Church Must Change
Getting out of the fourth place (part 2)
The foundation of the Western church must change. Jesus does not invite people to a Sunday service, he meets them where they are. We must move from what Broweleit calls a ‘building centric church’ to an integrated church, in his book, ‘Out of the 4th Place’.
If you have not read part one of this article here is a quick summary of the fourth place.
Using Oldenburg’s model there is four places we occupy. The first place is the home, second place is work, third place is a social space like a café, and the fourth place is something outside of home, work and social spaces. The church building is in the fourth place. The idea is that the first place, the home, is the most comfortable and natural space and as we move along the scale to the fourth place it is more formal and distant from daily life and culture.
Broweleit uses a helpful metaphor of church today being like a wedding. His point is that weddings are very special, they are a big event, they take a lot of organization, people dress up, everything and…
