I've been thinking a bit about what a worship space says about a particular congregation and what they value. My thinking is prompted by the fact that I am not really happy about the way our worship space is currently arranged.

In a Catholic Church, it is clear that the altar is the dominant feature and that is because the Catholic Church places ultimate value on the sacrament of Holy Communion as the main focus of worship.

In many Protestant churches the pulpit is the dominant feature, representing the fact that the preaching of the Word is the focus of worship. A large Bible usually also takes pride of place as this is the dominant authority for all preaching.

In contemporary churches, there is often a more flexible arrangement, but again the dominant physical items represent the emphasis of that congregation.

For example, in churches that are inspired by music, then the band will be the dominant feature, usually located on a high stage with the instruments in places of honour all overseen by the projection screen. The term worship will become a synonym for music.

In most churches the seats are arranged in rows pointed to the front which means that the focus is on an anointing which flows from the leaders to the congregation who have no need to ever relate to one another.

So in our church building at the moment I see the following:

* we have rows rather than groups around tables.
* the music has taken up pride of place.
* we have a low table for communion because we value the input of little people in the sacrament, not because we devalue the sacrament. The communion table is easily pushed out of the centre when it becomes "inconvenient".
* a major factor in our placing of furniture is the need to facilitate other ministries such as the prams and the bookshop. These are important our each activities, but there is always a tension between the need to relate to the community and the need to facilitate our worship.
* a large banner encourages us to follow Jesus

As a church family, we value interactive worship styles. We value our interaction with those who are not yet a part of our faith community. We value contemporary worship styles, without being a slave to them. We value the Word of God- written and preached. We value the input of all people including children.

There are conflicts between all of these competing values. Too often the pragmatic need of just fitting everything in pre-empts all of these values, which is a sign of the culture in which we live where technology (what works) trumps art (what is valued for its own sake).

We have found in the past, for example, that the bookshop threatened to take over the worship area and we had to re-evaluate our layout before the bookshop completely took over the building.

As I've said many times in the last month or so, our current arrangement is temporary, a work in progress. Some time soon we might get something close to reasonable!