Sunday, December 06, 2009

Bridge-design churches.

A few years ago, my church needed to build a new building to house our ever-expanding RE program*. After much architectural squabbling, we went with the "bridge" design where there's a bridge with a roof and glass walls connecting the two buildings.

If you ever have the chance to stand on one of those in the snow, do it. I did yesterday and the view was breathtaking. I was warm and comfortable and snow was falling down all around me on both sides, piling up on cars and making the entire world look clean and bright. I sat there for at least twenty minutes, breathing in the lovliness of it all.

CC

*If you write about how UUism is dying and you hear a loud guffaw from the general direction of Northern Virginia, this is why.

10 comments:

hsofia said...

A skybridge! Our church has one of those, but I've only walked it a few times.

TogetherBeth said...

And it was a joy to stand on that bridge and watch the kids and youth play in the snow this morning!

kimc said...

Sounds wonderful!

We have the same kind of thing with kids' RE, but it seems that the families with kids often disappear when the kids become teens and say no to going to church. So it doesn't seem to provide as much real growth as it should. Joyce and I are lobbying for a better program for teens and young adults, but we're getting the "good idea: you do it" treatment. We're looking at a new building, and if we get it, the RE wing needs complete remodeling, so we are pushing for a second floor for the teens/young adults with a media room and a theater and other stuff of that kind. Suggestions?

Paul Oakley said...

It is a wonderful architectural concept that I've seen used in various buildings but, so far as I remember, only in one church so far: Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland. The annex across the bridge is no longer used (exclusively, at least) for its original church purposes, but is now used mostly as exhibition space relating to the Viking period in Dublin. Tourists don't get to cross the bridge...

I love your description of watching the snow from the bridge.

Robin Edgar said...

Just because a few large U*U churches are doing reasonably well in terms of membership levels does not mean The U*U Movement isn't moving aka is stagnant. . . There are a disturbingly high number of U*U congregations with fewer than 25 members and many more with fewer than 50 members. The big fat U*U demographic seems to be aging too. The Tiny Declining Fringe Religion™ may well become an "obsolete religion" itself in the coming decades, far more "obsolete" than all those "old religions" that UUA President Peter Morales dismissively wrote off as "obsolete religions created for another time" in his sermon cum "stump speech" announcing his candidacy for President of the UUA.

Chalicechick said...

You know my biases here, Robin. Having been a member of congregations of several different sizes, my impression is that the really tiny churches do little for UUism and are far more likely to have the kinds of problems that get us complained about on the internet.

Indeed, I asked the UU Theology mailing list if any of them had actually witnessed any anti-theism at church within the last couple of years. The only affirmative response came from a member of a very small church though the person said they had grown enough to get a minister and she was putting a stop to it.

CC

Robin Edgar said...

"my impression is that the really tiny churches do little for UUism and are far more likely to have the kinds of problems that get us complained about on the internet."

I couldn't agree more CC. That is precisely *why* they are so tiny. The fact remains that there are a lot of such tiny U*U churches scattered throughout the continent, along with some medium size ones that have the kinds of problems that get U*Us complained about not only on the internet but in "word of mouth" *advertising*. How many U*U churches would there be if all U*U churches with 50 members or less suddenly vanished of the face of the U*U World in a Big Fat U*U RaptU*Ure or something? You and your Big Fat U*U Church can guffaw as loudly as you want but UUA President Peter Morales would not have described Unitarian*Universalism as "a tiny, declining, fringe religion" if he did not detect a trend. He is by no means alone, a number of well informed UUA officials are quite concerned about stagnant growth and have even shared their concerns with the UUA well before Rev. Peter Morales came up with The Tiny Declining Fringe Religion™ corporate iodentity for The U*U Movement™. Let's see who is guffawing twenty or thirty years from now when Unitarian*Universalism isn't anywhere close to being The Religion For Our Time™. . .

Chalicechick said...

Robin, you've been predicting the imminent death of UUism for the nine years or so I've known you and UUism has grown in that time.

At this point, your predictions of UUism's demise have about as much credibility as Bill Barr's constant claims a year and a half ago that Obama cold never win the primary.

I don't want or need UUism to be the "religion of our time" and indeed would like UUism less if it were as that would just give UUs the power to boss people around politically and I don't want us to have that.

I don't care if UUism is a "fringe" religion as long as it's around for those who want to join, and it would have "declined" a lot less lst year if Morales had spent less time making dire predictions about what would happen if people didn't vote for him and a little more time getting people into his own pews in Colorado.

CC

Paul Oakley said...

...my impression is that the really tiny churches do little for UUism...

Hmmm... If it weren't for my really tiny UU congregation (an almost 5-year-old emerging congregation with just 23 members on the books), I wouldn't be active in UUism because of geographic distance to the next nearest congregation; I wouldn't be attending Meadville Lombard with the intention of becoming a UU minister; my county and the surrounding 8 counties would have no UU presence and only a tiny handful of people in these counties would even have heard of UUism and those who had would more often than not have thought that UUism is a cult.

Does the continuation of UUism depend on churches like mine? I doubt it. But how can it be in the denomination's best interest to exist as a bi-coastal, big-city, and university-town phenomenon that leaves the rest of the country largely out of consideration with only the CLF for support and no public presence. And to include the rest of the country, small churches are the only way for it to happen.

Robin Edgar said...

Good point Paul. CC should have said "many" or "some" before "small churches". There is no question that plenty of small U*U congregations are small because they are dysfunctional in one way or another, but there are no doubt others that may well be exemplary U*U congregations, in fact I can think of a few such small U*U churches myself.

:Robin, you've been predicting the imminent death of UUism for the nine years or so I've known you and UUism has grown in that time.

Actually I generally "prophesied" that and aging and dwindling U*U Movement would seriously decline in a generation or two *if* it continued to be unwelcoming to God believing Americans. It seems that there is some progress on that front but there are is still another decade or two to go before we see how much weight my preediction carried. If U*Us become more genuinely welcoming to God believing people as I have been pushing them to do for over a decade now that means they responded appropriately to my warning and thus nullifies *that* particular "prophecy". Prophecies are warnings not necessarily hard and fast predictions. I am all for U*Uism growing after reclaiming its monotheistic religious heritage rather than betraying it. . .

:I don't want or need UUism to be the "religion of our time" and indeed would like UUism less if it were as that would just give UUs the power to boss people around politically and I don't want us to have that.

Definitely not. The last thing the U*U World needs is more Totalitarian Unitarians bossing people around. . .