Church and Main

Hello. On this episode, I talk with a pastor about the church being both a people and a place.

This is Church and Main.

Music.

Hello, and welcome to Church and Main, the podcast at the intersection of faith and modern life.

I'm Dennis Sanders, your host, and Happy New Year.

Church and Main is a podcast that looks for God in the midst of the issues that

are affecting the church and the larger society.

You can learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes,

and donate by checking us out at churchandmain.org or churchandmain.substack.com.

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So for today, stop me if you've heard this phrase, the church isn't a building, it's a people.

Now, I don't know that if this way of thinking is limited to American culture

or not, but we tend to believe that church buildings don't matter as much as the people.

And there's a lot to agree with that viewpoint.

We can get caught up in the aesthetics of a building and that we lose focus,

that church is not made up of bricks, but of flesh and bone.

It's the people, it's the mission that they engage in that make up what we call church.

Especially in these days, post-COVID, when it has become far more easier to

watch the church online,

It can seem, though, at times that the physical place, the building,

is less important than it used to be.

So that makes you ask the question, do the aesthetics sometimes matter?

No, the church isn't a building, it's a people. But can we express our faith

in the architecture of church buildings?

Now, there was an Episcopal church just kind of outside of Kalamazoo,

Michigan, off of Interstate 94.

I would see this every time I was going on my way back to Michigan to see my

parents or heading back to Minnesota.

It was this kind of, you can kind of tell, it was probably this kind of 70s

building that was this dark brick,

maybe trying to, I don't know, evoke a style of maybe old England,

medieval England, I don't know.

But there was something beautiful because there was this odd mix of modern and classical.

You could tell there was a lot of thought put into this building.

Now, at some point, that congregation moved.

And they sold the building to a non-denominational church.

And that church decided to add on to the building. And what they did with that

addition just didn't jive with the original part.

Now, I think that there was some sense of beauty in that original building.

The new addition was far more utilitarian. I mean, you really could not,

you could have mistaken that new part for just an office building,

an office building that you would see in any suburb instead of a church. church.

You know, we kind of knock Europeans for kind of turning their church buildings into museums.

But the cathedrals that I visited while I was during trips to Europe were actually

built by people who wanted to express their faith, and they expressed it through wood and stone.

Own, which then leads me to think that maybe place does have a place in how we think about church.

Now, over the summer, Pastor Loren Richmond started posting to his Facebook

profile pictures of churches, and they were churches in his denomination,

which is also my denomination,

the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, throughout the Denver area.

Um, and he, he really did some work.

He used a book that had been written decades ago about the history of,

of different congregations and, um, posted that up and, and maybe even posted

if that congregation still existed.

Um, and he got a lot of interest. A lot of people were starting to follow him. Um.

And in Lauren, it spoke, it really sparked an interest in him,

in the importance of church buildings to the body of Christ.

So in this episode, I talk with Lauren about basically what he did this past

summer, what it meant to him, and what it meant to him and to his faith.

Lauren is an ordained minister in the Christian Church Disciples of Christ.

He's the host of the Future Christian podcast.

He has actually been on this podcast a few times.

I joke in the interview that he should be getting a gold suit at some point

because he's probably the one that has been on the podcast in most times.

Um, but I think that you will enjoy, um, this interview because I think it's

a fascinating interview about, um, the importance of the physical building.

Um, it is not the important thing. And obviously if that is the important thing,

that's a problem, but maybe bricks and mortar do matter in some case when it comes to how we worship.

Think about that but as and as you're

thinking um let's now listen to this interview with lauren richmond jr.

Music.

Well lauren thanks for uh coming here um i don't know what time how many times

you've been on the the podcast.

I know there's one podcast I listen to.

They kind of have the metaphorical golden jacket for people who have been on it several times.

You probably will win it, at least at this point. But long way of saying welcome back.

Thank you. So I wanted to talk a little bit about something that you did on

Facebook over the summer.

And that was kind of looking at churches.

Well, actually looking at church buildings and doing a little bit more than

that, kind of looking at their history and background.

