We’re not exactly a church building blog, but I think this article about churches converting old buildings instead of building new ones is pretty cool. The main motivation is that churches can get a lot more bang for their buck. Spending money wisely is usually a good idea.
But I also love the symbolism of churches taking old, empty buildings that have been discarded by commercial interests and breathing new life into them. You couldn’t ask for a better metaphor.
corey
August 4, 2005
For the last two years, I’ve been doing work for a church in New Jersey called Renaissance Church. They were able to purchase a century-old opera house and convert it to a state-of-the-art sanctuary for their Sunday services. I understand that there may be financial benefits to purchasing a pre-existing structure and retrofitting it to meet parochial needs… but there’s also something über-hip about meeting for church in a warehouse, abandoned factory, old opera house, etc.- it becomes a little microcosmic allegory to how the gospel makes old things new.
corey
August 4, 2005
sorry, I realize that the end of my comment just parroted what Kevin said in the blog post… whoops- I wasn’t listening, I guess I was just waiting to speak…
Wentz
April 26, 2006
The link to the article is dead… Can anybody point me to it? Our church is doing this right now…
The Aesthetic Elevator
August 16, 2006
Our church is in an old furniture warehouse; people around town now call us the “Bynum furniture church.”
I do think it was a good use of the building.
Kevin Headings
April 20, 2007
May I suggest that the ‘church’ is not a building, but that we are the ‘church’.