"Creating Environments"

Welcome to another episode of Adventures in Spirituality!

If you are a normal reader here at Capitol J you know that I am on a spiritual journey. I have taken the path of Christianity and have been searching my soul for the/my true meaning of God. Lynette and I began going to a church near us that was very welcoming and friendly, but it suddenly reminded us why we stopped attending church. And it had nothing to do with God. Understandably, churches serve as a symbolic location for people to commune with and celebrate God. But the "God" in the churches I attended in my life often required me to undergo a series of obstacles (figuratively) to get to God. The rituals and hymns and robotic rote prayers pushed me further away from God, which is obviously NOT the intent of churches, but (if I can be honest) it made me uncomfortable in its cult-like participation.

I am a firm believer that God should be celebrated or worshiped everywhere. And so we took the advice of our dear friend Joe Portnoy and visited his church (NCC). Here's the catch: They meet in local movie theaters. At first, I was skeptical. How can a movie theater be a holy place? But we went and were very, very surprised. First of all, it's in a movie theater! I cannot think of a less intimidating, less alienating environment. The comfort level was high. Second, I have never been surrounded by a more passionate, God seeking group of people. The positive energy was overflowing. Third, their use of technology impressed the heck out of me. It's refreshing to find this level of creative motivation as we seek to be closer to God. "It's orthodox in doctrine, but a little unorthodox in practice. The message is sacred, but the methods are not"(from Pastor Batterson). And, fourth, it was an hour of actual study and interpretation of the Bible. Never in my life have I listened to the sermon of someone like Pastor Mark Batterson and felt as inspired and close to God.

Coincidentally, Pastor Mark posted this on his blog today:

From the blog Evotional by Mark Batterson, Pastor at National Community Church:

"One of my jobs as a leader is to create environments that facilitate what it is that God wants to do in people's lives. I'm anenvironmental engineer of sorts. We work hard at NCC to create environments where people can explore Christianity in a safe and creative environment. And we care about details like the brightness of lights and volume of sound. We care about the video quality andgraphic creativity. Those may seem like ancillary issues, but they aren't. Aesthetics are important. Did you know that 12 chapters in the book of Exodus are devoted to the aesthetics of the tabernacle? If aesthetics aren't important then why is God so meticulous in picking thecolors of the curtains or the recipe for the incense.

If the Holy Spirit doesn't show up all of our aesthetic efforts are a waste of time. But that doesn't excuse us. It's not either/or. It's both/and. We've got to create environments that remove distractions. We've got to create environments that cultivate creativity. We've got to do our part and then let God do His part.

We have a simple goal at NCC: remove all sociological and methodological obstacles that would get in the way of people getting to the cross. We recognize that the Holy Spirit is the one who draws people to Jesus. But we need to stay out of the way instead of getting in the way. I'm afraid that sometimes people are offended by our methodologies and we don't give them a chance to be offended by the cross."