Book notes: Re-Pitching the Tent

I just finished Richard Giles's Re-Pitching the Tent; Reordering the Church Building for Worship and Mission. Excellent. It is a handbook for churches considering light to heavy refurnishing, remodeling, or restructuring... esp. in light of litugical renewal. (He calls it "re-pitching your tent.") He emphasizes the liturgical core of Baptism, Word (Reading and Preaching), and Eucharist (Holy Communion) as the points around which a congregation should build, emphasize and furnish.

Other issues he picks up include the place and use of music and musicians, prayer chapel, use of facilities for caring for/nurturing our community (being "neighbor"), the prayer chapel and gathering spaces.

He emphasizes the historic, and even literal "movement" of the worshiping body, from the Baptismal font (our entrance into the Body), to the Word (Bible and preaching), to the Eucharistic table (we receive nurture and our mission). In most of the illustrations and descriptions, these symbols are not all placed or clearly divided from the worshiping body, but in their midst; the people gather around them, or progress through them.

In our case, the sections re: use of art (ch. 15 & Appendix B), the exterior, entrance and gathering space (chs. 19-21), the prayer chapel (ch. 25B), the music (ch 26), and community use (ch. 27) seem more immediately helpful. Much of the rest seemed more helpful for large churches doing a complete remodel or refurnishing of their worship areas, or smaller congregations with adequate space.

But the rest of the book is important for casting the need and value of re-pitching our tent.

There are many underlines in my copy. I will type six quotes below, but for those of you in my congregation, I will leave my copy sitting on my office desk. If you borrow it, let one of the secretaries know and send an email or leave a note for me on my desk!

"The experience of re-pitching our tent has reinvigorated the comunity of faith with a dependence upon the mercy of God and a loving intimacy with him in his power and provision" (pp. 20-21).

"If...we stop in our ceaseless activity to listen afresh to what the Spirit is saying to the churches, we may hear his voice telling us to enjoy all that we are and all that we have (buildings included) but to do so with a new detachment appropriate to a Church facing unparalleled difficulties in the Western world" (pp. 51-52).

"Because the re-ordering of a church building, treasured for its familiarity and its memories, requires of us a great deal of letting go, a costly act of surrender, it can be for us a powerful sacrament of God's re-ordering of our whole lives" (p. 63).

"What is your church's message?...is a question that every Christian congregation should ask in relation to its own building...The church's building is a commanding preacher, and no one should underestimate its power to communicate...Buildings, no less than people, have a body language; to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'What you are speaks so louldly I can't hear what you say'" (p. 103).

"We should never be pushed into muddled half-measures; any re-ordering we undertake should display a striking clarity of liturgical purpose arising from sound theological principle" (p. 116).

"Above all we must return to the primacy of the assembly as an icon of Christ. No matter how beautifully and carefully designed a worship space may be, it remains an empty stage until the cast has entered who will bring life to the words of the story" (p. 117).