what's in a building?

Churches should leave their doors open throughout the week, making use of their facilities for more than just Sunday worship, the Archbishop of Wales says.

Dr. Barry Morgan is scheduled to speak to church delegates Monday at the Transforming Communities and Congregations conference in Llandudno, North Wales, to encourage them to "think creatively" about how their buildings are used.

An article in the Christian Post this morning reveals that the Church in Europe may be having the same re-think-about-how-we-use-our-buildings discussion as many local churches on this side of the pond.

"A church that is closed Monday to Friday is the worst possible advertisement for Christianity," he said, according to BBC News.

Making the most of church buildings includes opening it up for use as conference facilities, for school groups and for counseling services, among other things.

Conference attendees will be introduced to Church in Wales churches that are already adapting, including St. Hywyn's at Aberdaron, Gwynedd, which has been renovated to serve pilgrims making their way to Bardsey Island, as well as local visitors. St. Maelog's at Llanfaelog, Anglesey, built a meeting room above the church for wood and glasswork by local artists, and hosts concerts and classes, as well as worship, as reported by BBC News. And at St. John's in Llangollen, Clwyd, pews were taken out to create a flexible space for intimate or contemporary services.

The idea takes on a slightly different flavor in Europe, it seems, where churches meet in centuries-old feats of architecture. It's more difficult to remove pews or create multi-purpose space in that setting.

But still, the conversation continues: In our increasingly post-Christian, isolated societies, what should a church building be?

the war in iraq, the economy and third place

That's right, third place is a campaign issue. Project for Public Spaces has an article up highlighting each candidate's response.

Hilary: "When that red phone rings at 3 AM I will have my tennis shoes on and be ready to hit the streets with carefully drafted plans to calm traffic, revitalize business districts and create public plazas in every neighborhood from Bangor to Bellingham.”

Barack: "My record speaks for itself. While Hillary Clinton was in the White House, I was a community organizer in the streets of Chicago, working to help people create neighborhood places to hang-out and have fun. It will take that kind of bottom-up approach to give the American people the great places they desire and deserve.”

John: "America is the most free nation on Earth, so we cannot tolerate a situation where people are not able to take a walk in their own community due to poor urban planning and everything-for-the-auto transportation policies."

(I'm exercising serious restraint in not commenting on those quotes.)

The lack of public space (the "problem of place," as Oldenburg refers to it in The Great Good Place) was bound to become a trendy social issue sooner or later. We've been helping churches jump the curb, but are enough churches on board?

When this thing gets really popular, will people say, "Oh, the church in my town has been doing that for years" and wonder what all the fuss is about? Will the media be hard pressed to talk about third place without talking about local churches? It's probably not to late for churches to get a head-start, but it may be getting close!

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?

unChristian

I've started reading through unChristian this week, by the Barna Research Group's very own David Kinnaman. He's going through the six most common points of skepticism that "outsiders" - anyone who's not a Christian, basically - hold against the Church.

Chapter 4 is about complaint #2: That Christians are too focused on getting converts, and we don't really care about people.

He gives some shocking testimony and provides startling numbers, all to explain that people think Christians just want them to be another notch on their Salvations belts. He discusses the frequency with which young people leave the Church after a try (or being forced into it by their parents), and how Christians have largely dumbed-down salvation to say-this-prayer-and-come-to-church. He continues with the transformation that the Church needs to make and he confesses this:

In the last two years, we have completely reengineered the Barna organization around this concept - that the church must become a catalyst, an environment for genuine and sustainable spiritual transformation.

(Emphasis mine.)

He goes on to explain that emerging generations are looking for process, and journey, so the kind of discipleship that Jesus modeled is actually quite appealing. What they're not interested in is say-this-prayer-and-come-to-church.

When people become Christians, we must describe appropriate expectations for them; engage them in significant, accountable relationships; and fashion environments where deep life change can take place.

(Emphasis mine.)

How do we fashion these environments? I'll let David explain,

We can create an environment in which relationships facilitate spiritual formation.

Relationships are key.

