Changing Space into Place

I am reading an interesting book by Marc Augé entitled Non-places.  Augé is a French anthropologist and the focus of this study is the effect of supermodernity – excessive information and excessive space – on our lives.  He maintains that the ever-increasing proportion of our time spent in supermarkets, airports, hotels, motorways, or in front of TV’s and computers results in a profound alteration of awareness.  Our senses are bombarded with information in such a way as to cause us to imagine that we are fully engaged when in fact we are only “seeing in a mirror dimly.”  We think we know something or someone because it has been presented to us in various artificial venues, but this knowledge is illusory since we have not really experienced the thing or person itself.  Image is confused with essence and identity with selfhood.

Think of the process at the airport: I may claim that I am Kevin C. Brown, but no one else knows or particularly cares.  I go through lines where correct documentation takes precedent over the essence of self; it does not matter if I am Kevin C. Brown or not, all that matters is that the documents (ticket and personal ID) match.  After passing through ticketing and security I meander through a cavernous space constantly bombarded with entreaties to buy – souvenirs, duty free goods, or the latest issue of a magazine filled with more images designed to encourage me to buy.  I get on the plane and I am not so much Kevin C. Brown as the guy in seat 17 B.

In many ways a church is just another space, a combination of various construction materials which constitute a shell, not unlike any other building.  It can easily become a non-place filled with non-persons, empty shells wandering around in spaces of circulation, consumption, and communication.

Winston Churchill once wrote that we shape our buildings and then they shape us. I do not want a non-place - space - to shape my faith, but rather a Place, a unique center into which I go to be affirmed as a person, not circulated and consumed as a non-person.

How do we make sure our Church is a Place, and not just a Space?  I think that is the question with which we are wrestling in the Shaping Our Future process.  We want to be certain that we are intentional about our space being a Place; that is, not just another location that bombards and consumes, but a location into which others can step to affirm their unique personhood even as they are challenged to affirm the personhood of others.

I hope you will continue to be part of this process and stay for thirty minutes after worship this Sunday, and hear the outcomes of the first part of our Shaping Our Future process.  We have an incredible opportunity to shape the lives of others, but only if we first reflect upon how we must re-shape ourselves.

See you in Church.

Kevin