hey all.

fred commented on liking andrew's quip about creating a space between the church and the world. andrew used the metaphor of the court of the gentiles of the second temple in his post.

it may be simpleton dan coming out here, so forgive me if this sounds too easy, but isn't this "space" of which andrew speaks, albeit in its simplest form, merely our lives? the patterns of existence that we choose to enact? this really isn't an organizational movement is it? do we need to run out and create some inbetween organization that facilitates the creation of this space? are we really so inbred as communities that we have no friends outside of our little groups? are we so oddly entrenched in our patterns of religous practice that normal kingdom hospitality is not this very space of which we are speaking? go to a bar with your community! take some of your community to your next office party! what is it that a "court of the gentiles" space would provide that the people of the way should not already be doing over a few drinks at the local pub or on the course or at gameworks or any number of natural cultural events/locales?

i resonate with andrew's idea. in many ways we do this in our community here in c.texas (in fact i am far more concerned about our inner courts than figuring out the outer court). i think that we would frighten most conventional church goers in the very fluid oddity that is the warp and woof of our community life. we may be the exception, but most of us have a lot of friends on the margin of the church and firmly entrenched in other religious communities. the safe space of which andrew speaks is the hospitality we engage in; the sharing of life; the long walk over many years together. the problem i have with a generalized, organizational "safe space" is that it is a space without face. it is like Seeker Sensitive Service 2.0.

maybe i missed the point. help me andrew. what is it about this inbetween space that is unique? i read your post on ost. well structured. your 3rd point sums much of it up i think:

The Court of the Gentiles was not a place of organized, official, programmed activity—other than the selling of sacrificial animals and the changing of money for the purpose of paying the temple tax, of which Jesus appears to have disapproved. We might think of it as essentially a place of presence, being, community, communion, congress, prayer, meditation, a place of proximity to God. The Court of the Gentiles is where the temple overlaps with the world. It is a place where people may safely approach the presence of God, but it could also be regarded, at least in our postmodern context, as a place of escape both from the world and from the sanctuary-a transitional arena, where people move between the secular and the sacred.

my thoughts are simply this: we don't need a place of "presence, being..." we are that place 24/7 every fricking place we go. MY LIFE is where the church "overlaps with the world." your life too. we embody the presence of the other. our gathering everywhere we go opens the "safe space" of which we now write.

cynical dan pipes up: no one will come to a physical space crafted by a church as a "safe place." "the world" does not give a shit. they would rather the church actually dare to do something unsafe for a change. perhaps something that will really change the world? perhaps something that would get a few people crucified? "the world" (man, i hate that phrase) yawns at our little strategic organizational architectures as they walk away. maybe someone is actually changing the world down the street...

no insult intended.
fight me. ;-)

peace-d