There is a resounding call for the Church to move back into mentorship and back into the art of making disciples - one at a time. Young people don't want to feel like a head to count, they want the people who are trying to tell them how to live their lives, to understand their lives. In the next chapter, David writes, "Our research demonstrates that conversations begin to open up avenues for spiritual influence."

How easy would it be to offer to buy a young visitor a cup of coffee if you both only had to walk across the lobby?

And part of this research is speaking to the need for the Church to be more relational in general. The Senior Pastor can't mentor every young adult that walks through the door, but a church family that is comfortable with themselves and acclimated to conversation can. Something else that will only happen in the correct environment.

Church Alternatives?

The Barna Group released a new study this morning: Americans Embrace Various Alternatives to Conventional Church Experience as Being Fully Biblical.

Those surveyed were asked if they think the following alternatives are "a complete and biblically valid way for someone who does NOT participate in the services or activities of a conventional church to experience and express their faith in God."

• 89% consider participating in faith activities at home with their families acceptable.
• 75% consider participating in a house church an acceptable/Biblical alternative.
• 69% think watching a religious television program is a legitimate alternative to church.
• 68% believe listening to a religious radio broadcast is a Biblical alternative to church.
• 68% consider participating in a special ministry event (a concert or community service activity) an acceptable church alternative.
• 54% think participating in a marketplace ministry is a Biblical alternative to conventional church.

We know nothing of the spiritual condition of the American adults surveyed. The report does not specify if people were asked anything about their faith or spiritual habits.

Some of the "alternative activities," I believe, many pastors/lay leaders would argue are not Biblical and/or acceptable substitutions for attending a church service. Others could probably inspire good debate. The bigger picture, at least in part, is that American adults largely believe they can be Christians and still avoid your church.

One more reason why your facility should be attractive, relevant, and functional. People - even people who may be interested in Christianity - are predisposed to believe they don't need what you have to offer, so offer something they want instead. An open gym two nights a week, a baseball diamond, a cozy café, preschool, a skate park, free wireless internet ...

bricks, mortar and learning (about Jesus)

USA Today published an article yesterday about how a building can recreate an environment. The story is one of an English teacher, and the change that occurred in his school when they decided to go all the way with a new building.

A church building is primarily a place of worship, but it is also a place of teaching. Right now many church buildings are filled with middle-aged conservatives who grew up in church. They are far from the rebellious, unruly crowds that fill public high schools, but probably not for long. The mission field that is beginning to overtake the western church is made up of "free-thinking" young people who don't know who Moses is. They are used to making their own rules, used to hating Christianity, and used to avoiding church.

So maybe this is more applicable than we'd like it to be.

Space. The school in question doubled the width of the hallways and made classrooms bigger. Adolescent behavior improves when they're not crammed into tight spaces. Imagine how much more comfortable new visitors will feel.

Lighting. We think natural lighting looks pretty, but it can increase learning rates by about 20%.

Improved security. Especially in your children's space.

Collegian cafeteria. The school added a better cafeteria, and stopped allowing students to leave campus for lunch. "To my amazement, few kids have complained, and the cafeteria has created a sense of unity in the student body." People come together over food. Your third place space should be immaculate.

High-tech teaching. "Even the most distracted students perk up when the LCD lights up." When ministering in a foreign mission field, you use the native language. The native language of the emerging generation is interactive, multi-media, and usually 140 characters or less. Don't make it a show, and don't compromise your message, just use their language.

Design/Redesign

There's a blog entry on Vandelay from a couple weeks ago titled 21 Factors to Consider Before a Redesign. They do websites. We do buildings. There are a lot of similarities.

1. What is the goal of the (re)design?
This is your mission/vision statement. Your church building should both reflect and serve your ministry. Don't set aside your vision statement while you consider your building (re)design.

3. What aspects of the current design are most effective?
"Most likely there are some things about the current design that work very well, and these may be aspects that you would like to keep or incorporate into the new design."

4. What aspects of the current design are not effective?
"Are there some characteristics of the design that do not accurately portray your [ministry] to new visitors?"

5. Who are your target users?
"By knowing who you are targeting and how you can meet their needs, you will be on your way to building an effective [facility]."

