Episode 167: The Church As People and a Place with Loren Richmond Jr.

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Hello. On this episode, I talk with a pastor about the church being both a people and a place.

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This is Church and Main.

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Music.

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Hello, and welcome to Church and Main, the podcast at the intersection of faith and modern life.

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I'm Dennis Sanders, your host, and Happy New Year.

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Church and Main is a podcast that looks for God in the midst of the issues that

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are affecting the church and the larger society.

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You can learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes,

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So for today, stop me if you've heard this phrase, the church isn't a building, it's a people.

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Now, I don't know that if this way of thinking is limited to American culture

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or not, but we tend to believe that church buildings don't matter as much as the people.

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And there's a lot to agree with that viewpoint.

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We can get caught up in the aesthetics of a building and that we lose focus,

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that church is not made up of bricks, but of flesh and bone.

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It's the people, it's the mission that they engage in that make up what we call church.

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Especially in these days, post-COVID, when it has become far more easier to

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watch the church online,

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It can seem, though, at times that the physical place, the building,

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is less important than it used to be.

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So that makes you ask the question, do the aesthetics sometimes matter?

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No, the church isn't a building, it's a people. But can we express our faith

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in the architecture of church buildings?

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Now, there was an Episcopal church just kind of outside of Kalamazoo,

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Michigan, off of Interstate 94.

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I would see this every time I was going on my way back to Michigan to see my

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parents or heading back to Minnesota.

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It was this kind of, you can kind of tell, it was probably this kind of 70s

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building that was this dark brick,

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maybe trying to, I don't know, evoke a style of maybe old England,

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medieval England, I don't know.

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But there was something beautiful because there was this odd mix of modern and classical.

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You could tell there was a lot of thought put into this building.

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Now, at some point, that congregation moved.

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And they sold the building to a non-denominational church.

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And that church decided to add on to the building. And what they did with that

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addition just didn't jive with the original part.

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Now, I think that there was some sense of beauty in that original building.

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The new addition was far more utilitarian. I mean, you really could not,

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you could have mistaken that new part for just an office building,

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an office building that you would see in any suburb instead of a church. church.

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You know, we kind of knock Europeans for kind of turning their church buildings into museums.

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But the cathedrals that I visited while I was during trips to Europe were actually

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built by people who wanted to express their faith, and they expressed it through wood and stone.

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Own, which then leads me to think that maybe place does have a place in how we think about church.

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Now, over the summer, Pastor Loren Richmond started posting to his Facebook

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profile pictures of churches, and they were churches in his denomination,

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which is also my denomination,

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the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, throughout the Denver area.

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Um, and he, he really did some work.

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He used a book that had been written decades ago about the history of,

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of different congregations and, um, posted that up and, and maybe even posted

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if that congregation still existed.

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Um, and he got a lot of interest. A lot of people were starting to follow him. Um.

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And in Lauren, it spoke, it really sparked an interest in him,

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in the importance of church buildings to the body of Christ.

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So in this episode, I talk with Lauren about basically what he did this past

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summer, what it meant to him, and what it meant to him and to his faith.

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Lauren is an ordained minister in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ.

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He's the host of the Future Christian podcast.

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He has actually been on this podcast a few times.

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I joke in the interview that he should be getting a gold suit at some point

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because he's probably the one that has been on the podcast in most times.

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Um, but I think that you will enjoy, um, this interview because I think it's

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a fascinating interview about, um, the importance of the physical building.

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Um, it is not the important thing. And obviously if that is the important thing,

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that's a problem, but maybe bricks and mortar do matter in some case when it comes to how we worship.

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Think about that but as and as you're

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thinking um let's now listen to this interview with lauren richmond jr.

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Music.

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Well lauren thanks for uh coming here um i don't know what time how many times

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you've been on the the podcast.

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I know there's one podcast I listen to.

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They kind of have the metaphorical golden jacket for people who have been on it several times.

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You probably will win it, at least at this point. But long way of saying welcome back.

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Thank you. So I wanted to talk a little bit about something that you did on

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Facebook over the summer.

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And that was kind of looking at churches.

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Well, actually looking at church buildings and doing a little bit more than

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that, kind of looking at their history and background.

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And so I kind of wanted to maybe first ask what spurred you to do this?

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And um what did and then also kind of what did you do i mean you did a little

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bit more than just kind of here's this building you really went into looking

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at the history of these congregations.

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Yeah so um let me first give uh acknowledgement to the source material that

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I used for much of the book was from a former Disciples of Christ pastor named Bryant Badger,

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who has just passed away a couple months ago, actually.

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But in the 90s, he published a history of the Disciples of Christ for the state of Colorado.

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As I understand it, he did one for Wyoming as well, and he may have done another

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state, but from what I'm aware of, he did that, at least Colorado and Wyoming.

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I had the book and looked at it.

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You know previously um and i've always been someone who was really interested

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in architecture and especially church architecture um so i was just you know i was,

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taking a break from doing my own podcast um going

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through just a little transition myself and

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i don't know it just seemed like a fun project because i always whenever

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i drive whenever i'm on a

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road trip i always look for the churches

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especially mainline churches um a

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couple summers ago i was helping my brother-in-law move from texas to colorado

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and anytime i could i would drive off if we were passing through a little town

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i'd kind of take a detour and look for the Disciples Church,

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if there was an old Disciples Church in Colorado where there's not as many Disciples Churches.

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I've looked for UCC churches, other interesting-looking church architecture.

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Somewhere in the Eastern Plains town, I can't remember the town off the top

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of my head now, There was just an amazingly mid-mod, mid-century modern Baptist church.

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So, I mean, I love church architecture.

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So, yeah, it's always been something. And I have an early memory of just kind

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of wandering through a church building in New York City when my dad was a pastor there.

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There were some old historic buildings, Baptist churches from pastors my dad

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was associated with that I can think back to and have fond memories of in some ways.

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So I've certainly always appreciated church buildings for sure.

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So, when you kind of started this, what were you kind of starting to learn from

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all of these congregations?

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Some of these are congregations that are still in existence.

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Some aren't around anymore. more.

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And I think it's interesting, you talked about this book that was written by a disciples pastor.

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There was one that was done like that similarly here in Minnesota of disciple

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churches in the area that kind of did brief histories.

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So it makes me curious if that was something that was done throughout the denomination

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prior in the 50s or 40s and 50s, around that time period.

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So, what did you kind of learn from all of this?

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I mean, one was just, I think, was just a sense of sadness as I just reflect

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on how how many churches are closed,

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no longer exist,

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or are, you know, with all due respect, like a shelter, you know,

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a shelter for ourselves.

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You know, the other thing that, another thing that I really pulled away or realized,

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it It was just how many churches were started by groups of lay people in our current context.

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It seems like so many churches nowadays are started by a pastor and their spouse,

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most often a male pastor and their spouse.

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House i just saw someone uh

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an ad on facebook for a sbc church you know that's looking to get started in

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my neck of the woods in the in the north denver metro you know and it's uh they're

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they're part of the sender network for those unfamiliar it's an sbc southern baptist effort,

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um and it's you know it's a kind of a parachute model which i know you're familiar

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with dennis where the pastor and their family quote-unquote parachutes in or

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moves from another state.

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And just looking on their Facebook page, they had several staff members,

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it seemed like, or at least core team people,

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getting them using some churchy language lingo here, who were moving from other

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states to help with this new effort. Wow.

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But that didn't seem to be the case with many of these early disciples' churches in Colorado.

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A lot of it was initiated by what we'd call lay people, who were just like,

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we need to have a Disciples of Christ church in this part of the city.

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What do you think that says that we don't see that as much anymore?

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In fact, I don't see that at all. It's like you see pastors,

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if we do plant churches, are the ones.

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But it seems like when it comes to lay people, that initiative seems to be gone.

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Yeah, I'm really intrigued. I'm really not sure what to make of that.

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For one, I'm reading a book. I guess I should say also, I think that model,

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at least, again, this is kind of a small scale.

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You know, if we were doing a real big data set, it'd be a real small data set to analyze.

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But I imagine, just again, from my kind of church nerdiness from other denominations

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reading other their church history books, you'd probably see other dynamics.

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But I should say, I think this was I think that model kind of changed into the 50s and 60s.

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I'm kind of going off the top of my head here, but it seems like at least in

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Colorado, in the 50s and 60s, congregations started being formed by.

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The denominations took bigger, at least in the metro area, in the Denver metro,

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took a bigger initiative of appointing pastors.

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Now, there was, again, I think in most instances, it wasn't a parachute type model.

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There was a core group of believers or folks who said, hey, we just moved to

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this area. We want to start a church.

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But I think that's interesting because I'm reading this book that I'd recommend

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from Ted Smith on the end of theological education.

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Jen, I'd love to send it to you when I'm done with it here.

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But he really kind of talks about the professionalization of,

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the church, especially clergy, as being an essentially modern invention in line

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with the rise of the voluntary associations post the Revolutionary War.

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So I'm not sure how to reconcile the assertion that Ted Smith makes that church

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has been really led by professional,

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professionalized clergy kind of post-revolutionary war with this,

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it seems like a decent amount of at least some anecdotal data that at least

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in this area, like there was a lot of churches that were,

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started by groups of lay people saying, hey, we want to have a church here.

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So that's interesting to me. Hmm.

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Have happened um would you kind of say from that whole experience from from

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what you learned from this experience that the buildings in some way talk a

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little bit about not just kind of our history but maybe even our present in some way.

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Say more about that following. Well, you know, I think,

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thinking about my own experience and seeing churches, disciple churches here.

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In my own context, we sold our building and moved and are sharing space with

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a Lutheran congregation.

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You know, selling the building, which as far as I know is still standing it's

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not has not been torn down or anything,

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but is is kind of sitting empty says a lot I think maybe about our church culture

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especially post COVID how churches in some ways,

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I want to say especially in the mainline were radically changed due to COVID

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I think not meeting for over a year in person really kind of changed,

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the character of churches there are cases where a lot of people just,

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really couldn't get back together again I think that in some ways was a nail

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in the coffin for some churches I think for us it did there were people that

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left but there was also people that came when we moved,

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and so it did In some ways, the building is telling a story of how a time changed.

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And I wonder, would the building tell a different story if, let's say, there wasn't COVID?

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I don't know. But it's just something that's interesting. Yeah, that's a good question.

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I mean I think I think about I think about buildings,

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You know, I think about the stories that buildings tell through,

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I mean, the primary language, I think, tends to be architecture.

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You know, so congregations and builders and designers are trying to tell a story.

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Um but i think congregations and churches and buildings can tell stories even

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through smaller ways whether it's you know decor that's 50 years old you know um,

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through attempts, or lack thereof, to make the building ADA-accessible.

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I mean, again, this is why I think architecture is so interesting,

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because buildings tell a story.

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To do the complete inverse, Dennis, we could look at a megachurch-type building,

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you know, I think a non-denominational church structure where,

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um, it's, it's literally looks like one I'm thinking of top of my head looks

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like a Walmart, um, with a huge lobby and then a bunch of chairs, the room darkens,

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you know, and all eyes are centered up front.

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You know, that's telling us, that's telling a story. It's communicating a message. Um, and,

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So, yeah, I mean, I think, I don't know if this is what you're getting at,

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Dennis, but I think I'm kind of sad about some of the messages that churches

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and church or church buildings, to be clear, are communicating right now.

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Whether they be mainline buildings or evangelical, non-denominational buildings.

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Links yeah you know i mean one of the things about the um the church building that we were in,

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was one of its big minuses was that it wasn't ada accessible in fact um if once

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you enter the church there were these incredibly steep stairs,

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um and yeah if you went

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downstairs where we had our only the only bathrooms

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in our building um they were

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also not ada accessible um and doing

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any of that in this building which was not a very

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large building was also going to be rather expensive but it

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felt like there was something that needed to be done if we wanted to think about

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doing stuff but you know that yeah in some ways was telling a story and you

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know we had I think there were some cases where people older especially more people couldn't come,

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because there was just no way to get into the brain right Right.

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So, you know, the other thing that I'm reminded of, and I know that you also

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are familiar with this, is there is a,

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in Andrew Root's book of Church in the Crisis of Decline,

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he talks about a church and starts with a church that it's no longer in existence and had become.

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Um, uh, I want to say it's like a, a brewery.

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Um, and his whole point of that book is to create an alternate history of, um, of that church.

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Um, and so it's always kind of

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sad when you see these spaces that are no longer being used as churches.

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Um, there is one actually not too far from our old, our old location,

00:24:57.327 --> 00:25:00.667
um, that has been used as a playhouse and other things.

00:25:01.887 --> 00:25:05.827
And I'm just kind of curious when you've gone to some of these places I'm assuming

00:25:05.827 --> 00:25:10.607
some of the things that you did when you visited some of these buildings they

00:25:10.607 --> 00:25:12.487
weren't being used as churches anymore,

00:25:13.587 --> 00:25:18.567
how did that feel when you saw these churches being used in different ways,

00:25:20.792 --> 00:25:24.512
Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because I have strong opinions on this.

00:25:26.892 --> 00:25:32.032
What's coming to mind initially is a Baptist church in Denver.

00:25:32.992 --> 00:25:35.732
The Baptist church actually still exists.

00:25:37.272 --> 00:25:45.612
I suppose I'm using good pejoratively, but a good church, they moved away from

00:25:45.612 --> 00:25:50.692
the city center. What was the declining city center and out into more what was then the suburbs.

00:25:52.332 --> 00:25:58.392
And recently, the church building, I shouldn't say recently,

00:25:58.512 --> 00:26:03.772
probably 10, 15 years, right, was sold to developer.

00:26:04.132 --> 00:26:08.732
Developer built apartments. But the core worship space, what was the sanctuary,

00:26:09.132 --> 00:26:13.852
was retained and, of course, used as the brewery.

00:26:13.852 --> 00:26:17.552
And unfortunately the brewery just announced that they were going out of business,

00:26:18.112 --> 00:26:24.112
and you know a new local news person put it on threads i think and i commented

00:26:24.112 --> 00:26:29.292
like oh if only would go back to being a church which i know will is very unlikely

00:26:29.292 --> 00:26:33.432
to happen um but yeah you know You know,

00:26:33.432 --> 00:26:38.732
I'm super biased,

00:26:38.892 --> 00:26:47.952
and I'll admit my bias, that I am pro-worship spaces and building church buildings being churches.

00:26:48.532 --> 00:26:55.512
You know, I think we talked about this, Dennis, offline during the summer.

00:26:57.372 --> 00:27:04.992
But when I was kind of doing that what I called a little scavenger hunt on Facebook of churches.

00:27:07.412 --> 00:27:11.912
A seminary professor talked to me when we were at the Disciples General Assembly

00:27:11.912 --> 00:27:18.272
and said hey, I'm glad you're doing this because it shows people that it's not

00:27:18.272 --> 00:27:22.052
a horrible thing if churches close and they become other things like churches,

00:27:22.907 --> 00:27:28.867
you know, meeting houses and music assembly halls and child cares.

00:27:29.967 --> 00:27:35.947
And I said, hey, you know, I tried to be as gentle as I could.

00:27:36.027 --> 00:27:39.867
I said, this is my opinion, so take it for what it's worth.

00:27:39.967 --> 00:27:44.327
But I don't think it's a good thing. Like, I'm sad when churches close.

00:27:45.847 --> 00:27:51.147
No offense to it. We need more child care and we need more community space.

00:27:51.447 --> 00:27:54.227
But I think I think sacred space matters.

00:27:55.667 --> 00:28:08.587
So when I see a church that's turned into a home or condos or childcare, those are all fine uses.

00:28:09.247 --> 00:28:13.187
But I'm sad because to me, that's a sacred space that's been lost.

00:28:15.227 --> 00:28:22.147
And I'm agreed by that. Why do you think that sacred spaces matter?

00:28:22.407 --> 00:28:27.827
Because I think we live in an age where people will say, well,

00:28:27.927 --> 00:28:33.807
church buildings don't really matter as much, or they'll say the church is not

00:28:33.807 --> 00:28:34.807
a building, which is true.

