Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

If your church is like mine, it gets a lot of foot traffic over the course of a season. If there isn’t a discipline in place of putting things back in their place, a church can take on a pretty rag tag feel and look.

One key concept I have been trying to develop is “the church at rest.” I think it is a fun and challenging exercise for all staff and other ministers to be able to picture our space in its Sabbath state – primed for the ministry that will once again begin as the church building awakens. This involves knowing how each of the rooms would ideally be found, what equipment and materials are regularly stocked and available, and what resources for extravagant hospitality should always be available.

The stewardship of space has become for me an important responsibility and intriguing challenge in my 4 ½ years as rector at St. Andrew’s. I think of the role of the abbot or abbess in rural medieval England where the monastery/convent was the cultural, communal and service center of a geographical region. These Anglican roots are very different than the urban center development of the earliest church and its continuation on the continent. The church as sanctuary.

This long-standing concept of church as sanctuary has often led congregations into areas of social justice ministry eg. Central American refugee work and homelessness encampments. Much good work has begun in church basements (heck, Paul McCartney met John Lennon in a church basement.)

Whatever other ministries we engage in, we as hosts of church real estate are players in the civic arena. Which model does a church consciously or unconsciously select for its institutional identity? Many options are available and many churches mix and match. The school, the retreat center, the transcendental space, the business, the community center, the monastery, the restaurant, the coffee house, the day-care center, etc. A church building communicates a sensibility that people read immediately. Many times the worshipping congregation has been totally desensitized to this sensibility out of routine and habit.

Take a walk around your church building. See what message it sends, what sensibility it presents. Picture it in its Sabbath state, at rest and ready for its next season of ministry. If it doesn’t send the signals you desire, gather some folks and lay hands on your space. Pull together the artists in your community who can be a great resource in the re-appointment of the interior wall space. Form a committee or ad hoc group to address signage, bulletin boards and other visual communication tools. Get the gardeners together and scope out the grounds around your building. Become more fully the sanctuary space you already are in your community.