And so I kind of wanted to maybe first ask what spurred you to do this?

And um what did and then also kind of what did you do i mean you did a little

bit more than just kind of here's this building you really went into looking

at the history of these congregations.

Yeah so um let me first give uh acknowledgement to the source material that

I used for much of the book was from a former Disciples of Christ pastor named Bryant Badger,

who has just passed away a couple months ago, actually.

But in the 90s, he published a history of the Disciples of Christ for the state of Colorado.

As I understand it, he did one for Wyoming as well, and he may have done another

state, but from what I'm aware of, he did that, at least Colorado and Wyoming.

I had the book and looked at it.

You know previously um and i've always been someone who was really interested

in architecture and especially church architecture um so i was just you know i was,

taking a break from doing my own podcast um going

through just a little transition myself and

i don't know it just seemed like a fun project because i always whenever

i drive whenever i'm on a

road trip i always look for the churches

especially mainline churches um a

couple summers ago i was helping my brother-in-law move from texas to colorado

and anytime i could i would drive off if we were passing through a little town

i'd kind of take a detour and look for the Disciples Church,

if there was an old Disciples Church in Colorado where there's not as many Disciples Churches.

I've looked for UCC churches, other interesting-looking church architecture.

Somewhere in the Eastern Plains town, I can't remember the town off the top

of my head now, There was just an amazingly mid-mod, mid-century modern Baptist church.

So, I mean, I love church architecture.

So, yeah, it's always been something. And I have an early memory of just kind

of wandering through a church building in New York City when my dad was a pastor there.

There were some old historic buildings, Baptist churches from pastors my dad

was associated with that I can think back to and have fond memories of in some ways.

So I've certainly always appreciated church buildings for sure.

So, when you kind of started this, what were you kind of starting to learn from

all of these congregations?

Some of these are congregations that are still in existence.

Some aren't around anymore. more.

And I think it's interesting, you talked about this book that was written by a disciples pastor.

There was one that was done like that similarly here in Minnesota of disciple

churches in the area that kind of did brief histories.

So it makes me curious if that was something that was done throughout the denomination

prior in the 50s or 40s and 50s, around that time period.

So, what did you kind of learn from all of this?

I mean, one was just, I think, was just a sense of sadness as I just reflect

on how how many churches are closed,

no longer exist,

or are, you know, with all due respect, like a shelter, you know,

a shelter for ourselves.

You know, the other thing that, another thing that I really pulled away or realized,

it It was just how many churches were started by groups of lay people in our current context.

It seems like so many churches nowadays are started by a pastor and their spouse,

most often a male pastor and their spouse.

House i just saw someone uh

an ad on facebook for a sbc church you know that's looking to get started in

my neck of the woods in the in the north denver metro you know and it's uh they're

they're part of the sender network for those unfamiliar it's an sbc southern baptist effort,

um and it's you know it's a kind of a parachute model which i know you're familiar

with dennis where the pastor and their family quote-unquote parachutes in or

moves from another state.

And just looking on their Facebook page, they had several staff members,

it seemed like, or at least core team people,

getting them using some churchy language lingo here, who were moving from other

states to help with this new effort. Wow.

But that didn't seem to be the case with many of these early disciples' churches in Colorado.

A lot of it was initiated by what we'd call lay people, who were just like,

we need to have a Disciples of Christ church in this part of the city.

What do you think that says that we don't see that as much anymore?

In fact, I don't see that at all. It's like you see pastors,

if we do plant churches, are the ones.

But it seems like when it comes to lay people, that initiative seems to be gone.

Yeah, I'm really intrigued. I'm really not sure what to make of that.

For one, I'm reading a book. I guess I should say also, I think that model,

at least, again, this is kind of a small scale.

You know, if we were doing a real big data set, it'd be a real small data set to analyze.

But I imagine, just again, from my kind of church nerdiness from other denominations

reading other their church history books, you'd probably see other dynamics.

But I should say, I think this was I think that model kind of changed into the 50s and 60s.

