tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5044820951794078204.post5345054142392124121..comments2023-10-30T05:38:45.028-07:00Comments on The Infusion: It's supper timeLKThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05791517233920008067noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5044820951794078204.post-88431027949063911012011-01-28T09:14:40.536-08:002011-01-28T09:14:40.536-08:00I'll be curious to read the book once I can fi...I'll be curious to read the book once I can find myself a copy. In the meantime, I'll point out a few alternate histories of church kitchens besides the "post-war building boom" of which you and Sack speak.<br /><br />One is the history of the YMCA and YWCA, built in response to the industrialization and urbanization of the nineteenth century, meant to offer safe places to live and eat for single men and women who were new to town.<br /><br />At my own church, the offices, the Sunday school, the parish hall, and the kitchen(s) went up in the 1920s as far as I can tell. I've been told we once had a basketball court and a swimming pool as well - all part of an initiative to provide safe spaces for the kids in the neighborhood, so the story goes.<br /><br />All of which suggests to me that if there is a history in which soup kitchens inherit the perhaps over-ambitious building projects of their predecessors, there are also histories in which urban church kitchens are an explicit part of urban church work.<br /><br />The buildings are just as expensive either way, of course, but so far I still see them as signs of faithfulness rather than signs of shortsightedness, useful resources for the future rather than tired tethers to the past.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5044820951794078204.post-78232525863831858602011-01-21T09:39:18.261-08:002011-01-21T09:39:18.261-08:00Believe me, I'd be happy to be wrong about thi...Believe me, I'd be happy to be wrong about this. I've just seen too many building projects where the ministry part was an afterthought. The decision gets made and God gets brought in afterwards to dress it up.<br /><br />Funnily enough, Sack's next chapter (after the expansion phase which saw the building of all of these church kitchens) is about how all of those kitchens became soup kitchens.<br /><br />I'd love your opinion on Whitebread Christians as a whole. To me, it seems very well researched, though perhaps a bit thin on conclusions. