Holding on to Sacred Spaces with Loren Richmond Jr. | BONUS

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[0:19] Hello and welcome to Church in Maine. This is a special podcast where we are doing a kind of a kind of experiment where we're kind of looking at short takes from past episodes and kind of putting those out there. And so you may have heard one that went out a few weeks ago with Paul Moore talking about reversing mainline decline. And this is the second one that we're doing. And so this one is with actually a frequent guest that is Lauren Richmond Jr. He is an ordained minister in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ,
[1:03] and lives in the Denver metropolitan area. And I've had him on here a few times over the last of the years of this podcast, But I had him on back in January of 2024 to talk about the importance of church buildings.
[1:19] There was something that he did online where he was actually taking pictures of Disciple of Christ congregations, mostly Disciple of Christ congregations, throughout the region, which is kind of the equivalent of a synod or conference or whatever, of the Christian church in Colorado. Colorado, um, the Rocky mountain region. And so he took pictures and, um, kind of talked about that and really the importance of, of a physical church and what, what does that matter? And I thought that maybe in the season of Easter, that might be something that we would want to talk about. So, uh, this is a clip from that interview back in January. I hope that you'll, um, you'll So enjoy it and take heart to what he is talking about there. So without further ado, here is Loren Richmond Jr. From a conversation from January of this year about the importance of church buildings. Think about how, like Andrew Root says, how easy it is to live as if God does not exist.
[2:26] It's essential to me all the more to enter into what Celtic Christianity would call thin places where we know that people have experienced God. And churches, church buildings are one of those places where people have repeatedly experienced God. And that's why I'm really passionate about this like now more than ever we need to hold on to churches church buildings and.
[3:02] And why do you think that, that go ahead, go right ahead. Well, I was going to say, you got me on a rant. So I just want to keep going with this. And I was thinking about Dennis about this conversation. I was thinking about disciples of Christ church building in Pasadena. Um, that I'd heard had been recently sold like a year ago. And I'd been in that building and it was a church that had closed, decided to end their public ministry, and a new church had attempted to relaunch. A new disciples church had attempted to relaunch, and it hadn't made it. And in fairness, I don't know what's become of the building. Perhaps another denominational church is using that space, and I can only hope that's the case. But I'd been in that sanctuary, It was an amazing, beautiful, profound space. And even just thinking about it right now, it bums me out. It was just so beautiful and so incredible. And I think those spaces are so important.
[4:21] Hmm. What do you think is going on in our culture that we don't see or have so little interest in sacred space? And, you know, you talked about in some evangelical circles how the church doesn't look like a church. Right.
[5:14] And think, well, they can become another brew pub or something to that extent. Why is it that we don't seem to treasure physical space in that way? Well, I mean, do you want, like, my hot take answer? I mean, my hot take answer is, like, I think my hot take answer is this idea, like, too many mainliners don't think church matters. And that's, I have strong opinions about that. But I think, more practically speaking I think it's just this again to lean on Andrew Root and Charles Taylor this idea that we're living in this worldly imminent frame.
[6:07] That we've kind of been conditioned to not think that there is anything more, space is just a space you know and if it's if it's not functioning well if it's unaffordable um and this is not to say that you know budgets and don't matter i understand at some point as you're well aware of obviously from your situation sometimes spaces become unaffordable and there's no other option to to get rid of it um but my kind of um my kind of thing is is like, i think let me say it this way i guess what i'd say i think when we think about where society is trending especially in regards to church like we're gonna need to hold on to these sacred spaces If only to be a bastion of spirituality where people can go to these places to experience God. And I think in reality, if we think about maintaining a facility, there may or may not be active congregational worship. Like, does that make sense? Mm-hmm.
[7:34] Like, I can imagine a future where, almost like in Europe, right? And my wife and I hope to travel to Europe in the near future. And I told her, like, I want to go to Notre Dame, and I want to go to these holy sites. But I can imagine a future in America where, you know, like, there's a church down the street that's a beautiful church building. Holding and they may or may not have the name morning worship consistently, but I think it's important that a denomination or a congregation, if they can, hold on to these sacred spaces.
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