Churches and the Architecture of Hope

The pivot point in the classic Christmas movie Home Alone finds Kevin - alone and a little afraid - stopping outside a beautiful neighborhood church on Christmas Eve and, seeing the glow from within, venturing through the doors to pause and ponder. Inside, he has a quiet conversation with his neighbor; an older man the kids have been taught to fear. They share their sorrows and in that moment discover the seeds of redemption and rescue for both lonely souls. They needed that sacred space for an unexpected encounter with brokenness and beauty that led to renewed hope. You know the rest of the story. Church buildings matter.

It’s certainly true that churches are people, not places, congregations of saints, not edifices constructed to house them. If a storm destroys the building, the people can rebuild it. If the people disappear through generations of disbelief, however, no one will rebuild the crumbling structure they left behind. So while ‘church is people’ is true, it’s also true that in the same way a family needs and comes to be identified with their home, churches are identified with their buildings. I’m glad that’s the case. 

Beautiful, heavenward-pointing Church buildings shine with the geometry of love. They show the architecture of heaven offered as sign language to a world otherwise deaf to the whispers and shouts of its Creator.

Church families need homes and these dedicated places remind us that all of creation is sacred, that every square inch is a stewardship entrusted to us by God. The stones and glass and beams and scents and acoustics and light and textures, both interior and exterior, serve the soul as well as the body. They also serve the city as well as the faithful.

Churches create corridors of connection and quiet places of contemplation. They offer playful spaces for the joyful footfall of children and comforting spaces for the mournful tear-fall of the grieving. They offer kitchens where food for the hungry is prepared and a shelter where the cold and destitute can be warmed and loved. By their very design church buildings form people in the Faith. The placement of pulpits and baptistries, altars and tables and seats create the atmosphere of discipleship, the floor-plan itself a lesson in that church’s theology.

This is as true of simple and small churches as it is of towering Cathedrals. The small church on the corner reminds me that the kingdom advances in mustard-seed size steps, with humble and gracious people quietly and faithfully loving God, each other, and their neighbors. A church may be grand or simple, but in both cases it is glorious.

Spaces matter. In the creation account of Genesis 1, God forms the spaces first and then, in the same sequence, fashions the inhabitants of those spaces: the first three days see the spaces formed and the second three days see the creatures formed that fit those spaces. These places were made for the creatures he fashioned. God designed the cosmos and our planet with its inhabitants in mind and that order is important. He didn’t create a bird and then ask, “Where should be put this lovely fellow?” No, skies on day two and then birds on day five. It’s the same with day three and six - fruitful land and then us and the animals to live in and on it. 

Our worship spaces are formed by us but then turn and form us as well. The light, the color, the places to connect, the sound, the silence, the placement of the furniture necessary for public worship are all a message to us and either help or hinder us in our hearing of the Gospel. At SRC, we have to carefully consider how what we call our ‘home’ serves the people who dwell there and those who are not there yet. From welcome to discipleship, from meals to Sunday messages and music, every square inch actually matters.

That’s why there is a utility to beauty proper to itself as a divine summons. Beauty in creation calls us to look beyond ourselves to the Creator. Beautiful churches can do the same, and that includes the people as well as their church buildings.

Yes, many will simply pass by the beauty, but this is true of symphonies and paintings and sculptures as well; we are addicted to the popular and have little taste for the sublime. Yet beauty shines in and from these buildings, niggling away at the corner of our conscience and reminding us by their wondrous and simple stones that we are destined for more than dust, and that a greater and more glorious sanctuary awaits. 

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