What Our Church Architecture Says About Our Worship - By Doug Rowland
Worship Posture
Did you know that the Church did not sit for over 1,000 years after it was born? The New Testament church met in homes, breaking bread together, interacting face to face like a family--the ordinary house was adapted by joining two rooms together and raising a platform at one end of the room for the altar. Each room came to have a specific function whether for baptisms, catechesis or other acts of worship. Generally it was safer for Christians to worship in private homes for the first three centuries of worship. It was not until after Constantine that we see the first formal Church building being constructed. Christian worship went from a furtive secret affair to a public event and new architecture was needed. Modeled after the Roman basilica, these buildings were longitudinal in orientation and the bishop took the place of the judge speaking from his throne behind the altar to standing crowds.
Shifting Focus
For well over a thousand years the posture of worship was standing until the locus shifted to the pulpit. From a large open congregational space the church began to be divided into various liturgical spaces (baptisteries, vestries, naves, etc...). Beginning in the fourteenth century, a revolution began to occur. The congregation once mobile became static when the pew was introduced. James White claims that the seated congregation may have been the most significant change in Christian worship since Constantine (White, HCW, 102). The chasm between congregation and clergy only widened as the chancel became larger taking up nearly two-thirds of the open space in the church.
Necessary Space
As we approach the Reformation period, church architecture can again be observed reflecting the significant changes of the period. The paradigmatic building was the main Jesuit church, Il Gesu, built 1550-1572 (Ibid., 139). Preaching was accommodated by a careful consideration of acoustics and the church space became a theatrical setting for the mass. Dominant themes emerged, stressing both visibility and audibility (Ibid.). No longer did the clergy speak from behind the altar table, as in the Roman basilica-like structures, for the Reformed tradition everything focused on the centrality of the pulpit. Protestant worship faced the challenge of having to reorder the existing medieval church buildings to suite their needs. Re-allocating the purpose of certain spaces and thus reorienting the priorities of worship. It was not until the Great London fire of 1666 that we see the dawn of the one-room church space built on auditory principles for best hearing the service read or preached (Ibid., 140).
The modern era continued right in step. It was not until the nineteenth century that we see the chancel becoming a pulpit platform, often with three chairs for the preacher, the visiting preacher, and the song leader (worship pastor). The Akron plan, very popular after 1870, focused all this in a corner, surrounded by concentric pews on a sloping floor (Ibid., 175). The model of today's churches very closely resemble this layout, only often times with chairs instead of pews and a stage instead of a chancel (Kilde, 6).
Theology in the Blue Prints
So what? Why does this cursory history of church worship posture and sanctuary arrangement mean anything to us today? The reality is how we sit and arrange a room reflects both our values and theology of church itself-it reflects what we place as important in worship. When the early church met in homes, it was communal-looking at each other in small rooms, teaching Scripture, praying for one another, sharing a meal together and having the freedom to walk around and dialogue (
dankimball.com). Over the years the church moved into buildings with pews that made the congregation stationary, looking at the backs of one another's heads, and facing the pulpit. Immediately the congregation became a spectator culture-accustomed to sitting back and observing rather than being an integral active participant in the community. The changes in architecture embodied the increasing utilitarian concerns for accommodating audiences, not participants, further aiding the creation of our consumeristic culture (Kilde, 116).
A recent study put out by Lifeway Research Group indicated that the unchurched prefer cathedrals to contemporary church designs. Aside from the transcendent exterior architecture of Gothic cathedrals, the survey also addressed the differences in interior space. The unchurched are hungry for places that are set apart. With the ongoing dialogue on "third spaces," those places which are not work nor home for people to belong, the church has come to model its buildings after those places in which people already gather to "hang out" (
lifeway.com). Apparently our decisions in creating space have been misguided as the unchurched are not looking for a gymna-café-torium but a sanctuary that has been set apart and that allows room for community to be built. We have been given the freedom to decide how best to do this within the body we serve.
Conclusion
History presents a challenge especially for those of us who have the flexibility to toy with sanctuary arrangement. We ought not enter our task uncritically, understanding that the worship environment reflects both our theology and priority. So how will you arrange your worship space? Will it focus on the altar? The pulpit? Will you encircle the chairs around the elements? Or remove the chairs? Each of these choices reflects our beliefs and values. Most importantly, how we do this should reflect why we gather and for whom we gather.
Bibliography:
Kilde, Jeanne H. When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Kimball, Dan. "What Are The Strange Things Called Pews?" www.dankimball.com, Posting: March 2006.
Perry, Tobin. "LifeWay Research finds unchurched prefer cathedrals to contemporary church designs." www.lifeway.com. Archived: February 2008.
White, James F. A Brief History of Christian Worship. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.
Doug Rowland is currently a third (and final) year MDiv student at Denver Seminary in Littleton, CO. He is passionate about music and challenging the church to live out its identity as a "sent" people."
For further information, please e-mail him at douglas.rowland@gmail.com
