hymnals and ugly carpeting? No. Allow me/Casper to clarify:

"What about the PowerPoint, Cas? It bothered you at the other churches. Does it bother you here?"

"Churches using technology to communicate better doesn't bother me at all," he said. "What was bothering me at those churches was the amount of money that was clearly being spent on technology and equipment, which I see as vain at best, hypocritical at worst. How are you helping others by spending your offering money on a Hollywood stage show?"

We're all used to technology, but a light show at church seems to irritate the atheist.

It's tempting, here, to want to defend ourselves. Where's the line between what's acceptable and what's "vain at best, hypocritical at worst?" Is a church to hold itself accountable to every unbeliever for the way they spend money? If a big church has a big budget, even a small percentage can seem like a whole lot ...

What I like about the book is that Jim rarely defends a local church, because the point is not to discuss but to listen. The truth is you won't be able to address the concerns and misconceptions of every non-Christian that walks in the door, so whether we like it or not, we do need to consider their perceptions.

pause for architectural oogling

We are moving into a digital age. Our constant challenge is to blend the old into the new, to draw the past into the future, to keep church architecture reflective of the culture the Church is trying to reach out to. I've solved it. Simply crash a space ship into your existing building:

That is The Crystal, the new entrance to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Here's another angle:

Conde Nast's April issue chose the seven new architectural wonders of the world. Sadly, none of them were churches. The other one that caught my eye is the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan:

Look a the neighborhood it's in. Seems a little out of place.

The thought crossed my mind as I looked up images of the architectural wonders of the world: church buildings are always trying to blend into their neighborhoods, but what if they stood out? Of course, they shouldn't stand out in a culturally irrelevant, terribly ugly, cast-a-shadow-for-five-city-blocks way.

But what if they stood out for their architectural beauty? What if people made a point to drive visiting friends and family by the cool building downtown that happened to be a church? What if people saw it go up, or moved into town, and thought, "That's a church? It looks like an art museum!"

What if?

jim and casper (1 of 3)

I read almost all of Jim & Casper Go To Church yesterday, in two sittings - and only because I took a lunch break.

From the back cover:

In 2006, Jim Henderson, veteran Christian and director of Off The Map, hired Casper (atheist) to join him in visiting twelve of America's best- and least-known churches ... Week after week, this spiritual odd couple attended services at churches all over the country and documented their experiences at and reactions to each one. Along the way, they found the real value of their journey in the open and authentic friendship that developed as they talked, questioned, joked, and - most importantly - listened.

I give it two thumbs up. Definitely a good read.

My sole hesitation is in how easy it may be for some of us to read it, however, and assume that Casper speaks for the American atheist population in general. While his outsider POV is certainly valuable and often insightful, he is one dude with biases and background that we know not of.

That said, he makes some very interesting comments about the buildings they visit - of course. What really stood out was that he was constantly put off by the hidden price tag behind huge, fancy facilities.

Jim and Casper went to a lot of mega-churches (Saddleback, Lakewood, The Potter's House, Dream Center, etc.), and Jim asked a lot of questions. Casper was asked to rate various parts of the service, like the people, the music, and the sermon. He was never asked to comment on the facility, but in almost every church he offered some sort of opinion on the building anyway. The general opinion, like I said, was that most of them probably cost a lot.

I, of course, got a little defensive at first. "The church has to have a place to meet, man. A nice place that is welcoming and part of the community ..." Casper would have gotten a third place lecture from me yesterday.

Then, as I reviewed some of his comments, I noticed that he was generally impressed with the grand buildings until it seemed to contradict the pastor's message or the church's mission.

In one mega-church, the pastor preached a sermon called "Don't Give Up." Casper saw the contradiction in delivering an encouraging, "hang in there" message in a huge, suburban church. It actually made such a (negative) impression that he brought it up at other churches weeks later.

what's new in Seattle?

Mars Hill Church in Seattle is a multi-site, mega-church with probably a half-dozen campuses. This past Sunday, they celebrated the grand opening of their first campus in the downtown Seattle area - in a renovated night club.

Weeks of preparation and nearly $370,000 in renovations went into the complete transformation of the former night club – located in an area that had long been notorious for drugs and gang violence. Go-go dancer cages were converted to coat hangers and what had been a condom dispenser is a now a diaper-changing station.

Residents and churchgoers alike welcomed the new location and were amazed how a previously notorious night club could be transformed into a house of worship.

