What does a church do with all that square footage in their facility during the week? I haven’t found a good answer to that question. Space is pricey and even here in the inexpensive land of Central Illinois, office space can lease for several thousand dollars per month. Accordingly, I honestly thought that most churches (including my own, unfortunately) were incredibly wasteful of their facilities… that is, until I saw this. It’s called ‘the Paradox.’ Located in a trendy part of Seattle, it’s an all-ages venue for bands and speakers ranging from Zao to Damien Jurado to Pedro the Lion and many more.
The aspect about it that struck me as being a genuinely good example for churches to follow wasn’t the venue in and of itself, but the fact that the venue is housed within the Ballard campus of Mars Hill Church! How many churches can get up during their Sunday morning worship and say that they rocked out to Zao the night before!? Granted, I understand that most churches wouldn’t be able to do this exact model, either because of logistics like available volunteers or the location of their facility. (My grandma’s twenty-five person church in rural Iowa, for example, wouldn’t really be the best place for a show, in my humble opinion)
But seriously, what are we doing for our target demographic? Most churches/ministries that I know of are just ‘existing,’ and the only thing of value they offer their neighbors is the teaching on Sunday mornings. Now, before you send me your hate mail for that last statement: I know that Biblical teaching is a great asset and is the ultimate thing to add to their lives. I’m not saying anything against that. We’ve pretty much got that covered. But what about the other six days of the week? Are we helping them in any real, physical way? I heard it said once…
“If your church were removed from the community, would the community be affected?”
Would they be disappointed? Hurt? Upset? Would they even notice? How are we impacting our community? We don’t have to host world-class, legendary, incredible, hardcore music pioneers like Zao, but we can serve our community in tangible ways that impact their lives. We can offer a volunteer daycare facility after school while parents are finishing the day at work. We can tutor kids. Or whatever else you can think of. There is so much that can be done! Some churches are really going above and beyond, but what about the rest of us?
PS - the Paradox does not claim to be a Christian organization. They claim to be an ‘amoral/agnostic’ location for shows. I am making no implication that they are a ministry outreach or are in place for the express purpose of seeing people come to Christ. They are not blatantly evangelical in their approach. (In my opinion, this opens them up to a MUCH wider crowd and can be a good approach to take… but that’s another blog for another day) Again, we have to ask ourselves, other than meeting their spiritual needs, how are we serving our community in a real, tangible way without expecting anything in return?
Do we love our neighbors?
Love = the voluntary denial of oneself for the well being of another.
