Church Visit - Christ Church St Ives

Over the past couple of years I've been thinking lots more about the physical spaces that we use for our church gatherings. Of course, I know that the building is just that - a building - and that the local church is the group of people who gather in Jesus' name. Nonetheless, the reality is that something of our experience of church gatherings is affected by the buildings that we meet in. While none of these are in and of themselves more or less legitimate spaces for God's people to meet, a converted warehouse feels different to a movie theatre feels different to a school hall feels different to a cathedral. So now, whenever I visit churches, I tend to spend a couple of moments considering the facilities.

Yesterday I visited Christ Church Anglican in St Ives (one of Sydney's northern suburbs) for the wedding of a good friend of mine. Up front, I have to say that it was a fantastic service - I just loved being there witnessing the vows, singing praises (with Garage Hymnal as the house band no less!), being encouraged from God's word and generally celebrating! But what of the church building?

It was a modern, not a traditional, church space. Basically a round, central auditorium that I guess would seat around 300+ people with the hall and other rooms coming off from it. I really like this layout as it allows for a lot of people to sit in the services without anyone feeling a thousand miles away from the stage and it also means that nowhere else in the building is too far away - toilets, kids' spaces, hall, etc. And because it's new, things like the AV system are relatively up to date and well integrated which means that communication can be contemporary and clear. Basically, I think it's a highly functional design for a modern church building and that really works for me. (The fact that the place was also pretty neat and well-kept was also something I appreciated; sometimes churches have all kinds of junk unnecessarily piled up around where the services are held.)

However, I am conscious that for some, it could feel a bit too functional. I didn't really see much that was just there for its aesthetic value. Again - please don't get me wrong - I'm not at all into uninterpreted symbolism or the idea that a place becomes more 'holy' if we deck it out with religious artwork or anything like that. And I'm particularly nervous about putting 'beautiful' things at the front of a church - like fancy communion table linen or gilt lecterns or heavy leather Bibles - as this can quickly create the impression that they are revered as sacred objects, especially for visitors. To their credit, St Ives had none of this.

But, we all do have an appreciation of and a response to aesthetics at some level, even if it's subconscious. That's why we hang pictures on the walls of our houses and even why choose to wear certain clothes and not others. And I wonder what this means for our church buildings. Is it right to be as plain as possible so as not to create confusion over meaning and risk distracting from the true focus and purpose of our church gatherings. Or, could carefully chosen aesthetic elements actually add helpful things to the corporate worship of a biblically-anchored community? And how would you work this stuff out for any given community of believers anyway?

In the Old Testament, both the tabernacle and the Temple were extremely ornate. In fact, it's interesting to note that in Exodus 31:3, the great abilities of Bezalel - who oversaw the building of the Tabernacle - are attributed to his infilling with the Spirit. Moreover, this is actually the first record of the Holy Spirit infilling anyone in the Scriptures - clearly God cared about and invests in the aesthetics of worship! However, we must balance this with the fact that we're not Old Testament people and that when Jesus died, the curtain was torn from top to bottom - I know the point primary of that isn't that God is an iconoclast, but it does say something about the ongoing need for various furnishings in a corporate worship space.

Anyways, no final conclusions here for now. Just some ongoing thoughts...