I'm kind of going off the top of my head here, but it seems like at least in

Colorado, in the 50s and 60s, congregations started being formed by.

The denominations took bigger, at least in the metro area, in the Denver metro,

took a bigger initiative of appointing pastors.

Now, there was, again, I think in most instances, it wasn't a parachute type model.

There was a core group of believers or folks who said, hey, we just moved to

this area. We want to start a church.

But I think that's interesting because I'm reading this book that I'd recommend

from Ted Smith on the end of theological education.

Jen, I'd love to send it to you when I'm done with it here.

But he really kind of talks about the professionalization of,

the church, especially clergy, as being an essentially modern invention in line

with the rise of the voluntary associations post the Revolutionary War.

So I'm not sure how to reconcile the assertion that Ted Smith makes that church

has been really led by professional,

professionalized clergy kind of post-revolutionary war with this,

it seems like a decent amount of at least some anecdotal data that at least

in this area, like there was a lot of churches that were,

started by groups of lay people saying, hey, we want to have a church here.

So that's interesting to me. Hmm.

Have happened um would you kind of say from that whole experience from from

what you learned from this experience that the buildings in some way talk a

little bit about not just kind of our history but maybe even our present in some way.

Say more about that following. Well, you know, I think,

thinking about my own experience and seeing churches, disciple churches here.

In my own context, we sold our building and moved and are sharing space with

a Lutheran congregation.

You know, selling the building, which as far as I know is still standing it's

not has not been torn down or anything,

but is is kind of sitting empty says a lot I think maybe about our church culture

especially post COVID how churches in some ways,

I want to say especially in the mainline were radically changed due to COVID

I think not meeting for over a year in person really kind of changed,

the character of churches there are cases where a lot of people just,

really couldn't get back together again I think that in some ways was a nail

in the coffin for some churches I think for us it did there were people that

left but there was also people that came when we moved,

and so it did In some ways, the building is telling a story of how a time changed.

And I wonder, would the building tell a different story if, let's say, there wasn't COVID?

I don't know. But it's just something that's interesting. Yeah, that's a good question.

I mean I think I think about I think about buildings,

You know, I think about the stories that buildings tell through,

I mean, the primary language, I think, tends to be architecture.

You know, so congregations and builders and designers are trying to tell a story.

Um but i think congregations and churches and buildings can tell stories even

through smaller ways whether it's you know decor that's 50 years old you know um,

through attempts, or lack thereof, to make the building ADA-accessible.

I mean, again, this is why I think architecture is so interesting,

because buildings tell a story.

To do the complete inverse, Dennis, we could look at a megachurch-type building,

you know, I think a non-denominational church structure where,

um, it's, it's literally looks like one I'm thinking of top of my head looks

like a Walmart, um, with a huge lobby and then a bunch of chairs, the room darkens,

you know, and all eyes are centered up front.

You know, that's telling us, that's telling a story. It's communicating a message. Um, and,

So, yeah, I mean, I think, I don't know if this is what you're getting at,

Dennis, but I think I'm kind of sad about some of the messages that churches

and church or church buildings, to be clear, are communicating right now.

Whether they be mainline buildings or evangelical, non-denominational buildings.

Links yeah you know i mean one of the things about the um the church building that we were in,

was one of its big minuses was that it wasn't ada accessible in fact um if once

you enter the church there were these incredibly steep stairs,

um and yeah if you went

downstairs where we had our only the only bathrooms

in our building um they were

also not ada accessible um and doing

any of that in this building which was not a very

large building was also going to be rather expensive but it

felt like there was something that needed to be done if we wanted to think about

doing stuff but you know that yeah in some ways was telling a story and you

know we had I think there were some cases where people older especially more people couldn't come,

because there was just no way to get into the brain right Right.

So, you know, the other thing that I'm reminded of, and I know that you also

are familiar with this, is there is a,

in Andrew Root's book of Church in the Crisis of Decline,

he talks about a church and starts with a church that it's no longer in existence and had become.

Um, uh, I want to say it's like a, a brewery.

Um, and his whole point of that book is to create an alternate history of, um, of that church.