00:28:36.507 --> 00:28:43.967
Right. But, I don't know about you, but as someone, I've always had some interest in architecture.

00:28:45.647 --> 00:28:53.447
Spaces seem to matter in some ways. Why do you think that a sacred space, a church,

00:28:53.767 --> 00:29:00.427
and I mean, we could even go beyond Christian synagogues or mosques,

00:29:00.487 --> 00:29:04.007
why do these places matter, physical places matter? Yeah.

00:29:05.047 --> 00:29:09.587
Yeah, I think that's interesting, right? Because we would both agree that we

00:29:09.587 --> 00:29:14.567
would say the church is not a building, and certainly we use that line during COVID, right?

00:29:14.567 --> 00:29:20.827
But also, like you alluded to earlier, clearly people not going to a physical

00:29:20.827 --> 00:29:24.147
space for a year or more had an impact.

00:29:26.807 --> 00:29:35.087
And also, gathering, quote-unquote gathering online, I think we would all agree,

00:29:35.187 --> 00:29:39.887
does not offer the same kind of benefits that gathering in a physical place does together.

00:29:39.887 --> 00:29:44.627
Together um so i think a lot of this for me really.

00:29:47.767 --> 00:29:50.727
Crystallized again reading andrew root and i

00:29:50.727 --> 00:29:54.147
can't remember which book it was actually what he talks about resonance about

00:29:54.147 --> 00:30:00.327
church buildings having a resonance and again i i really kind of felt that when

00:30:00.327 --> 00:30:06.007
this summer when i went to um during the disciples general assembly when I went

00:30:06.007 --> 00:30:08.107
with some friends to the stone...

00:30:09.007 --> 00:30:12.807
Go to Cane Ridge. Cane Ridge, thank you. Cane Ridge Meeting House.

00:30:13.987 --> 00:30:23.807
And I was just astounded thinking about, boy, if these stones and if these logs, more specifically,

00:30:24.147 --> 00:30:29.627
if these logs could speak, they're just holding so much...

00:30:31.433 --> 00:30:39.173
It sounds trite to say holiness, but I really think there's something like, this is a sacred space.

00:30:39.713 --> 00:30:44.113
If I can continue on this rant for a moment. Go right ahead.

00:30:45.313 --> 00:30:50.753
My family, both my parents and my in-laws are both still conservative Baptists.

00:30:51.073 --> 00:30:55.913
My in-laws have gone to the Ark Experience in Kentucky.

00:30:57.453 --> 00:31:04.453
And my parents talked about going there and i said first of all it's like can we pick something else,

00:31:05.793 --> 00:31:10.353
but second of all i said you know i want to go to a real holy site like not

00:31:10.353 --> 00:31:17.253
some tourist trap oh yeah and i say this is obviously as respectfully as i can be,

00:31:18.593 --> 00:31:24.013
to people um because like i said my families are both conservative baptists

00:31:24.013 --> 00:31:29.773
and i don't want to get into that game of insulting other people's religion but to me at least,

00:31:31.353 --> 00:31:37.333
like i want to be at a sacred holy site and i know it sounds a little bit catholic um,

00:31:38.313 --> 00:31:42.113
but that's kind of how i think of it like let's let's be at a site where something

00:31:42.113 --> 00:31:47.453
real has has happened and not just a replication of something.

00:31:50.093 --> 00:31:57.833
So to me, like, to me, like when we think again about our modern society,

00:31:58.133 --> 00:32:05.713
when we think about how, like Andrew Root says, how easy it is to live as if God does not exist.

00:32:08.522 --> 00:32:15.962
It's essential to me all the more to enter into what Celtic Christianity would

00:32:15.962 --> 00:32:20.342
call thin places where we know that people have experienced God.

00:32:21.202 --> 00:32:29.362
And churches, church buildings are one of those places where people have repeatedly experienced God.

00:32:29.662 --> 00:32:35.682
And that's why I'm really passionate about this. like now more than ever we

00:32:35.682 --> 00:32:40.062
need to hold on to churches church buildings.

00:32:42.942 --> 00:32:47.642
And why do you think that go ahead go right ahead well I was just going to say

00:32:47.642 --> 00:32:49.962
you got me on a rant so I just want to keep going with this,

00:32:51.142 --> 00:32:56.462
and I was thinking about Dennis about this conversation I was thinking about

00:32:56.462 --> 00:32:59.182
Disciples of Christ church building

00:32:59.182 --> 00:33:05.302
in Pasadena that I'd heard had been recently sold like a year ago.

00:33:06.662 --> 00:33:09.642
And I'd been in that building and it was a church that had closed,

00:33:10.262 --> 00:33:18.242
decided to end their public ministry and a new church had attempted to relaunch,

00:33:18.382 --> 00:33:23.442
a new disciples church had attempted to relaunch and it hadn't made it.

00:33:23.922 --> 00:33:30.022
And in fairness, I don't know what's become the building. Perhaps another denominational

00:33:30.022 --> 00:33:34.402
church is using that space, and I can only hope that's the case.

00:33:35.202 --> 00:33:43.142
But I'd been in that sanctuary, and it was an amazing, beautiful, profound space.

00:33:44.222 --> 00:33:49.102
And even just thinking about it right now, it bums me out.

00:33:49.742 --> 00:33:53.422
It was just so beautiful and so incredible.

00:33:55.822 --> 00:33:58.282
And I think those spaces are so important.

