Interesting thought regarding urban vs rural. I grew up in a rural environment and we had many beautiful catholic buildings built in the 30′s that just made me stand in awe.

The trend towards the city areas I sense is more about community and connection. People are wanting a place of connection and belonging. See the underlying movement about “The Search To Belong” for more.

I do feel there may be a backlash against the worship warehouse spaces that simply have no soul at all. A sense of the transcendent instinctively for me entails beauty and awe. Our churches lacked that the past 20 years as we reacted against the “Print Age” church structures. It could be as much about a post modern, logic based thought, backlash than anything.

Ed

I wonder if there isn’t an aspect of urban vs. rural / suburban preference in the responses. I don’t have numbers, but I believe there is a strong interest in todays 20 – 30 something year olds to be connected to urban centers. Young people are living in cities and fleeing the boring suburban areas where their parents live. Real estate values in many inner cities (Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Boston) have been holding strong depite the tumble in the market elsewhere, meaning there is strong demand by people wanting to move there.

To my mind, cathedrals are associated with city centers whereas other church architectures (particularly the ones in the above insert) are more associated with the suburbs.

I wonder how people would respond to a church that doesn’t look like a church – like one in an old warehouse or abandoned movie theater – in a city center.

Thanks for the valuable insight.

Evan, research supports your assessment that the vote may have been about what they don’t like more so than what they do. However, it seems clear the young crowd and even us older ones are looking for something real and permanent to connect with. We are all on information overload and looking for something real to anchor and orient us a bit it seems.

Marla,

Your question about whether they would attend a “vintage” church or the Starbucks one is an important one of course! Interesting issue, I’ll post my thoughts in the next day or so and will be looking for your comments.

Thanks to both of you for sharing and enhancing the dialogs.

Ed

The questions I would have are these: is the predisposition toward a traditonal looking church aesthetic only, or does it translate into action? In other words, would the unchurched think they want a classic church but actually not attend it? Would they attend the one that feels more like Starbucks even while saying they prefer the more traditonal? Is it — since they don’t currently attend a church at all — a matter of what architecture they would like to see gracing their town squares? Would it influence their actions?