Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Worship places

Michael Spenser has an interesting reaction to a new, magnificent, Presbyterian church building in Nashville.
.... I don’t believe God wants most churches to build cathedrals to worship in. Most churches, as I see the cross cultural church planting task, should consider whether they even need a building, at least for a very long time. There’s a lot of reasons not to do this. ....

.... I think some churches — and CPC Nashville seems to be one of them — should build beautiful gothic cathedrals if they can.

You see, God gifts us creatively and artistically. He gives some people the means and the gifts to express art to the glory of God in ways few others can.

In music. In stained glass. In architecture. In construction. In design and in the resulting worship and liturgy.

Some churches need to release those gifts into the culture, so that a city can see a gothic cathedral and experience worship sacramentally (aha!) in the glory of a physical worship center and all that can happen there. Some churches. Not all. .... (more)
If you follow the link to the site, be sure to watch the video about the construction of Covenant Presbyterian, and don't skip the comments responding to Mr. Spencer. One of those comments included the following:
Maybe this is just a Catholic thing, but I notice that when the architecture of a church is cathedral-like, people are quieter and more reflective in the pews before mass. When the architecture is more modern, people seem to chat more and appear less reverent. I would be curious to see if this is true with the congregation at this church.
Riffs: 08:12:09: Architecture for the Glory of God | internetmonk.com

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