6. How can the [building] be more user-friendly?
Visible, staffed welcome center. Clear signage. Third place space. Exciting kids ministry space. Good traffic flow.

12. How can navigation be made more effective?
"Before designing think about how visitors will want to move through the [building], and make it as easy as possible for them."

14. How can increased user interaction be incorporated?
"By making the [building] more engaging to visitors you are more likely to get a high number of repeat visitors." Again, I'm thinking fun stuff for their kids and a swank café.

20. What [ministries] currently have inbound links?
Where are your first time visitors coming from? Are the kids inviting their friends? Are the homeless coming for a warm cup of coffee and shelter? Are business people coming for lunch and free wireless internet? " ... you’ll want to make sure that any changes do not negatively affect these links."

is your building selfish?

An article on The Christian Post this morning quotes Pastor Erwin McManus on why the Church in America is in a state of decline:

My primary assessment would be because American Christians tend to be incredibly self-indulgent so they see the church as a place there for them to meet their needs and to express faith in a way that is meaningful for them. There is almost no genuine compassion or urgency about serving and reaching people who don't know Christ.

*Nervous laughter* Ouch.

But you also have to consider that while the United Methodist Church is at its lowest membership rate since 1930, and the Lutheran World Federation reported a slip in western membership, McManus has led his church from 300 to over 3000 members in his 10 years as lead pastor. Maybe he's on to something.

Is there compassion - even urgency - for service and outreach in your church? I could probably walk around your building and tell you. Not because I take to judging books by their covers, but because - as Kevin Ford discusses in Transforming Church - your building is a natural extension of the core of your ministry. Whether you've ever thought about it or not.

For example, when my husband and I visited West Side Christian in Springfield over Christmas the first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable I felt in their lobby. But the second thing I noticed was that their welcome center had been transformed into an African village. It didn't take long to figure out that they had made a commitment to bring Christmas 07 to a small, poor community in Africa. That was cool, and that they took the time and resources to put that together demonstrated that they're serious about it.

If your building is in a community, it's part of that community. Is your facility serving your community, or sucking the life out of it? Is there room in your building for your Church body to serve the community? When a visitor walks into your lobby, what does she learn about your ministry?

If you don't have a third place space, you can't offer an escape for students or parents who work at home. If you don't have a kitchen, you can't feed the homeless. If everything in your lobby talks about you, you won't have anything to talk to a globally-minded, anti-Christian millennial about.

McManus continued,

I think the bottom line really is our own spiritual narcissism. There are methods and you can talk about style, structure and music, but in the end it really comes down to your heart and what you care about.

by the mouth of two or three witnesses ...

I keep telling you to do more with the third place space in your church building. Mr. Mike Trent is backing me up.

Most churches today have fallen in love with the idea of a café in their church, but few have understood the investment and return on investment. It’s our responsibility as leaders to use what we’ve been given to unlock this potential. Intentional third places have amazing and unlimited ability to connect people, develop leaders, and fund ministries. And the return on investment is internal, external and eternal.

He wrote an article recently for Church Solutions called Blended Services, which you can read here.

new from Barna

Pastor Rick Warren from Saddleback Church is sharing 12 Convictions about Worship with his email list. (Or you can read it here.) He sent out the first six last week. Two that caught my attention:

2. You don't need a building to worship God.
"Worship isn't a place; it's a verb."

And all God's people said ... ("Amen.") We talk a lot about church buildings because what you do with your church building is important. Still, I don't know how many times I've heard/said/typed the phrase, "Your church facility is a tool for your ministry." Jesus is the Big Idea, worship is the key, and the building is a very helpful ... tool.

6. God expects us to be sensitive to the fears, hang-ups, and the needs of unbelievers when they are present in our worship services.
"Colossians 4:5 (NIV): 'Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.' It's called being polite. Whenever you hear people talk about being sensitive to unbelievers, that is not watering down the gospel. It's called love."

And the way to many suburban-American hearts is through their java.