00:34:04.462 --> 00:34:12.002
What do you think is going on in our culture that we don't see or have so little

00:34:12.002 --> 00:34:16.722
interest in sacred space and you know you talked about,

00:34:18.662 --> 00:34:27.082
in some evangelical circles how the the church doesn't look like a church. Right.

00:34:27.802 --> 00:34:33.622
And so it kind of, it, it feels more like a kind of a performance venue than something. Right.

00:34:34.762 --> 00:34:40.342
And that's not saying that mainlines have it any better.

00:34:42.502 --> 00:34:46.622
Either we're kind of in these spaces, but not really paying attention to them.

00:34:48.302 --> 00:34:56.742
Or we are kind of, don't seem to want to treasure them and think,

00:34:56.782 --> 00:35:01.662
well, they can become another brew pub or something to that extent.

00:35:01.742 --> 00:35:07.362
Why is it that we don't seem to treasure a physical space in that way?

00:35:10.863 --> 00:35:15.883
Well, I mean, do you want, like, my hot take answer? I mean,

00:35:15.903 --> 00:35:20.963
my hot take answer is, like, I think my hot take answer is this idea,

00:35:21.083 --> 00:35:24.383
like, too many mainliners don't think church matters.

00:35:25.483 --> 00:35:28.243
And that's, I have strong opinions about that.

00:35:31.503 --> 00:35:36.003
But I think more practically

00:35:36.003 --> 00:35:40.403
speaking I think it's just this again to

00:35:40.403 --> 00:35:43.183
lean on Andrew Root and Charles Taylor this idea that we're

00:35:43.183 --> 00:35:51.443
living in this worldly imminent frame that we've kind of been conditioned to

00:35:51.443 --> 00:35:57.403
to not think that there is anything more and just space is just a space you

00:35:57.403 --> 00:36:02.743
And if it's not functioning well, if it's unaffordable,

00:36:03.023 --> 00:36:10.983
and this is not to say that budgets don't matter.

00:36:11.063 --> 00:36:13.803
I understand at some point, as you're well aware, obviously,

00:36:13.863 --> 00:36:20.183
from your situation, sometimes spaces become unaffordable and there's no other option to get rid of it.

00:36:23.063 --> 00:36:34.683
But my kind of thing is like, I think, let me say it this way, I guess what I'd say.

00:36:34.743 --> 00:36:38.603
I think when we think about where society is trending,

00:36:38.783 --> 00:36:44.383
especially in regards to church, Like, we're going to need to hold on to these

00:36:44.383 --> 00:36:50.163
sacred spaces, if only to be a bastion of spirituality,

00:36:50.643 --> 00:36:56.203
where people can go to these places to experience God.

00:36:56.203 --> 00:37:03.143
And I think, in reality, if we think about maintaining a facility,

00:37:03.663 --> 00:37:09.363
there may or may not be active congregational worship.

00:37:11.083 --> 00:37:13.163
Like, does that make sense? Mm-hmm.

00:37:15.603 --> 00:37:21.943
Like, I can imagine a future where, almost like in Europe, right?

00:37:21.943 --> 00:37:27.003
And my wife and I hope to travel to Europe in the near future.

00:37:27.163 --> 00:37:30.903
And I told her, I want to go to Notre Dame, and I want to go to these holy sites.

00:37:31.623 --> 00:37:38.343
But I can imagine a future in America where there's a church down the street

00:37:38.343 --> 00:37:40.283
that's a beautiful church building,

00:37:41.123 --> 00:37:45.083
and they may or may not have Sunday morning worship consistently.

00:37:45.083 --> 00:37:51.783
Consistently, but I think it's important that a denomination or a congregation,

00:37:52.103 --> 00:37:55.743
if they can, hold on to these sacred spaces.

00:38:01.250 --> 00:38:09.030
I actually have been blessed to have traveled to Europe a few times.

00:38:09.210 --> 00:38:15.510
And one of the places I went with my husband about 15 years ago was a place

00:38:15.510 --> 00:38:19.470
in Paris called Saint-Chapelle, which is near Notre Dame.

00:38:19.770 --> 00:38:26.110
So when you do go to your trip to Paris, which you will go, go there.

00:38:26.110 --> 00:38:29.050
And he you know we went up and it's this kind of

00:38:29.050 --> 00:38:31.930
i guess it was a chapel that was used maybe

00:38:31.930 --> 00:38:35.410
by one of the kings i get you know and he

00:38:35.410 --> 00:38:38.590
kind of tells me you don't prepare to

00:38:38.590 --> 00:38:42.410
be inspired and i was kind of like okay and so you're not going up the stairs

00:38:42.410 --> 00:38:49.470
and then you kind of go into this place and it's these um stained glass windows

00:38:49.470 --> 00:38:55.770
that have probably now been up for six or seven hundred years and And there

00:38:55.770 --> 00:38:58.390
was truly an awe-inspiring experience.

00:38:59.090 --> 00:39:04.110
And it's funny, during the experience, we were walking around and people were

00:39:04.110 --> 00:39:05.870
kind of chatting and everything.

00:39:06.150 --> 00:39:11.190
And it was interesting because the people, the kind of docents or people who

00:39:11.190 --> 00:39:16.250
were there were kind of telling people to quiet themselves.

00:39:16.950 --> 00:39:21.490
And I think because they realized what this place was.

