When I was a child, our church building was My Third Place after home and school. I was in that building every Sunday morning for about three hours and again in the evening for youth group or confirmation. In the summers I was there for camp and Vacation Bible School. I loved the playground. I loved the front yard. Eventually my wedding pictures were taken there.
These days, living in a new time zone, I’m still in search of my Third Place – the place where I’ll spend most of my time after home and the office. I really miss not having that familiar hangout where people know my name and I can sit and stare into space or write or have casual conversations. I miss Busboys. I miss the staff of the Shirlington Caribou. I miss my secret Starbucks hideout in Georgetown. I will find my Third Place; I just haven’t found it yet.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “Third Place” in his book The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. While there are still communities in the United States where a church building is still the Third Place for the majority of the townspeople, others find more community in neighborhood barber shops or cozy breweries or local gyms.
We who love the church and grew up in the church must remember that, increasingly, we are the minority. Many people not only did not grow up in a church, but it would not occur to them to walk through sanctuary doors in search of community. Many of us church people are in denial about this.
I always marvel at the outdoor banners that churches post to advertise their carol sings and chili dinners, hoping that strangers will join them. At least in the congregation I once served, it was rare – if ever – that a stranger joined us unless he/she was the guest of a member. Most people walking from the bus stop to the Starbucks down the block would never consider coming inside to check out what was going on in our church building. And it wasn’t because we didn’t try. It’s just that a church building is not the first place some of our brothers and sisters would expect authentic fellowship.
For a long time now, my heart has yearned for those people who are Not Yet With Us. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about them. They are spiritual souls in search of peace and redemption and purpose. But they are in coffee shops, soccer fields, or shopping malls on Sunday mornings. And so – like Jesus – we go to them.
One of the considerations for the 21st Century Church – like the First Century Church – is that we must be missional – out in the world in those Third Places. Or maybe we can create Third Places that are new gathering places for the church. Many of our newest seminary graduates are ready to serve in these venues, and I – for one – long for th0se venues too.
A Church for Starving Artists 
You are on fire this week! Another excellent post! I too have a heart for those people who would never think of a church as a place to find community. I often talk about my church with the same enthusiasm as I talk about new restaurants or museums. As a result there are several families who now attend our church. Most often, at some point in our conversation they mention that if a church could welcome me, then maybe there is a place for them too. I know that’s a back-handed compliment but I’ll take it because it speaks volumes about our church’s welcome.
Recently I received a call from a woman that I know through my kids’ soccer team. I had told her quite a bit about our church school and she was interested in bringing her kids. She had questions like, what should they wear? I think that’s pretty typical. But then she asked if she needed to make an appointment to talk to someone before they would be “allowed” in the program. She asked what the cost would be. It made me realize how much further we have to go in getting out the message of extravagant welcome so that people know that church is a place for everyone to find peace, redemption and purpose.
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I’m stealing this topic! Great one! Have you read the book?
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I think it’s hard for those of us who had church as a third place when it becomes work. First, we don’t “get” the idea you’re describing easily, and in fact we become annoyed when we hear that other people don’t think of church as the special place it has been to us. Second, when we make church our work, we lose our third place. As a person who had a lively lay life in her 20s and 30s before being ordained at 41, I feel a sense of loss.
My third place is the community I made with other pastors and lay people through blogging, including but not only through RevGalBlogPals. I went out and made a new world for myself, and in the early days, five or six years ago, I was intentional about meeting as many of these invisible friends in person as possible. They are my real friends now, but it’s a far-flung community. I fear I can’t have that level of connection in my up-close life, because in the juggling of home and work there isn’t much space for it. (This is made worse by serving churches in the area where I’ve lived for 24 years and having to put some distance between me and the church friends I made as a layperson in order to avoid being embroiled in the conflicts at that church.) Mostly I’m saying I miss having my third place be somewhere I can go. I see how much it means to the people in the congregation I serve.
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@ Andrea – I once had a woman ask me if tickets were required to come to church. After worship she had a dozen questions: What was that cute song everybody knew? (“Jesus Loves Me”) Can I bring a cup of coffee into the “big room”? (the sanctuary) Why does the pastor wear a judge’s robe? (good question with an answer too long for this space.) Our son’s GF asked – the first time she ever visited a church sanctuary – as she watched the choir process in wearing robes and stoles – “Are all the singers in the National Honor Society”? We in the church totally lose sight of the fact that many people find church space unfamiliar and even scary.
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I’m having some trouble reconciling this post (especially considering Jan’s response) with “Spiritual Osmosis”. It seems to me that the call in that post centered around a desire for church members / attenders to have deep, committed relationships with God and not simply come to church, and that this one centers in the discomfort an inexperienced person feels when they enter the edifice.
So isn’t there something to be said for “cultural Christianity”, and the local church as a “third place” even if someone who feels at home in a warm, safe family never manages to find a deep, personal relationship with her / his God
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@just D Thanks for an excellent comment. I adhere to what Phyliss Tickle talked about in The Great Emergence. The institutional church used to lift up a Believe, Behave, Belong structure. We who believed gathered. We behaved accordingly. We eventually belonged – but it might take a while. In the 21st C. church it’s more true that We Belong (people are looking for community.) And then we learn how to behave accordingly. (In our community we serve the homeless every other Saturday.) And then we come to believe. I agree that in some communities the church is indeed the third place, but I’m more concerned about those who do not yet identify the church as their third place. It’s once topic to discuss what might my our (the current followers of Jesus’) third place. It’s another to discuss the third place of those who have not yet decided to follow Jesus. Does this make sense?
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As we begin a second year of church as a coffee house, we have found broad and deep blessings of a community we would never have known – or become- had we gathered behind stained glass. Bare Bulb Coffee in Warner Robins, GA is our attempt to live as disciples in the world- welcoming all and providing a warm space for men, women, and children in all places of faith and doubt. It is often messy but always refreshing! We would love to share what we are learning.
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Jan, this is only vaguely related to this post and the other things you have been writing about lately, but you might be interested in this blog post from my bishop:
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