Maybe not, but when I feel like I don't belong some place, I'm comforted by something familiar. On the way to India this past summer we had a layover in a German airport. I don't speak German. I don't know how to convert dollars to Euros. I'm clearly not European, and was dressed a little like a missionary anticipating 23 hours of travel. I felt out of place ... until I found the airport McDonald's. I never eat McDonald's, but I did that day because that's where I was comfortable. I knew McDonald's.

A lot of "unchurched" people in your community don't know God. They don't know what a tithe is, they don't know how to worship, they don't know if they should take communion ... but they all know how to order a cup of coffee.

please remain alone and isolated at all times

I took this picture as my husband and I prepared to leave Arkansas last week. Anyone who can identify the restaurant by the "Enter" sign wins a Wildesign mug. I'll give you a clue: they're more prolific than McDonald's the further south you drive, and they seem to be based on the old 1950's drive-up diners (although, regrettably, the servers don't wear roller skates).

It was that last bit that made me want the picture.

Here we were, in small-town America, at a fast-food joint that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every year marketing itself as a modern rendition of a hip, retro diner. When you think about said diners, what comes to mind?

I imagine teenagers parked next to their friends, yelling and throwing things at each other's cars. I imagine that the four plastic picnic tables out front are swarming with high school students. I imagine somewhere, some couple is making out in someone's back seat, someone is waiting for a friend to show up, someone is getting in a fight, someone is on a first date, someone is fleeing a mid-life crisis, and someone has given in to the kids' request to eat here tonight because - what the hey - it's Saturday night.

I do not imagine a sign that says, "No Cruising or Loitering."

What if McDonald's started posting signs in their Play Places that said, "No laughing?"

The crisis of Third Place Space re-emerged in my mind, and as we drove past the sign again to leave my husband reminded me that we were still, technically, on vacation and he doesn't have the resources to create such a space so please stop trying to sell him one.

The lack of Third Place Spaces in our society is a problem. Sooner or later someone will answer the call to start recreating real community space again. Someone will lead the charge, inspire passion in our hearts, and probably make a lot of money or a name for himself in the process. Or the Church can jump the curve and do it first in Jesus' name and for the glory of the kingdom of God.

its time

WILLOW Magazine (a service of the Willow Creek Association) published an article recently titled 15 Innovations the Church Should Embrace Now! Item #5 is "Multi-Purpose Church Buildings - Doing ministry in the marketplace." And I quote,

Jesus didn't hang out at synagogues. He hung out at wells. Wells were natural gathering places in ancient culture. Coffeehouses are postmodern wells. That's why National Community Church, in Washington, DC, built a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill instead of a church building - to create a marketplace environment where the church and community could cross paths. Less than a year after it opened, "Ebenezers" [see pic below] was rated the #2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area by AOL CityGuide 2007. They serve 600+ customers seven days a week. Instead of asking people to come to them, the church is going to the people.

"Coffeehouses are postmodern wells." How I wish I could say I penned that one.

I'm assuming by now you have a well-established third place space in your church building. Good for you. You've probably seen your congregation grow in both size and relationships. You may even be asking, "What now?" How about adding a third place on the other side of town? Third place space is supposed to be accessible, and yours just is not accessible across town. Silence the little voice that immediately screams, "We could never do that!" and just consider it for a few moments.

(If your church is growing and you're considering a satellite campus, consider it for a few extra moments.)

On paper it could be a not-for-profit outreach ministry of your church; you don't have to start a new business. That said, in brick-and-mortar it should look like a new business: a hip coffee shop, not an outreach mission ... except on Sunday mornings. National Community Church uses Ebenezer's ("the #2 coffeehouse in the metro DC area") as a satellite campus on Sunday mornings. Imagine! Broadcasting the gospel into the unchurched's favorite café.

But if it worked for Jesus ...

new from Barna

Pause on the CKN Conference notes for the latest release from Barna: A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity. The generals are nothing most of us didn't already know: teenagers and young adults don't like Christians. Some of the actual numbers, though, are worse than I thought.

(These are 16 to 29 year-olds)
- 16% have a "good impression" of Christianity.
- 3% express favorable views of evangelicals.
- 87% believe present-day Christianity is judgmental.
- 85% believe present-day Christianity is hypocritical.
- Half of young church-goers agree with the previous two.

