Where to do What

WARNING: The following post contains deconstruction of the Evanglical sub-culture not meant to be derogatory, only funny. (I do have a point, but my exaggerations are only done for fun.)

Have you ever wondered why churches have all kinds of places that no one else in the world has. Places with names that sound so nice and logical to those of us who have been in the church like Dan Luebcke has red hair (by which I mean all of life). I'd like to highlight a few of my favorite places that I know I can reference in the world at large and have the confidence that no one will know what I'm talking about.

The Welcome Center: Probably my favorite because of it's propensity to have coffee (and the coffee has improved in most Welcome Centers over the last ten years which wasn't hard since it used to be one part coffee grounds to 6,000 parts water), a plethora of beautiful brochures to paruse like the racks of tourist attractions in a Las Vegas motel, and smiley people with large plastic name badges that say something like "My name is Vera and I'm so glad you're here I nearly wet myself." This is the place to go if you would like to welcome or be welcomed. As the name suggests other places are not for welcoming. Can you imagine someone coming back from a business trip and saying, "I stayed in the Marriott. You should see their Welcome Center!"

The Worship Center: These days normally a very large room with short gray carpet. Some churches have taken to using these areas for so many things during the week that they have had to change the name to "Multipurpose Center" because a Worship Center can only be worshipped in (which does not involve playing games, having Bible studies, or leading the youth in a rousing round of "stick a bunch of LifeSavers on your face). When you enter this room, all welcoming must cease and worshipping commense and vice versa when exiting (assuming the Welcome Center is connected to the Worship Center).

The Prayer Room: I'm assuming by now that you're catching on and understand by now that this is the place where prayer happens. The only confusing thing about this is that prayer is also practiced in other rooms of the church, including the Worship Center, so perhaps this room should be renamed to "The place where the serious prayers go because it's quiet and you should pray for a long time here." That might be too long for the hall sign.

In our culture, and in the Church, we tend to struggle with compartmentalization. The problem is far greater than what we name our buildings and rooms, but everything communicates. I know the intention of names like these is to help people understand the purpose of the large spaces we construct, and that can be very helpful. It might be good for us to at least consider the dark side of the names which could constrain certain parts of church life to certain places. May we become a people who welcome, worship, and pray in all places and at all times.