00:39:22.550 --> 00:39:25.390
Yeah and then you know it most people

00:39:25.390 --> 00:39:28.270
would say in europe a lot of places people don't regularly go to

00:39:28.270 --> 00:39:31.350
church right but at least there they

00:39:31.350 --> 00:39:35.070
i have no idea the people there who

00:39:35.070 --> 00:39:39.030
were part of that went to church or not but they made they knew what this place

00:39:39.030 --> 00:39:46.210
was yeah that it was a sacred space a holy space of some type and so it wasn't

00:39:46.210 --> 00:39:52.190
just a chance for you and the tourists to just kind of chatter like you normally do,

00:39:52.330 --> 00:39:55.910
but to also be reverent in this time period. Right.

00:39:58.738 --> 00:40:04.858
And so I kind of agree, it's that we don't have that, maybe in our culture,

00:40:04.878 --> 00:40:09.378
appreciation for the sacred, but I also wonder if we don't have an appreciation

00:40:09.378 --> 00:40:13.658
for the physical as much as we used to. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:16.118 --> 00:40:23.818
I mean, it gets to this bigger question, Dennis, that I really have heard inklings

00:40:23.818 --> 00:40:25.538
of in other conversations.

00:40:26.758 --> 00:40:35.678
This idea of a re-enchanting of the world. you know people thinking about,

00:40:37.778 --> 00:40:46.218
you know is this just physical concrete world in front of us is this all there is or is there more.

00:40:49.158 --> 00:40:55.338
And you know i've heard this in different spaces like i'm listening to a christianity

00:40:55.338 --> 00:41:00.798
today podcast Podcast on horror movies, of all things. Oh, I've heard about that one.

00:41:01.558 --> 00:41:05.698
Yeah, and it's very interesting. I need to catch up on it. I'm a few episodes behind.

00:41:07.218 --> 00:41:12.398
But the host makes the point, like, you know, for the vast...

00:41:14.933 --> 00:41:18.073
Before the last hundred years, around 50 years,

00:41:18.653 --> 00:41:27.533
the people of the world assumed this to be an enchanted world or a world of

00:41:27.533 --> 00:41:36.153
spirits and demons of more than just what we touch and feel and taste for our five senses.

00:41:36.153 --> 00:41:40.153
Um and i

00:41:40.153 --> 00:41:42.993
think if we think about

00:41:42.993 --> 00:41:46.953
a purely physical world um

00:41:46.953 --> 00:41:50.733
where it's just about dollars

00:41:50.733 --> 00:41:54.873
and cents and practical things like buildings don't

00:41:54.873 --> 00:42:01.093
really matter because we can we can worship in a schoolhouse like yes we can

00:42:01.093 --> 00:42:08.373
i've done it um but i'll speak from experience It's a lot harder to sense sacred

00:42:08.373 --> 00:42:13.793
in a school gymnasium than I think it is into an old sanctuary. sanctuary.

00:42:19.073 --> 00:42:19.633
So,

00:42:24.113 --> 00:42:29.933
what do you think that can be kind of, what do you think in some ways is our

00:42:29.933 --> 00:42:31.653
kind of guiding theology in

00:42:31.653 --> 00:42:39.533
some ways in these days where we don't put as much emphasis on the sacred?

00:42:40.093 --> 00:42:46.913
And in some ways that's not a, just a mainline problem, I think that's a problem

00:42:46.913 --> 00:42:52.113
in evangelical circles as well, where we just don't seem to sense,

00:42:54.393 --> 00:43:02.953
that God exists or God is present in these spaces, that it's just kind of a space. Yeah.

00:43:10.944 --> 00:43:15.584
Yeah, I think it's a lot of what you said.

00:43:15.624 --> 00:43:19.944
There's this loss of an awareness of the sacred. career.

00:43:23.144 --> 00:43:27.444
I was thinking about, again, I'm reading this book by Ted Smith,

00:43:27.584 --> 00:43:31.504
and he talks about the telos, or the end of theological education,

00:43:32.024 --> 00:43:36.944
and he kind of plays around with some eschatology,

00:43:38.144 --> 00:43:39.704
at least as I interpreted it.

00:43:40.604 --> 00:43:42.884
And I was reflecting on,

00:43:45.004 --> 00:43:47.804
in the in the late 1800s early

00:43:47.804 --> 00:43:51.464
1900s right there was this movement very much so of liberal

00:43:51.464 --> 00:43:59.004
theology this idea that you know back then they could kind of usher in the millennium

00:43:59.004 --> 00:44:07.284
they could usher in the kingdom of god um and i think i think in some ways we're

00:44:07.284 --> 00:44:11.344
We're seeing that reinvented in progressive Christianity today,

00:44:11.504 --> 00:44:17.004
this idea like it's on us to bring it out, the justice of God in our world.

00:44:19.444 --> 00:44:29.444
So I think there has to be some kind of reconciling, I'll use that word again,

00:44:29.624 --> 00:44:37.324
of this awareness that God has a part to play in this.

00:44:38.304 --> 00:44:43.764
Obviously, the inverse of that is like we see in the left-behind theology where

00:44:43.764 --> 00:44:48.604
we don't need to do anything because God's going to show up and fix everything,

00:44:48.764 --> 00:44:52.344
and I don't think that's, frankly, a biblical approach either.

00:44:54.884 --> 00:44:58.924
But I think this idea that we have a part to play,

00:44:59.024 --> 00:45:06.524
but also we need to wait and trust trust God to move and act is a hard one to

00:45:06.524 --> 00:45:14.104
swallow because it's so antithetical to the modern.

