sanctuary
The Sanctuary Movement was challenging churches when I was coming of age in the 1980’s. This was the movement where churches were being asked to consider their role not only as symbolic sanctuaries but literal ones as well. Refugees from the bloody struggle for independence in Nicaragua and El Salvador were seeking safe harbor, and many sympathetic congregations appealed to a higher power as they defied the law and allowed their sanctuaries to be used for sanctuary.
As sanctuaries were used to provide sanctuary, of course, those in opposition to the movement no longer felt sanctuary in the sanctuary.
The naming of our gathering space has had profound implications for Christians. If our space is ‘sanctuary’, we expect to feel some sense of safety and comfort when we gather. But if our space is ‘sanctuary’ for the wider world, our personal sense of security is often displaced.
One of the perennial questions when EUCC folk talk about capital campaigns is the size of our sanctuary. And unlike Goldilocks, there is no objective standard of just right.
There are industry standards. A mid-size congregation with the kinds of programs and budgets we have should be able to seat about 350 comfortably. Originally that was the plan for our sanctuary. The reality is that our sanctuary holds about 180, though at six to a pew and all the way forward we can squeeze in 210. We feel most cozy at about 150.
Beginning in the mid 1950’s the norm became two worship services on each Sunday morning. During those boom years for church life there were even two Sunday Schools that ran concurrent with the two services. The two service model of the 1980’s, like our current model, offered worship-education-worship each Sunday morning with the early service serving about a third of the worshipping community. The early service meets a particular need and is solid, but small; the later service often comfortably filling the sanctuary.
Statistically and anecdotally we know that the amount of room in a sanctuary affects how sojourners feel about the community and directly affects whether they will feel welcome. Although an occasional “chairs in the back” service makes everyone feel good, people seeking sanctuary do not often find it when squished into pews beside people they do not know. Conversely, entering a vacant space in search of worship can also be disheartening.
With the later service often at “cozy” level already, the growth room for our worshipping community is at the early service. But the early service has the converse problem, too much open space for a sojourner to feel sanctuary.
To provide sanctuary for those seeking we either need to shift our own worship styles, balancing the two services with a commitment to adding a third when necessary – or build. Or both.
But that presumes that we want our sanctuary to be a place of sanctuary in a wider context. The ideal size for our sanctuary, we realize, depends upon on our commitment to being a sanctuary. And this more fundamental question is one with which we will wrestle.