"It's amazing how God can change things," said Sarah Rosenberger, who attended the opening service with her infant son, according to the Post-Intelligencer.

(You can read the whole Christian Post article here.)

I love the symbolism of what Mars Hill did here, evident in Rosenberger's comment, and I'm sure it was intentional. Mars Hill took what no one else wanted, a shell that had been hallowed by sin, and redeemed it for the glory of the kingdom of Christ.

Your church building is your first impression. What does it say about you? What does it say about God?

relationships in church

A new Barna study focuses on people's most important relationships. There are a lot of interesting numbers at Barna's website, but what caught my attention was an observation from Mr. Barna,

People were more than 50% more likely to say that their church’s congregation is their most significant group than to say that God represents their most important personal connection. That certainly reflects the interpersonal comfort that millions of people have developed at their church, but also indicates that people may have forgotten the ultimate reason for belonging to a Christian church.

I wonder if that is what it indicates.

Maybe I'm just feeling optimistic this morning, but I think those numbers could be a good sign. He could be talking about lazy "Christians" with no interest in discipleship, but he could also be talking about the spiritually-curious. Those people whom we assume have "forgotten the ultimate reason for belonging to a Christian church" may just be coming to the faith.

If the later were true, what a testimony those numbers would be to the power of third place spaces and small group communities within a church! People who do not yet list God as their BFF are at least naming their church congregation as their most significant network!

Because, remember, a digital society behaves differently from a broadcast one. In broadcast, you have to subscribe to HBO before you can talk about the shows around the office water cooler. Believe comes before Belong. In a digital society, you can sign up for a dozen social networking sites and never create a profile on half. Belong comes before Believe.

seth godin knows

Seth Godin gave a great interview on the Catalyst podcast here. Allow me to reflect some of his thoughts through the lens of church architecture:

"People don't buy products, they buy stories."
Ed Bahler talked about the power of story at the Chicago Cornerstone Conference last September, and it's probably something a church should revisit once or twice a year. What is the story of your church? Is it an exciting story? Is it on your website? Are there "family" pictures from years of ministry on the walls of your living room/third place?

On social networking:
"Friends are not a fad."
Facebook won't look the same in three years, but people like people. This is a plug for your third place space, and for your church's Facebook group. Social networking may seem like a silly teenager fad right now, but those teenagers are growing up with it. Every company and organization has a website, but are you on Facebook? MySpace? Twitter? Squidoo?

On bloggers and social network-ers:
People who succeed offer goodness to people who want it, as opposed to those who push it on people because they think they have a right to.
For a generation with a digital, hyper-linked worldview, this principal extends beyond the internet. Are you offering the gospel or pushing it? In a society with so much being offered, is your offer relevant to people's lives? The emerging generation doesn't recognize the Church's "right" to speak into their lives like their grandparents did. We need to engage them.

building for your neighbors

In Breakout Churches, Thom Rainer identifies the VIP (Vision Intersection Profile) factor. It is where the pastor's passions, the congregation's passions, and the community's needs overlap. Churches that break out of the eroding church model are very often those who write their vision and mission in that small cross-section.

And we know that from Kevin Ford's Transforming Church, (and abundant experience) that a ministry building is the outer-most visual representation of that ministry. A church facility should show its community what kind of church this is, and serve the congregation as they serve their neighbors.

Which is why Barna's new study is both interesting and applicable.

American adults have been redefining "church." There are new (however correct or incorrect) ideas of what it means to be the church, to "go to church," and to know God. With these new opinions in mind, it is becoming difficult to assess church health, so Barna is redefining some standards. Instead of "churched" and "unchurched," the Barna group is suggesting:

Unattached - People who have not attended a church or organic church community in the past year.

Intermittents, or "under-churched" - People who have attended a church or organic church community in the past year, but not in the past month.

Homebodies - People who have not attended a traditional church in the past month, but have attended a home church.

Blenders - People who have attended a traditional church and a home church during the past month.

Conventionals - People who have attended a traditional church in the past month, but not a house church.

It's not as clear as "churched" and "unchurched" anymore. The people in your community have a wide variety of experiences and expectations that they're bringing into your church when they visit.

Some characteristics of the "unattached:"

• More likely to be stressed out
• Less likely to feel they are making a difference in the world
• Less optimistic about the future
• More likely to define their sociopolitical views as "mostly liberal"
• Much more likely to believe the holy texts of different world religions teach basically the same things

How is your church building allowing you to serve or minister to these people? How is it helping to attract these people?