Posted on April 7, 2008 - by Stephen Murray
They Won’t Go to Church but they Like “Churchiness”
This is remarkable – according to a survey conducted by LifeWay Research people who don’t go to church are generally turned off by the more utilitarian church buildings and prefer buildings that look more like medieval cathedrals than contemporary church buildings. The unchurched like churchiness – you’ve gotta love that! I wonder if the peeps at the Journey knew about that when they bought the old Roman Catholic church that now houses their Tower Grove congregation (in the pic above)?
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Stephen Murray
Christian, husband to my beautiful Robin, missional dreamer, pastor, church planter, Arsenal, Sharks and Springbok supporter, surfer (in the real sea), patriotic South African, Capetonian. Find out more about the church planting work I'm involved in at my support blog.
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April 8, 2008
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Steve said:
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was a new English translation of the Bible just about every year, someone had the bright idea of reading them aloud to teenagers and asking them which they preferred. Most opted for the King James version. It wasn’t the kind of slang they spoke on the street, but it sounded more numinous to them, as if it was talking about something special.
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April 8, 2008
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John Scheepers said:
Kind of reminds me of Africa where people like to be religious by dressing up and having special buildings and fancy prayers and religious occasions but not by loving God and their neighbour. Superficial religion is always easier than actually following Jesus. The trick is how do we harness that to engage people without selling out or pandering to their religious impulses…
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April 8, 2008
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Sam Groves said:
Recently the Christian Science Church in Pietermaritzburg put their building on the market. Apparently CS is on the decline worldwide, being reduced to something around 8 members here in PMB. But it’s a beautiful, well proportioned red-facebrick building with attractive stained-glass windows in just the right places. Inside there’s solid-wood panneling everywhere and a monstrous pipe organ that dominates from the front but somehow looks like it’s justified in being there. The building is over a hundred years old and is protected by the government under some heritage ruling- nobody is allowed to alter anything on the outside, appartently. They were aksing R2 million. I was seriously keen on trying to raise the funds to secure it in order to use it as a base for an inner-city church plant- for the very reason you mention above- it’s trendy. I would’ve let it out through the week and on Saturday’s for weddings & funerals (both massive industries here at the moment) in order to cover the running costs. I’d then meet in it as a church on Sundays and done lunch-time talks during the week- to attract inner city workers. I didn’t pursue it however mainly because of parking and security issues- the two reasons why most people avoid town in SA. However, what I find really ironic is that it’s just been purchased by our government’s ‘Department of Works’. We were intending to use it to proclaim a very different doctrine.
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April 10, 2008
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darrin patrick said:
Stephen,
In a city where almost everyone “grew up” Catholic, Luthern or Jewish we absolutely were intentional in what kind of building we bought. Sorry I missed you when you were in town. Thanks for all the kind words about our community.
Blessings,
darrin