The most frequent, unprompted impressions of Christianity reflected the themes, "Christianity is changed from what it used to be," and "Christianity in today's society no longer looks like Jesus." That's from Christian and non-Christian young people.

Researcher David Kinnaman commented,

Going into this three-year project, I assumed that people's perceptions were generally soft, based on misinformation, and would gradually morph into more traditional views. But then, as we probed why young people had come to such conclusions, I was surprised how much their perceptions were rooted in specific stories and personal interactions with Christians and in churches.

Of course, your ministry needs to teach Biblical truth, no matter how much it conflicts with a young person's worldview. Teaching, though, requires communication, and in the digital age communication is at least two-way. In the emerging worldview, there is no such thing as the "gospel truth," accepted without question. Relationship is more important than position, and authenticity speaks louder than a white collar or robe. You will preach a better post-modern sermon with one to three young people around a café table than you will from the front of your worship space.

Wait, does your building have a café table?

new wineskins

Mark 2:22//And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.

That's New King James. In today's vernacular it goes, "Just be real." No one understands this principal better than the emerging generation.

Don pulled up the vague empty chair next to me yesterday and asked why, despite all the cool spaces designed for post-moderns, he always sees them hanging out at Taco Bell and White Castle.

"Because it's cheaper than Panera," I answered, "and all of their friends are already there."

Teenagers and young adults appreciate well-designed spaces, probably more than you think. We notice the colors you choose for the walls, and how the layout of the room affects traffic flow. Decor is discussed, just in terms you may not understand. At the end of the day, though, the principals of third place rule.

Chapter two of Oldenburg's The Great Good Place is called "The Character of Third Place Spaces." He discusses eight principals. Below are the ones that especially hit home with teenagers and young adults, as demonstrated by a little pizza place in my home town:

1. The Leveling effect. Everyone's a teenager who likes getting a huge slice of pizza and as much pop as they can drink for $3. Social strata fade into the background because the place is cool. Walking in the door earns you cool-points.

2. Conversation is the main activity. The $3 also buys you a table for as long as you want it.

3. Accessibility and accommodation. This is especially key for teenagers who can't drive yet. It needs to be within walking/biking distance or it needs to have enough entertainment value to justify being dropped off for most of the day.

4. Regulars. When this pizzeria opened, they first earned the favor of a few. Most of their staff now is high school kids, they cultivate a culture of fierce loyalty (easier because they're right next door to a Pizza Hut), and they let delivery drivers sit at tables to smoke or play arcade games between runs. Anyone knows they can go in any time and meet someone they know, or wait a few minutes until he gets back from a delivery.

5. A low profile. This is going to mess with you, but the building is pretty drab. People know they can put their feet up on the seat across from them, sit on the table, or stand on a chair to change the channel on the wall-mounted TV if they don't want to watch sports. It's comfortable.

6. Playful mood. I already mentioned the arcade games (the owner has the high score on Street Fighter), the TVs, and the conversation ...

7. Home away from home. Those who frequent this pizza place know that it belongs to them. When the owner found out one of his regulars had become vegan, and would no longer be eating pizza, he hauled out his food catalog to find alternatives and ordered things just for her that never even made it to the menu. (And can I also say, if you've never had a pickle breaded and deep-fried, you haven't lived.)

Everyone needs a third place space, but if you're planning one for your student/young adult ministry it needs to be different. They are new wine, and they will tear asunder an old wineskin. It needs to be real.

reason #117

Guest blogger Abbi Zeliff had a nice talk with his grandfather that he wants to tell you all about over at the Swerve blog. It's a good reminder, and yet another compelling reason to get on the Third Place bandwagon. People need some place they can go, why not your place?

He goes on to talk about how the burden is "compounded" for those in ministry, "because there are lives at stake." He encourages you to slow down too. So once you have your third place space, either staff it during regular business hours or learn to use the espresso machine.