00:45:16.964 --> 00:45:22.624
Context we're in where, you know, it's on us. We need to do it.

00:45:23.024 --> 00:45:26.824
And that's not just in progressive theology. I think it's in,

00:45:26.864 --> 00:45:32.864
you know, the world writ large where we're the source of of our own enlightenment

00:45:32.864 --> 00:45:40.424
and future and we're really the source of our own salvation if,

00:45:41.044 --> 00:45:43.164
we really take it to its fullest extent, right?

00:45:47.242 --> 00:45:52.722
So one of the questions or things that i would would i'm kind of curious of is,

00:45:53.822 --> 00:45:58.602
i know you're probably not the first person that has an interest in in church

00:45:58.602 --> 00:46:01.882
buildings and what what was this building like what did it do,

00:46:02.502 --> 00:46:12.422
um and i'm reminded by a um an article i read by um another disciple pastor katherine willis percy,

00:46:13.122 --> 00:46:16.042
she um yeah and she talks about the

00:46:16.042 --> 00:46:19.302
church that she served serves um in

00:46:19.302 --> 00:46:23.002
suburban chicago so ucc congregation and she

00:46:23.002 --> 00:46:29.222
shares an interesting story of when that church was built um and she talks about

00:46:29.222 --> 00:46:32.702
the fact that was built into kind of uh an architect from the prairie school

00:46:32.702 --> 00:46:38.582
um which is from frank lloyd wright and all of that um but it wasn't frank lloyd

00:46:38.582 --> 00:46:40.902
right it was but one of his some kind of acolytes.

00:46:42.242 --> 00:46:47.362
But they talk about an interesting thing in the history of that building.

00:46:48.422 --> 00:46:53.262
And the building was built right at kind of the beginning of the Great Depression.

00:46:54.842 --> 00:47:01.382
They went through a period in the mid-30s where they had to slash budgets and

00:47:01.382 --> 00:47:08.262
remove the telephone that they had in the building, slash the pastor's salary.

00:47:08.262 --> 00:47:12.562
But they decided to keep two things that they didn't cut.

00:47:13.722 --> 00:47:16.342
And the first was mission.

00:47:17.882 --> 00:47:21.162
And the second was education.

00:47:23.027 --> 00:47:27.747
It was important for them to be involved outside of the walls of the church,

00:47:27.887 --> 00:47:35.667
but within the walls of the church, they wanted to disciple their young to grow in the faith.

00:47:39.027 --> 00:47:43.967
And I guess what I'm trying to get at is that buildings in some ways have histories.

00:47:45.067 --> 00:47:51.367
Even if those histories aren't, you know, the histories are people,

00:47:51.527 --> 00:47:55.067
but those histories happened in a place.

00:47:56.667 --> 00:48:04.207
Right. And I guess my question to you is, how would you encourage people to

00:48:04.207 --> 00:48:11.627
kind of maybe learn more about their sacred spaces and to learn more about those histories?

00:48:13.967 --> 00:48:25.247
Yeah, I mean, talk to, you know, talk to the older members of the church.

00:48:26.847 --> 00:48:32.867
See what stories you can find, even in doing an internet search.

00:48:33.787 --> 00:48:38.867
Like, I'm thinking of an American Baptist church that's a historically black

00:48:38.867 --> 00:48:47.147
congregation congregation who I knew the pastor of in Denver and a really fascinating story of.

00:48:49.067 --> 00:48:52.467
Of this church building was a white congregation.

00:48:53.847 --> 00:49:03.027
And when, uh, I forget the exact thing that happened, but basically the neighborhood, uh, uh,

00:49:04.383 --> 00:49:11.783
was open to African-Americans. So again, in the 60s, you can imagine sort of how that dynamic was.

00:49:12.743 --> 00:49:16.923
There was a lot of white flight, and the white congregation sold the building

00:49:16.923 --> 00:49:19.263
to an African-American congregation.

00:49:20.203 --> 00:49:25.683
And there's a story about that in the archives of the Denver Post,

00:49:25.783 --> 00:49:26.823
I think is where I found it.

00:49:27.243 --> 00:49:34.323
But that's really incredible history that has so much powerful story behind

00:49:34.323 --> 00:49:41.183
it, whether it be white flight and white racism.

00:49:44.203 --> 00:49:47.323
But also I think what's really interesting too about that story,

00:49:47.443 --> 00:49:53.363
Dennis, is that the white church moved to the suburbs or further out in the

00:49:53.363 --> 00:49:54.743
edges of Denver at that time.

00:49:55.423 --> 00:49:58.843
That church no longer exists. the church closed

00:49:58.843 --> 00:50:01.843
the building has been sold it's going to become wait for

00:50:01.843 --> 00:50:05.723
it apartments right the property the african-american

00:50:05.723 --> 00:50:12.663
baptist church still exists um which i think is a powerful story on its own

00:50:12.663 --> 00:50:22.563
right so there's some powerful stories to be found you know and boy speaking

00:50:22.563 --> 00:50:24.103
of a sacred Like, holy cow,

00:50:24.343 --> 00:50:30.323
being in that space, even when I was there during the week,

00:50:31.283 --> 00:50:38.483
you know, you walk in and smash in the face really does. Hmm. Hmm.

00:50:41.983 --> 00:50:48.983
So if people want to kind of follow what you did over the summer and,

00:50:49.003 --> 00:50:55.803
um, also just to follow you in general, I will definitely put in links for, for your podcast, um,

00:50:56.403 --> 00:50:59.303
which people should be listening to, which is future Christian.

