Credit LTH Structures Church Metal Building Plan 118, Front Elevation
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,” said Sir Winston Churchill in his speech to the meeting in the House of Lords, October 28, 1943, requesting that the House of Commons bombed out in May 1941 be rebuilt exactly as before.” Source
Whether or not Winston was the first to say this doesn’t matter.
What matters is that it’s backwards when applied to a movement underway in the American Protestant Christian Church community.
More and more, church buildings are being shaped to match the congregants.
If you saw the building under construction above you might assume, absent signage to the contrary, that it’s commercial property. Maybe a warehouse, a small manufacturing facility, or a large-truck maintenance shop.
But not a church. Because it doesn’t look like a church. And it won’t until a label or a Christian symbol is attached to it. And even then, it won’t look like the legacy steeple church.
Today, the shaping of church buildings reflects a shift in worshipping communities. And some of those changes mirror the body politic. Here’s what’s driving the change:
1. FLEXIBILITY/ADAPABILITY: The history of church buildings began with a peaked building with a short steeple, rows of wooden pews, an elevated front with seating for a choir, and a wooden pulpit. Often a stained-glass window. In short, minimum space flexibility. Useful for not much more than a worship service, or a community civic meeting.
Next came a few Sunday School classrooms, and then a Family Life Center – a glorified gymnasium. Often a Youth Recreation Center, used a few hours a week, with ping-pong tables and a lounge area for group discussions.
The largest space is about as flexible as seats on a school bus.
In the building above, a large center area functions as flexible space. There are no screwed-down rows of pews. Chairs and tables are stored adjacent to the space and can be removed to create open space for physical activity or community events. I.e., the biggest space is flexible.
(The inflexibility of un-movable sanctuary seating helped to take air out of Church Worship tires during the Wuhan Virus pandemic. Some of that air will never return.)
Additionally, if the congregation in the building above someday decides to move, selling the building will not be difficult because the property is easily adaptable to other uses.
2. INDEPENDENCE/SELF-GOVERNANCE: Protestant Church denominations that feature layers of hierarchical bureaucracy are an endangered species. This is not (now) apparent in the Roman Catholic Church where the Pope sits at the top of the pyramid, but it is true of several Protestant denominations. Particularly those that have, over time, drifted from being based on Biblical theology toward political ideology. Three-examples:
A. “Bishops of the Episcopal Church on Friday adopted a pastoral statement critical of U.S. states that have enacted policies opposed by transgender activists, including laws banning irreversible surgeries on minors to remove healthy reproductive organs. The Episcopal Church House of Bishops voted to adopt the resolution during an in-person spring retreat held March 15-21 at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas. Bishops were unanimous according to a media release distributed by the Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs.” Source
B. The United Methodist Church, once one of the most populated Protestant denominations, is working through a prolonged split based on a dispute concerning human-sexuality where the disposition of property is the most vexing matter to resolve before the divorced is complete.
C. The “Seven Sisters” are dying: “Whether or not the seven mainline denominations of American Protestant Christianity (the United Methodist Church (USA), Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Baptist Churches (USA), and the United Church of Christ) are truly still ‘mainline’ is up for debate. Some argue they still represent typical American Protestantism; others counter with the prevalence of evangelicalism, broadly speaking (contrasting the usually more liberal view of these mainline churches). What is not up for debate is the rapid shrinking of these once robust seven denominations.” Source (A graph tracks their decline)
The American Protestant Church is evolving as it sheds it old wine skins for the new. It is more flexible, adaptable, and free to exist independent of ecclesial bureaucracies.
This may be a precursor for the future of the U.S. Federal Government.
Anyway, we can hope.
Follow AFNN:
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: AFNN_USA
When Churches do what the Episcopal Church Bishops did, they dilute the Church, and eventually turn them into meaningless babble, where spiritual guidance was the reason for their existence.
I can only speak to the Episcopal, but I’m not blind to what I’ve seen and heard about the other sisters. It is disgusting to see once spiritual Houses turn into squalor.