Last month, a fire destroyed much of the interior of the historic sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. The structure was built at the turn of the 20th century.
Since 2013, when the church completed a $130 million project for a new worship center adjacent to the original building, it has served as an alternate worship space for the congregation. Clint Pressley, president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), posted on X that, “If the SBC had a Notre Dame, it would be FBC Dallas.”
Robert Jeffress, who has pastored the Dallas megachurch since 2007, announced in his first sermon after the fire that the church would seek to rebuild the structure. It is unlikely, however, that it will become a replica of what it once was.
Like the one that consumed large sections of Notre Dame de Paris in 2019, the fire evokes conversations about congregational life and how churches spend their resources. It also raises questions about the value “place” has in our understanding of God and how we express our faith in God through beauty.
On-air interviews with church leaders and members revealed the refrain that anyone who has spent any amount of time in church has been trained to recite: The church isn’t the building; it is the people. From a biblical and theological standpoint, this is spot-on.
In ancient Israel, Yahweh resided in a tabernacle, a tent that could be taken down, packed up and moved along to the next encampment. The visual was clear: God’s place is with God’s people, wherever they are.
When God’s people stopped moving, they built a temple. For a time, it appeared God had settled down, placing God’s self in the soil of a particular location. But at Jesus’s resurrection, the image of the temple veil being torn reminded us that God is now and has always been, out in the wild.
Early followers of Jesus worshiped in homes. Somewhere around 0% of their operating budgets went to maintaining a property. Instead, funds were used to care for each other and their neighbors and to spread the good news of this out-in-the-wild God who forgives sins and upends oppressive structures of power.
“The God who made the world and everything in it,” according to the apostle Paul, “does not dwell in temples made by hands.” (Acts 17:24)
But, in a strange turn of events, Christians in the 4th century aligned themselves with the empire. (Those that didn’t faded into obscurity.) The church’s newfound enmeshment with power coincided with the buildings going back up. Since then, it has been challenging to distinguish between the universal collection of Jesus-followers and the places where they gather.
For Protestants, this challenge is met with the aforementioned maxim: “The church isn’t the building, it is the people.” Still, multiple things can be true at the same time.
The church isn’t the building. But whether intentional or not our choices about where and how the church gathers are important. They say something about who we are and what we value.
A small but growing movement is emerging that is discarding church buildings altogether and choosing to meet in nature. According to its website, the “Wild Church Movement” is made up of congregations that “feel compelled by love to invite people into intimate relationships with some of the most vulnerable victims of our destructive culture: the land, waters, and creatures with whom we share our homes.”
For the past few decades, many nondenominational churches have rented abandoned storefront buildings to serve as places of worship, following the example of urban Black and immigrant congregations.
In my city, there is a church that meets under an interstate bridge. Its members are largely among the unhoused population. Similar churches have popped up around the country in recent years.
Advocates for these nontraditional worship locations are keen to dismiss the importance of where churches meet. But their mere existence proves that where we meet says almost as much about who we are as what we claim to believe.
Wild churches reveal a God unbound by brick and mortar.
Storefront churches reveal a God that transcends and outlasts all our economic idols.
Under-the-bridge churches reveal a God that is accessible to all, regardless of cultural status.
They all have a place because they all tell us something about God. This is true for traditional church buildings as well.
Critiquing the vast fortunes churches have spent over the centuries on church buildings is legitimate. There are nearly extinct downtown congregations all around the world with unused pipe organs worth an amount that could fund local schools for a year.
Even in the most active congregations, expensive church buildings go unused five or six days a week. There is certainly waste.
But it is unwise to dismiss the power of beautiful spaces. Stained-glass windows remind us that God’s world is radiant with soil tended by the faithfulness of the saints. Vaulted ceilings speak to God’s transcendence.
Art is a testament to a God that breaks through our world.
All these places– in the wild, under the bridge, in cathedrals and storefronts– are valuable, not for their economic worth but because God has met and continues to meet us there.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