Pastor Brian Zahnd of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri is one guy I really like to listen to, and I think he would agree. (He's even more fun to watch, because he's very animated - the audio podcasts don't really do him justice.) Their third place space is called Solomon's Porch, and he mentioned once in passing that, "In my church I am never more than 160 steps from a cappuccino. It's great."

young adults

We know from a myriad of previous reports and studies that young adults (ages 18 to 23 or 30, depending on the research group) are the least likely to attend church, and the most likely to feel unwanted. The Barna Group reports that three in four will drop out of church after high school. LifeWay Research recently took the research one step further to answer the "Why?"

According to a new report, the most common reason young adults give for leaving church is, "I simply wanted a break from church."

Among those young adults who did not drop out of church, most said, "Church was a vital part of my relationship with God." A close second-place reason was, "I wanted the church to help guide my decisions in everyday life." The third and fourth reasons given also spoke of the church's relevance to the young people's lives.

Scott McConnell, the associate director of LifeWay Research, commented, "The vitality and everyday relevance these young people experienced in church is a stark contrast to church dropouts who wanted a break from church and felt unconnected." You can read the whole report here.

Is your ministry speaking to young adults? Is there space in your facility that reflects and serves their culture? Where they can feel at home? Remember, the Rainer Research Group reported earlier this year that inviting social space is the most important part of a church facility to those between the ages of 18 and 24. How are you connecting with them?

futuristic

A couple weeks ago, futurist and theologian Leonard Sweet named the top five trends religious leaders should keep their eyes on. Number three is, "epic rules."

In Sweet's The Gospel According to Starbucks, the futurist calls the church to master the "EPIC" living that Starbucks has mastered. EPIC stands for Experience, Participation, "Images that trob with meaning," and Connection.

How many of these four epic principals are you making room for in your church's third place space?

Experience: Is your third place hosting events? Speakers, artists, clowns, etc. Are there experiences available?

Participation: Is there room for volunteers? Are your events participatory? Open mic nights are good for this.

Images: What are people looking at in your space? The same picture of Jesus in the same gold frame that was in their parents' church? Local artists expressions of what it is to find freedom? Does your third place space have a logo of its own? Is it meaningful? Is it displayed?

Connection: How are people able to connect in your space? Is there room to connect over business? Is there room to connect socially? Is there WiFi to connect internationally?

The Christian Post quotes Sweet as explaining, "The culture helps the church become more of an epic community." When was the last time we considered how culture could help a local church?

third place for everyone

We talk a lot about the third place space in your facility being a fresh way to extend your ministry into your community, and it should be primarily that. Most of your facility, actually, should be primarily that. Recently, I was talking with a consultant in the industry (who shall remain nameless because he turned out to be less interested in sharing ideas than getting new business), and we discovered the internal benefit of third place space.

Your building is a tool. Renovating, expanding, or abondoning it for a new one is a major event in the life of a congregation. Healthy congregations tend to come out stronger in the end, but what of not-so-healthy, divided congregations?

Not-so-healthy, divided congregations should be careful about starting a building project, but they can benefit from some third place space. Congregations that are not of one mind usually don't know each other very well. A welcoming, relaxing third place space will often draw the congregation together and allow them to socialize and get to know one another more.

The good news is you probably don't have to put an addition on your building to do this. If you know your church body needs some strengthening before you move into a building project, you can usually find some space to turn into a temporary third place. Many churches have a large narthex, lobby, or other open space.

Here are some simple suggestions:

1. Add seating (around some tables). People will gather in a big empty room for a while, but they'll stay and get to know one another when they can get comfortable.
2. Up the food and beverage service. If you're just serving coffee now, add donuts. If you're already doing pastries, add fruit, bagels, or pre-wrapped deli sandwhiches and juice for lunch. This can become an outreach ministry as you partner with a local bakery/deli. If you use them exclusively, they may agree to give you a discount along with some napkins that have their logo on them.
3. Get a stack of newspapers.
4. Advertise it every once in a while. Get creative once every four to eight weeks. Offer a cook-out one week after your worship service, or bring in a balloon artist for the kids. These don't have to be big events, just something to make people aware of the community that's going on.

Above all, have a good time with it and don't put huge expectations on the thing. You're providing a space for community to happen (Joseph Meyers would be so proud), but you can't make it happen. Have fun, meet people, introduce them to each other, and they'll get it eventually.