The online magazine Slate has a new slideshow essay about megachurch architecture. They compare contemporary megachurch architecture unfavorably with cathedrals:
The Gothic cathedral was designed to inspire awe and thoughts of transcendence. Megachurches celebrate comfort, ease and the very idea of contemporary suburban life. ... Most contemporary megachurches are resolutely secular in design. The 4,550-seat sanctuary—it's actually called the Main Auditorium—of Willow Creek appears to have good sightlines, excellent audiovisual facilities, and comfortably wide aisles for moving around in. But inspiring it's not. It's the architectural equivalent of the three-piece business suit that most nondenominational pastors favor.I attend a church that started in our pastor's basement. Other locations included a nursing home, a Seattle Pacific University auditorium, a hotel ballroom, conference rooms ... our current location is a former synagogue that we bought about eight years ago. When we had the church in D.C., we met in an elementary school. So I've never really felt the need for "spiritual" architecture. On the other hand, I do believe our outward actions should represent our inward attitude. That's why I don't wear shorts and flip-flops to church on Sunday.
I recently had a conversation with a friend about this. I was criticizing overly ornate church buildings, but she countered with asking, "Why does God's house have to get the second-best?" For example, why do we splurge on that marble countertop for our bathroom while we go for plain ol' corian in the church?
So what's a happy balance between function, ornateness, and inspiration? Actually, it's a very tough question to answer. If you had $50 million, what type of building would you build? Or would you simply give it all to missions and the needy?
My friend had a great solution: meet in our homes, like the early Christians did, then we can fix them up without pangs of guilt. (That's a joke, people ... sort of.)
7 comments:
Why make it a joke? My church has been meeting in homes since 1991. 14 years. Almost all of our tithes and offerings goes into missions, benevolence, and back to the community.
Most of our monthly commitments tell us we are the single largest and most consistent giver of any church.
We have no paid pastor, no building to pay for, no overhead, except for a token amout we pay our "church secretary" for handling the offerings, printing the calendars, distributing information, etc.
I am not against the institutional, or "mainline" church, but it seems like an awful lot of money that is spent on buildings and staff could be put to more practical use like helping someone pay their electric bill, or feeding the poor, or used for missions... So that's where we come in. Some of the big churches that run multi-million dollar budgets send people to us because they don't have the extra money for benevolence. That's a sad commentary. I'm just glad we have the extra money to do those types of things without worrying about having to meet the overhead.
Just another view.
i really like the sound of your guys' home church, pauly! if i ever come down to texas someday, i'll pay ya'll a visit.
but what about the argument many people make about building beautiful edifices for god's glory? (i'm playing "devil's advocate here.) didn't david and solomon spare nothing to build god's temple?
I think the heart of the issue is... David's heart! He gave abundantly and passionately from his own personal treasure to build the temple. The temple was destroyed later - but David's spirit of giving wholeheartedly and loving God live on as indestructible principles till today.
Maybe God speaks a little differently to different churches - everyone to give, some to build, etc.
When I was Googling for a church before relocating to DC, what drew me were churches that used their treasure, time and talent for missions or other purposes, rather than those that advertized their fabulous traditional edifices. I guess money that is leveraged prayerfully for eternal purposes - for souls and yes, perhaps even for buildings - is well spent. We'll have to account for all that one day.
i agree that it's all about heart, amy. one thing i was thinking about recently was what Jesus said to the disciples about the woman with an alabaster jar of perfume. they had wanted to sell the perfume and give the money to the poor, at least that was what they said.
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