Um, and so it's always kind of

sad when you see these spaces that are no longer being used as churches.

Um, there is one actually not too far from our old, our old location,

um, that has been used as a playhouse and other things.

And I'm just kind of curious when you've gone to some of these places I'm assuming

some of the things that you did when you visited some of these buildings they

weren't being used as churches anymore,

how did that feel when you saw these churches being used in different ways,

Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because I have strong opinions on this.

What's coming to mind initially is a Baptist church in Denver.

The Baptist church actually still exists.

I suppose I'm using good pejoratively, but a good church, they moved away from

the city center. What was the declining city center and out into more what was then the suburbs.

And recently, the church building, I shouldn't say recently,

probably 10, 15 years, right, was sold to developer.

Developer built apartments. But the core worship space, what was the sanctuary,

was retained and, of course, used as the brewery.

And unfortunately the brewery just announced that they were going out of business,

and you know a new local news person put it on threads i think and i commented

like oh if only would go back to being a church which i know will is very unlikely

to happen um but yeah you know You know,

I'm super biased,

and I'll admit my bias, that I am pro-worship spaces and building church buildings being churches.

You know, I think we talked about this, Dennis, offline during the summer.

But when I was kind of doing that what I called a little scavenger hunt on Facebook of churches.

A seminary professor talked to me when we were at the Disciples General Assembly

and said hey, I'm glad you're doing this because it shows people that it's not

a horrible thing if churches close and they become other things like churches,

you know, meeting houses and music assembly halls and child cares.

And I said, hey, you know, I tried to be as gentle as I could.

I said, this is my opinion, so take it for what it's worth.

But I don't think it's a good thing. Like, I'm sad when churches close.

No offense to it. We need more child care and we need more community space.

But I think I think sacred space matters.

So when I see a church that's turned into a home or condos or childcare, those are all fine uses.

But I'm sad because to me, that's a sacred space that's been lost.

And I'm agreed by that. Why do you think that sacred spaces matter?

Because I think we live in an age where people will say, well,

church buildings don't really matter as much, or they'll say the church is not

a building, which is true.

Right. But, I don't know about you, but as someone, I've always had some interest in architecture.

Spaces seem to matter in some ways. Why do you think that a sacred space, a church,

and I mean, we could even go beyond Christian synagogues or mosques,

why do these places matter, physical places matter? Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's interesting, right? Because we would both agree that we

would say the church is not a building, and certainly we use that line during COVID, right?

But also, like you alluded to earlier, clearly people not going to a physical

space for a year or more had an impact.

And also, gathering, quote-unquote gathering online, I think we would all agree,

does not offer the same kind of benefits that gathering in a physical place does together.

Together um so i think a lot of this for me really.

Crystallized again reading andrew root and i

can't remember which book it was actually what he talks about resonance about

church buildings having a resonance and again i i really kind of felt that when

this summer when i went to um during the disciples general assembly when I went

with some friends to the stone...

Go to Cane Ridge. Cane Ridge, thank you. Cane Ridge Meeting House.

And I was just astounded thinking about, boy, if these stones and if these logs, more specifically,

if these logs could speak, they're just holding so much...

It sounds trite to say holiness, but I really think there's something like, this is a sacred space.

If I can continue on this rant for a moment. Go right ahead.

My family, both my parents and my in-laws are both still conservative Baptists.

My in-laws have gone to the Ark Experience in Kentucky.

And my parents talked about going there and i said first of all it's like can we pick something else,

but second of all i said you know i want to go to a real holy site like not

some tourist trap oh yeah and i say this is obviously as respectfully as i can be,

to people um because like i said my families are both conservative baptists

and i don't want to get into that game of insulting other people's religion but to me at least,

like i want to be at a sacred holy site and i know it sounds a little bit catholic um,

but that's kind of how i think of it like let's let's be at a site where something

real has has happened and not just a replication of something.

So to me, like, to me, like when we think again about our modern society,

when we think about how, like Andrew Root says, how easy it is to live as if God does not exist.

