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Churches urged
to reconfigure
to suit needs

'We need spaces that are
more user-friendly, that
embrace the newcomer,' an
author advises

By Mary Adamski
Star-Bulletin

An expert's advice to the dwindling congregations in mainline churches who meet in imposing landmark buildings: Rent a modest hall down the road, and they will come.

Another possibility is to rework the traditional shape and space to fit the needs of modern times, said the Rev. Richard Giles, an expert on modern church architecture.

Congregations need to recognize that a large percentage of people are "embarrassed or shy about crossing the threshold ... and have no experience of Christian worship," said Giles, dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Philadelphia and author of "Repitching the Tent." He will speak on modern change in places of worship at noon tomorrow at St. Andrew's Cathedral.

Changing the space is a lesson new unaffiliated Christian churches have mastered, and "if we are bold enough, we can find a middle way ... modern understanding of the church community which the people meeting in the school gymnasium have.

"We have to ask, 'Have we stopped doing the simple procedure of making our church buildings home, a place we're delighted to come home to?' That's not how it works in any other sphere of our lives. We like a nice house to live in; we go to trouble to make our office homey.

"When we talk about celebrating God in today's world, then we need spaces that are much more user-friendly, spaces that embrace the newcomer, which allow us to do different things on different occasions."

Giles advises church communities to analyze their buildings in terms of "how they are shaping up as a hospitable church, and a teaching church ... asking, 'How is our building helping or hindering us in this basic task?' and if the building is getting in the way, then what to do about that."

The changes communities may consider may be simple, practical ones, "whether it's approaching it from the road, to the entrance, to where the restrooms are, to how big a space to celebrate the Eucharist, to have coffee afterward, to teach newcomers."

"I say what we do with our building and how we arrange it are directly linked to our understanding of God and our understanding of one another. So if we think of ourselves as a smug little club that doesn't really like too many new people coming in and changing our lives, than a traditional building is fine."

Americans may think that Europe, where 2,000 years of Christianity have played out, has an even stronger edifice complex. But Giles, who moved from England last year, said there is a greater openness to change. Christians recognize they "are a minority culture of Great Britain. All Christian churches together only manage to have 5 percent of the population gathered in church on a Sunday.

"So that puts us in more of missionary situation, where thinking about the early church as a counterculture is much more sharply defined.

"It does help to have an understanding of our spiritualistic beginning -- not only Jesus, but the Jewish story. They were at their most spiritual before they built the temple. Then they became static, understood God in a localized way, where before they saw him as a companion on the way.

"The church at its very strongest was a society without buildings of its own. That worked to convince the Roman Empire that it was an unstoppable cause. It was all done without a single building of its own.

"There is no ancient Christian building which is untouched," Giles said, and the styles of church architecture reflect the time line of history. "They must have been constantly adapting, but something happened to us. Our generation got nervous, stopped the change -- the buildings must be untouched.

"Unless traditions are rejuvenated, they will die," said Giles.