I was recently at the Church of the resurrection in Leawood, KS, for their Leadership Institute. For those of you unaware of them, they are the largest United Methodist church in the country. I stayed after the conference was over in order to be able to attend some of their worship services. They have their main sanctuary which hosts most of their services. I have no idea how many it holds, but it is huge. My guess is between 2-3,000.
They also hold a service in what is now called the Wesley Chapel, which is a smaller venue (300?) and was their original sanctuary. In the same building and behind the chapel is another area, now called the student center. This was their second sanctuary after the Wesley Chapel became too small, but before the new sanctuary was built. While this building is still used for worship services it also has many other uses, including being used for their youth ministry. It has computers, basketball hoops and a climbing wall, and yet it is also still used for one of the Sunday worship services. One of those services takes place at the same time as the biggest service (which is traditional) is going in the main sanctuary, and is obviously geared to younger adults, or the bottom end of boomers/beginning Gen Xers and their children. It also hosts the two worship services which are run on Wednesday evenings first for middle schoolers and then for high schoolers.
The use of that space, which I know many youth would love, got me thinking about what creates sacred space. But there is even a further wrinkle in this. After the second sanctuary was opened (which is now the student center) they used the old sanctuary (now the chapel) as their narthex. In other words, when they needed to space to fill a different function then they changed the space to fit their needs. The space did not dictate function and purpose, they dictated it. Then when they moved into their new building they again changed this space back to a worship space because they needed a small chapel in which to hold worship. Again, they dictated purpose and function.
Finally, they have plans to build an entirely new and even bigger worship space at some point in the future. When I asked one of the members of their church council what they would do with their current sanctuary he said he didn’t know as they hadn’t begun discussing that yet. However, he said in the original master plan, the building which now houses the main sanctuary was scheduled to be the health and wellness center, and so his guess was that it would be transitioned to fulfill that purpose. So, at some point in the future, their current sanctuary could be turned into a gym or basketball courts or something else (I’m guessing as to what would be included in this). Again, they are going to dictate what the space is used for, and when it no longer fulfills their needs then they will change the space to make sure it is working for them.
Many churches throughout the country are saddled with churches and worship spaces that no longer fulfill their needs, but they cannot change them or get rid of them. Why? Because the space has become “too important” and we could “never worship anywhere else.” What are we worshipping in this scenario, God or the building? I believe it is the second. The building is important, but it is only a building. If it no longer serves the need or needs of the community then it should be changed to make sure the needs are met.
What the Church of the Resurrection is showing is that a space becomes sacred simply because of what goes on inside of it, not because of anything to do with the space. I think we all know this intuitively, as we have probably all has sacred time and space that existed well outside of the sanctuary. I personally have seen it in hospital rooms, in people’s homes, in nature and even in classrooms. Jesus says “wherever two or more are gathered, there I am with them.” Notice he does not say, wherever two or more are gathered together in a specific type of building. It is the people in connection with God that make the church, not the building.
We need to get past our hold-ups about our spaces and begin to realize that they need to answer and be amenable to us, not the other way around. We need to get passed the idea that we built a nice church for ourselves, and we liked it, so we kept it that way and we expect others to always keep it that way as well. Few other things in life follow this pattern and we need to remove it from the church too.
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