It's essential to me all the more to enter into what Celtic Christianity would

call thin places where we know that people have experienced God.

And churches, church buildings are one of those places where people have repeatedly experienced God.

And that's why I'm really passionate about this. like now more than ever we

need to hold on to churches church buildings.

And why do you think that go ahead go right ahead well I was just going to say

you got me on a rant so I just want to keep going with this,

and I was thinking about Dennis about this conversation I was thinking about

Disciples of Christ church building

in Pasadena that I'd heard had been recently sold like a year ago.

And I'd been in that building and it was a church that had closed,

decided to end their public ministry and a new church had attempted to relaunch,

a new disciples church had attempted to relaunch and it hadn't made it.

And in fairness, I don't know what's become the building. Perhaps another denominational

church is using that space, and I can only hope that's the case.

But I'd been in that sanctuary, and it was an amazing, beautiful, profound space.

And even just thinking about it right now, it bums me out.

It was just so beautiful and so incredible.

And I think those spaces are so important.

What do you think is going on in our culture that we don't see or have so little

interest in sacred space and you know you talked about,

in some evangelical circles how the the church doesn't look like a church. Right.

And so it kind of, it, it feels more like a kind of a performance venue than something. Right.

And that's not saying that mainlines have it any better.

Either we're kind of in these spaces, but not really paying attention to them.

Or we are kind of, don't seem to want to treasure them and think,

well, they can become another brew pub or something to that extent.

Why is it that we don't seem to treasure a physical space in that way?

Well, I mean, do you want, like, my hot take answer? I mean,

my hot take answer is, like, I think my hot take answer is this idea,

like, too many mainliners don't think church matters.

And that's, I have strong opinions about that.

But I think more practically

speaking I think it's just this again to

lean on Andrew Root and Charles Taylor this idea that we're

living in this worldly imminent frame that we've kind of been conditioned to

to not think that there is anything more and just space is just a space you

And if it's not functioning well, if it's unaffordable,

and this is not to say that budgets don't matter.

I understand at some point, as you're well aware, obviously,

from your situation, sometimes spaces become unaffordable and there's no other option to get rid of it.

But my kind of thing is like, I think, let me say it this way, I guess what I'd say.

I think when we think about where society is trending,

especially in regards to church, Like, we're going to need to hold on to these

sacred spaces, if only to be a bastion of spirituality,

where people can go to these places to experience God.

And I think, in reality, if we think about maintaining a facility,

there may or may not be active congregational worship.

Like, does that make sense? Mm-hmm.

Like, I can imagine a future where, almost like in Europe, right?

And my wife and I hope to travel to Europe in the near future.

And I told her, I want to go to Notre Dame, and I want to go to these holy sites.

But I can imagine a future in America where there's a church down the street

that's a beautiful church building,

and they may or may not have Sunday morning worship consistently.

Consistently, but I think it's important that a denomination or a congregation,

if they can, hold on to these sacred spaces.

I actually have been blessed to have traveled to Europe a few times.

And one of the places I went with my husband about 15 years ago was a place

in Paris called Saint-Chapelle, which is near Notre Dame.

So when you do go to your trip to Paris, which you will go, go there.

And he you know we went up and it's this kind of

i guess it was a chapel that was used maybe

by one of the kings i get you know and he

kind of tells me you don't prepare to

be inspired and i was kind of like okay and so you're not going up the stairs

and then you kind of go into this place and it's these um stained glass windows

that have probably now been up for six or seven hundred years and And there

was truly an awe-inspiring experience.

And it's funny, during the experience, we were walking around and people were

kind of chatting and everything.

And it was interesting because the people, the kind of docents or people who

were there were kind of telling people to quiet themselves.

And I think because they realized what this place was.

Yeah and then you know it most people

would say in europe a lot of places people don't regularly go to

church right but at least there they

i have no idea the people there who

were part of that went to church or not but they made they knew what this place

was yeah that it was a sacred space a holy space of some type and so it wasn't

just a chance for you and the tourists to just kind of chatter like you normally do,

but to also be reverent in this time period. Right.