00:50:59.783 --> 00:51:03.383
But, um, where should they go? Thanks Dennis. Hmm.

00:51:12.549 --> 00:51:16.889
I was just going to ask, where should they go to see some of the things that you did on Facebook?

00:51:18.449 --> 00:51:24.209
Yeah, so I'm on Facebook. Just find me. If you type in Lauren Richmond Jr.,

00:51:24.209 --> 00:51:26.769
you'll find me. My actual handle is.

00:51:28.409 --> 00:51:36.569
And I should say, if you're a publisher, I want to make a pitch this year for

00:51:36.569 --> 00:51:39.089
a coffee cable book of churches.

00:51:40.529 --> 00:51:48.929
Where it I think I thought about like my idea being to work with a photographer and an architect,

00:51:49.989 --> 00:51:57.329
where you'd have some beautiful pictures of churches and then you'd have an architect tell,

00:51:58.649 --> 00:52:04.949
you know talk through what the architecture is communicating and then you could

00:52:04.949 --> 00:52:09.509
also give a history of the an actual history of the people or the the congregation

00:52:09.509 --> 00:52:11.189
that originally formed.

00:52:13.709 --> 00:52:17.749
Because to me, again, it wouldn't be enough just to have, I wouldn't want just

00:52:17.749 --> 00:52:24.909
a textual, not that that's not important, but I think visually communicating

00:52:24.909 --> 00:52:26.129
the story would be important.

00:52:26.769 --> 00:52:28.849
Oh, yeah. I would think so.

00:52:31.069 --> 00:52:34.029
Well, Lauren, thank you so much for this. I think

00:52:34.029 --> 00:52:37.369
that this is kind of an important conversation conversation to

00:52:37.369 --> 00:52:40.209
talk about um i think the

00:52:40.209 --> 00:52:43.549
importance of place because i think sometimes in

00:52:43.549 --> 00:52:47.209
our our current world we think

00:52:47.209 --> 00:52:52.729
place doesn't matter and i think it matters a lot more than we we think it does

00:52:52.729 --> 00:53:02.229
yeah i think so anyway yeah well thank you again lauren and definitely will

00:53:02.229 --> 00:53:04.329
hope to see you back on the podcast soon,

00:53:06.409 --> 00:53:14.949
Thanks, and I want that gold jacket. Okay. I will try to make arrangements to get it to you. Yeah.

00:53:15.229 --> 00:53:21.769
We'll try to see if we can FedEx it to Denver. All right, take care.

00:53:22.480 --> 00:53:56.560
Music.

00:53:56.471 --> 00:54:01.051
Well, thank you for taking the time to listen. I really enjoyed the interview with Warren.

00:54:02.431 --> 00:54:06.091
If there seemed to be a lot of pauses in there, there were some technical issues.

00:54:06.151 --> 00:54:08.751
So my apologies for that.

00:54:08.851 --> 00:54:11.771
But I do hope that you still got a lot out of the interview.

00:54:13.251 --> 00:54:18.691
There are going to be links of interest, especially links to his Future Christian podcast.

00:54:19.471 --> 00:54:24.991
He wrote an interesting article that I want to share about buildings.

00:54:24.991 --> 00:54:32.911
And I will also share another one by Catherine Willis-Pershey,

00:54:33.011 --> 00:54:34.971
another Disciples of Christ pastor,

00:54:35.091 --> 00:54:43.091
that kind of also references kind of the spirituality and the physicality of churches.

00:54:43.971 --> 00:54:49.571
If you have not listened to the Future Christian podcast, definitely give it a listen.

00:54:49.671 --> 00:54:53.011
It is a great compliment to this podcast.

00:54:53.891 --> 00:54:58.271
He has some great people on there. I will be honest, he actually gives me some

00:54:58.271 --> 00:55:00.651
ideas of people who I should have on my podcast.

00:55:00.951 --> 00:55:05.771
So there you go. It's definitely a podcast you should listen to.

00:55:06.251 --> 00:55:10.911
I also do want to remind you, I shared this probably a few episodes ago,

00:55:11.051 --> 00:55:13.811
that I do another podcast called Lectionary Q.

00:55:14.171 --> 00:55:18.491
It's a weekly podcast that focuses on the text from the revised Common Lectionary

00:55:18.491 --> 00:55:21.511
with a reflection and then some questions.

00:55:22.171 --> 00:55:26.851
This is something I started in the fall of 2022, and then I kind of stopped.

00:55:28.891 --> 00:55:32.991
Just partially things got too busy. I'm trying to start it up again and get

00:55:32.991 --> 00:55:34.071
on a more regular schedule.

00:55:34.951 --> 00:55:41.311
You can find the podcast and subscribe by going to lectionaryq.substack.com.

00:55:42.571 --> 00:55:46.371
So that's it for this episode of Church in Maine, the first of 2024. 24.

00:55:46.911 --> 00:55:51.891
Remember to rate and review this episode on your favorite podcast app,

00:55:51.931 --> 00:55:55.091
especially on Apple Podcasts, so that others can find the podcast.

00:55:55.711 --> 00:56:00.051
And consider donating so that we can continue to produce more episodes.

00:56:00.391 --> 00:56:05.371
I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Thank you again for listening. Take care.

00:56:05.731 --> 00:56:08.531
Godspeed. And I'll see you very soon.

00:56:09.680 --> 00:56:45.008
Music.