WHY THE COMMUNITY MODEL OF CHURCH WORKS

Last Sunday, before I preached at the grand opening of Cornerstone Centre near Toronto, a woman approached me in the lobby.  She said, "I used to go to a church based community centre in Toronto - my daughter and I loved it - we shared in many activities there.  But that church never grew.  Why not?"  I asked, "Did you ever attend a service there?"  "No."  "Did anyone ever invite you?"  "No."  "Did you get to know many of the church members?"  "I don't know if the people I met were members or not - no one ever talked about the church." 

It reminded me of an email exchange with (soon to be) Bishop Dick Wills back in 2001, when he read the manuscript of my first book Fling Open the Doors, and he asked, "How does a church make the connection between community center activities and inviting people into the full life of the congregation?"  Having served a church that pioneered the community center model of church, all I knew was that thousands of local residents had come through our doors, and several hundred hung around, curious about the spiritual practices of the center. I baptized scores of those neighbors, as they came to faith in Christ.

The Toronto community center that brought very few participants into the church - here is what we know about it: (1) It is a United Church (i.e. mainline), (2) its worship is very traditional and honestly off-putting to most Canadians, (3) it has little theology of evangelism and (4) the people of the church are not using the opportunity of their center to break bread with and build a neighborhood with the community folks - the community activities are out-sourced.

Cornerstone Church is just the opposite: it is all about building relationships and creating space where friendships and Gospel neighborhood can form.  Their worship is accessible and easily engaging to a wide swath of people.  Like the United church, Cornerstone understands that the community activities are not venues for recruiting church members - they are simply venues for building community.  But, because their spiritual practice is so solid, they know that when we share our stories one with the other, God moves in and begins to work.  And they are ready to build relationships in their new space.  There were 800 people at worship Sunday, up from about 350 on a typical Sunday a year ago.  Some people invited a dozen friends to attend.

There are no church offices in the building - and church groups cannot have a standing room reservation without risk of being bumped by a community gathering.  It is not a church building, but a town square, a public space where the church can develop relationships with thousands of nearby people who would never darken the doors of a Canadian church in normal circumstances. 

The Community Center Church is one of 19 paradigms of twenty-first century church that Beth Estock and I detail in our new book Weird Church.  Most community centers are smaller and simpler than Cornerstone's.  But Cornerstone reminds us that all things are possible!   This is a church that, for years, sought to be the Centre that they longed to build, even without a facility.  This is a church that kept trusting God, and raising money, and falling short, then trusting more: only for miracle after miracle to occur.  Their journey has been one of doing all they could and depending on God to get them to each mile marker.  I saw a similar church in Munich earlier this year (Erloeser Kirchen), with a gorgeous community center, full of people and a growing congregation sponsoring the ministry.  It is a promising ministry model for post-Christendom times and places.

Where there is spiritual intensity, all things are possible, even in this century, even in secular Toronto!