A shared church

Years ago, on a Holy Land tour, I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, considered by some Christians to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. I went back a few days later to a Sunday worship service of the Syrian Orthodox Church, and found it was conducted in a small alcove of the church for an ethnic Syrian congregation of about 50 people. Services of other churches were being conducted in other alcoves located off the main sanctuary. In a city as plagued by religious division as Jerusalem, I was struck by the ability of Orthodox and Catholic Christians to share space in this way.

Since that visit, I’ve often dreamed of a large church building where several churches, or even different faiths, might worship at different times in cooperation with each other.  And my dream has come true in some places such as Springhouse Ministries in Minneapolis and the Brookville Church in Nassau. I’ve imagined that someday, one of those megachurches might be converted to a shared space church for small churches who can’t afford their own buildings, like condos.

I also used to dream of starting a church in a mall. Just think of all that empty storefront space with big windows where people would walk by, look in, and see that we Christians aren’t ogres after all!