| « Previous | Home | Next » | Hometown Church Sunday, February 19, 2006 |
 On Monday, Chantal told us our City Mirror Project for the week was 'Hometown Church.' Now, I should note that around here there are many, many classically beautiful churches. I have even posted pictures of several of them over the past months. But there is a new phenomenon in the United States that I felt I could illustrate with this assignment. The hometown church of the new century will no longer follow the traditional architectural style we have come to associate with 'churchiness.' No steeple. No setting on a lovely town square or on a carefully maintained landscape. Welcome to the Grace Fellowship Church, the church of the 21st century. A small strip mall, once home to discount store, supermarket, large family restaraunt, and other stores, has been completely taken over by this non-denominational church. Visit on the Sunday morning and the parking lot is filled to capacity with parking directed by enthusiatic youth, like when you go to a popular sporting event. Many people, no longer content with the religion of their childhood, turn to such churches, looking for (and, I suppose, finding) answers to spiritual doubts, community with others, and a strong sense of belonging. But I wonder if we have not lost something as our churches turn to this purely utilitarian architectural form. I saw a quote this afternoon at an art exhibit concerning 'openings and passagways.' The French author Ernest Demnet wrote, 'Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but most surely, on the soul.' There was a reason that some of the most daring architecture of history was the architecture of churches. For the building speaks to our souls as surely as, albeit much more slowly than, the weekly homily. | |
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Posted by forgingahead Archived under: Architecture |
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