And so I kind of agree, it's that we don't have that, maybe in our culture,

appreciation for the sacred, but I also wonder if we don't have an appreciation

for the physical as much as we used to. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it gets to this bigger question, Dennis, that I really have heard inklings

of in other conversations.

This idea of a re-enchanting of the world. you know people thinking about,

you know is this just physical concrete world in front of us is this all there is or is there more.

And you know i've heard this in different spaces like i'm listening to a christianity

today podcast Podcast on horror movies, of all things. Oh, I've heard about that one.

Yeah, and it's very interesting. I need to catch up on it. I'm a few episodes behind.

But the host makes the point, like, you know, for the vast...

Before the last hundred years, around 50 years,

the people of the world assumed this to be an enchanted world or a world of

spirits and demons of more than just what we touch and feel and taste for our five senses.

Um and i

think if we think about

a purely physical world um

where it's just about dollars

and cents and practical things like buildings don't

really matter because we can we can worship in a schoolhouse like yes we can

i've done it um but i'll speak from experience It's a lot harder to sense sacred

in a school gymnasium than I think it is into an old sanctuary. sanctuary.

So,

what do you think that can be kind of, what do you think in some ways is our

kind of guiding theology in

some ways in these days where we don't put as much emphasis on the sacred?

And in some ways that's not a, just a mainline problem, I think that's a problem

in evangelical circles as well, where we just don't seem to sense,

that God exists or God is present in these spaces, that it's just kind of a space. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's a lot of what you said.

There's this loss of an awareness of the sacred. career.

I was thinking about, again, I'm reading this book by Ted Smith,

and he talks about the telos, or the end of theological education,

and he kind of plays around with some eschatology,

at least as I interpreted it.

And I was reflecting on,

in the in the late 1800s early

1900s right there was this movement very much so of liberal

theology this idea that you know back then they could kind of usher in the millennium

they could usher in the kingdom of god um and i think i think in some ways we're

We're seeing that reinvented in progressive Christianity today,

this idea like it's on us to bring it out, the justice of God in our world.

So I think there has to be some kind of reconciling, I'll use that word again,

of this awareness that God has a part to play in this.

Obviously, the inverse of that is like we see in the left-behind theology where

we don't need to do anything because God's going to show up and fix everything,

and I don't think that's, frankly, a biblical approach either.

But I think this idea that we have a part to play,

but also we need to wait and trust trust God to move and act is a hard one to

swallow because it's so antithetical to the modern.

Context we're in where, you know, it's on us. We need to do it.

And that's not just in progressive theology. I think it's in,

you know, the world writ large where we're the source of of our own enlightenment

and future and we're really the source of our own salvation if,

we really take it to its fullest extent, right?

So one of the questions or things that i would would i'm kind of curious of is,

i know you're probably not the first person that has an interest in in church

buildings and what what was this building like what did it do,

um and i'm reminded by a um an article i read by um another disciple pastor katherine willis percy,

she um yeah and she talks about the

church that she served serves um in

suburban chicago so ucc congregation and she

shares an interesting story of when that church was built um and she talks about

the fact that was built into kind of uh an architect from the prairie school

um which is from frank lloyd wright and all of that um but it wasn't frank lloyd

right it was but one of his some kind of acolytes.

But they talk about an interesting thing in the history of that building.

And the building was built right at kind of the beginning of the Great Depression.

They went through a period in the mid-30s where they had to slash budgets and

remove the telephone that they had in the building, slash the pastor's salary.

But they decided to keep two things that they didn't cut.

And the first was mission.

And the second was education.

It was important for them to be involved outside of the walls of the church,

but within the walls of the church, they wanted to disciple their young to grow in the faith.

And I guess what I'm trying to get at is that buildings in some ways have histories.

Even if those histories aren't, you know, the histories are people,

but those histories happened in a place.

Right. And I guess my question to you is, how would you encourage people to

kind of maybe learn more about their sacred spaces and to learn more about those histories?

Yeah, I mean, talk to, you know, talk to the older members of the church.

