the Church in the old empire
I recently read this statement which described the early church of the Nazarene. It said:
“Nazarenes protested fine, expensive church buildings, rather everything should say “welcome” to the poor”
This is obviously interesting, since few churches of the Nazarene these days follow this idea.
However, I am not “against” large churches. Nor am I against the idea that a church can’t cost money.
In 2010, the truth is that if you want a building or facility to worship in, it WILL cost money. And chances are,it will cost a lot of money.
But the idea that catches my mind is more revolved around the notion of “church buildings”.
Often I think that it would be amazing to see churches rising up not in giant buildings that look like city centers, or arenas, but rather are being built “into” old buildings, or the old “empire” as I like to say.
Like a church moving from their nice stadium like place, to what used to be an old industrial plant. Not only would that be cool, but it has a certain intentionality to it, not to mention an incarnational sense.
Take a desperate urban area like LA, and imagine a church reaching thousands of people daily, that isn’t nestled upon a hill in a giant building that looks like a museum, but rather in an old mall that has been shut down because of the bad economy.
I think of an old mall I used to drive by every day. The only people to be seen at this mall were the poor and the homeless. They were always there, hanging around outside, or loitering around inside. This old destitute mall was their meeting place, a fair capitol of the poor, old empire.
Seems like this is where the Church should be.
