There are certain spaces everyone has encountered which seem special. Some would view these as just beautiful places, others are spiritual places. I think of them as being sacred spaces.
There's a church near where I live which, as you drive to it, doesn't seem like anything special. But get to the top of the hill and...there's something about that place that no-one I knew who has been there can put their finger on, but they all acknowledge it. The current church building is around 150 years old, but there's been a church there for over 1000 years. There's also a well nearby, so this may have been a sacred site long before Christ. It made sense that when Christianity came to this area, that the ancient sacred sites became Christian sites of worship.
I've been pondering recently if the church needs to start thinking about how to create sacred spaces for the 21st century. It's not that I think church buildings are the only way to create a sacred space, but I do think a church building should have an atmosphere, for want of a better phrase. I have worshipped in very modern churches, where the minute I've walked in I could feel there was something special about that place. I have worshipped in churches which are over 100 years old where there was about as much atmosphere as a wet tent in October.
I don't know what the answer to this is, but feel it's important for those with little or no connection to church that, if and when they experience church, they feel something speaking to them. One thing I know, it begins with God, but I suspect how people view the place and how a community worships in the space has an impact on this.
The ancient Celts said that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, and, they said, that distance is even smaller in the thin places, the sacred places where heaven comes close to touching earth.
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