Pub congregations, coffee house communities, tall-steeple churches, and sacred space: The missional church movement and architecture

Abstract

Some popular missional church literature portrays the institutional church as a stale and mostly unattractive entity focused on maintaining its programs and buildings and increasingly unable to reach a secular society. Rather than reform or reboot church in its present structure, new missional communities need to be established in places where unchurched people are comfortable gathering. This article examines some of these assumptions in conversation with some of the critics of the missional church literature. It calls for a robust ecclesiology that takes into account the rich historical heritage of the church and the role aesthetics and rituals play in the formation of authentic missional communities.