What type of church building would you ideally like? I'd much rather a cathedral than a converted warehouse, cinema, school or theatre.
I think a specially designed building can affect a mood and send messages. Our buildings are more than rain shelters. That's one reason we have architects! Our homes and our church buildings (and every other building) can be built to the glory of God, but in different ways.
Some evangelicals often claim that non-Christians find it hard to enter (churchy) church buildings. Perhaps. But I've frequently been on holiday and day trips with non-Christian family who are very keen to visit ecclesiastical buildings of all sorts - admittedly for touristy reasons, but they seem to have no problem with entering church buildings as such.
My non-Christian family would like a lovely church building, and I don't think they are hugely weird in that. Many people would like to get married in a nice church, for example. Maybe you'd say that a building might distract them or that they'd like it for the wrong reasons, but there you have it.
If we say some people don't like to go to churchy buildings, we should also remember that some people didn't like school or don't enjoy theatre or cinema and so on, so is there such a thing as a neutral space? And would that be a good thing?
Friday, April 24, 2009
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2 comments:
I think that not only would I prefer a specially-designed building, I would also prefer one that has a history of being used for public worship. It's a helpful way of reminding us of our unity with the church down the ages and of the Lord's faithfulness in building his kingdom through that time.
Yes, thanks Ros. I agree. Of course we'll need new church buildings or extensions to old ones all the time as the gospel grows but there is something great about an obvious visible reminder that our faith is ancient and we share fellowship with all God's countless people down the ages.
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