Is the church a great good place in the community?

So, is the church a third place in North American society?

“The church is the community that believes it is not the star of its own story.”

(Bertrand & Root, When Church Stops Working)

This could be a deeper theological conversation and an often is and it should be. Unfortunately, outside of blogs like this, academics, strategy books/manuals/videos, and Conference speakers, not many churches engage in the question. That means there’s usually often a short teaching time on the basics of church, which means a few statements on the nature or essence of church, maybe some teaching on how your church operates, but that can easily be hidden under the performative nature of many churches. That goes from the most liturgical with Creed shared every week to the most stage-centered smoke and mirrors with a little light show mega church on the map. They all show what they mean by Church by what they do.

In other words, the question of the purpose of church as it relates to society starts something like, “We are…”, and reflects on what it means to be on the inside.

If you look back on my last post about a great good place, and the brief definition given about what a third place is, you may or may not recognize your church as one. If you look at a bulletin or advertisement for a church, you might get the sense that every Church in North America is in some way a third place. I’m not sure I could argue with that. This is mainly because I am mostly pulled towards the ideal of church as a body of believers, gravitating to having a very open door, or as Rachel held Evans would say, a very long table. You would be hard-pressed to find a church that gathers regularly, shows up on a map, meaning they have a location, that would say they are not warm and welcoming to everyone.

But are they?

The Church must never consider herself a private cult, overseeing a purely inward and personal religion. Her witness pertains to the whole of humanity.

John R. Wood, “Can the Church Still Speak?“, (Comment magazine)

If we look back on that list of proposed markers for a good great place, (click here if you missed it) meaning that it’s a match for being a third place, most churches would have to draw a line somewhere, if they’re being honest with themselves. Even the comment about banter and open dialogue is a challenge for many. For example, try that out on a Sunday morning! 🙂 For many it just does not exist. The idea of unregulated or non-predetermined outcome for dialogue is a scary concept to many.

One of the areas though, that resonates with all Faith bodies, is the item of inclusion versus exclusion. Every Church gathering I have been a part of or worked with has had some type of social structure and entry requirements, even if they did not think they did. By entry requirements I don’t necessarily mean administrative tactics like having a sign-up sheet or some type of rules for being there, rather there is a sense of what it means to be a part of the group. It is a sense, a feeling, maybe a subtext that is felt in every aspect of what the group does. Just like we would find in any social setting where people need to ‘fit in’. There are some restaurants you just get that sense have a group of regulars, and you know you are not one of them. Same thing goes for having a consistent and regular gathering space. That last part alone says something about whether or not your church is a third place.

Try this. Ask yourself what type of person could disrupt your regular gatherings. Take it one step further, what type of person has already done so. I know most people reading this would hate to admit that out loud, so maybe keep it to yourself for now.

Personally, and this may be true for many of you reading this, I have been on both sides of fitting in with church. It happens all the time, often without any sense of malice or harm, and very often without anyone knowing it’s happening. I have been the leader in churches where I realized something I said or did created an unsafe space for the other. I have been in roles where I backed up a policy or an agreement among officials that made the other feel unwanted. And I have been in spaces where I understood I was not a match with the group, whether in what I was doing or how I thought, realizing I may just not fit in. Now you may say fitting in isn’t the goal of church, and that may be more of a schoolyard term to use when thinking of it, but it is also a great way to see the others around us and how they would define being part of a church.

Consider this…

Have you ever asked someone who is near your gathering spot, but not part of the group, how they feel about your group? To take it to another level, how about having a coffee with someone who left your group? For this second one I’m not talking about the guy who stood up at a church meeting to try to set people ‘right’. I’m talking about the person who has been gone for 6 months before you realized they weren’t there. Those are very enlightening conversations to have.

It may not change a thing you do, but it will give you a broader understanding of seeing your group from the other direction.