See what stories you can find, even in doing an internet search.

Like, I'm thinking of an American Baptist church that's a historically black

congregation congregation who I knew the pastor of in Denver and a really fascinating story of.

Of this church building was a white congregation.

And when, uh, I forget the exact thing that happened, but basically the neighborhood, uh, uh,

was open to African-Americans. So again, in the 60s, you can imagine sort of how that dynamic was.

There was a lot of white flight, and the white congregation sold the building

to an African-American congregation.

And there's a story about that in the archives of the Denver Post,

I think is where I found it.

But that's really incredible history that has so much powerful story behind

it, whether it be white flight and white racism.

But also I think what's really interesting too about that story,

Dennis, is that the white church moved to the suburbs or further out in the

edges of Denver at that time.

That church no longer exists. the church closed

the building has been sold it's going to become wait for

it apartments right the property the african-american

baptist church still exists um which i think is a powerful story on its own

right so there's some powerful stories to be found you know and boy speaking

of a sacred Like, holy cow,

being in that space, even when I was there during the week,

you know, you walk in and smash in the face really does. Hmm. Hmm.

So if people want to kind of follow what you did over the summer and,

um, also just to follow you in general, I will definitely put in links for, for your podcast, um,

which people should be listening to, which is future Christian.

But, um, where should they go? Thanks Dennis. Hmm.

I was just going to ask, where should they go to see some of the things that you did on Facebook?

Yeah, so I'm on Facebook. Just find me. If you type in Lauren Richmond Jr.,

you'll find me. My actual handle is.

And I should say, if you're a publisher, I want to make a pitch this year for

a coffee cable book of churches.

Where it I think I thought about like my idea being to work with a photographer and an architect,

where you'd have some beautiful pictures of churches and then you'd have an architect tell,

you know talk through what the architecture is communicating and then you could

also give a history of the an actual history of the people or the the congregation

that originally formed.

Because to me, again, it wouldn't be enough just to have, I wouldn't want just

a textual, not that that's not important, but I think visually communicating

the story would be important.

Oh, yeah. I would think so.

Well, Lauren, thank you so much for this. I think

that this is kind of an important conversation conversation to

talk about um i think the

importance of place because i think sometimes in

our our current world we think

place doesn't matter and i think it matters a lot more than we we think it does

yeah i think so anyway yeah well thank you again lauren and definitely will

hope to see you back on the podcast soon,

Thanks, and I want that gold jacket. Okay. I will try to make arrangements to get it to you. Yeah.

We'll try to see if we can FedEx it to Denver. All right, take care.

Music.

Well, thank you for taking the time to listen. I really enjoyed the interview with Warren.

If there seemed to be a lot of pauses in there, there were some technical issues.

So my apologies for that.

But I do hope that you still got a lot out of the interview.

There are going to be links of interest, especially links to his Future Christian podcast.

He wrote an interesting article that I want to share about buildings.

And I will also share another one by Catherine Willis-Pershey,

another Disciples of Christ pastor,

that kind of also references kind of the spirituality and the physicality of churches.

If you have not listened to the Future Christian podcast, definitely give it a listen.

It is a great compliment to this podcast.

He has some great people on there. I will be honest, he actually gives me some

ideas of people who I should have on my podcast.

So there you go. It's definitely a podcast you should listen to.

I also do want to remind you, I shared this probably a few episodes ago,

that I do another podcast called Lectionary Q.

It's a weekly podcast that focuses on the text from the revised Common Lectionary

with a reflection and then some questions.

This is something I started in the fall of 2022, and then I kind of stopped.

Just partially things got too busy. I'm trying to start it up again and get

on a more regular schedule.

You can find the podcast and subscribe by going to lectionaryq.substack.com.

So that's it for this episode of Church in Maine, the first of 2024. 24.

Remember to rate and review this episode on your favorite podcast app,

especially on Apple Podcasts, so that others can find the podcast.

And consider donating so that we can continue to produce more episodes.

I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Thank you again for listening. Take care.

Godspeed. And I'll see you very soon.

Music.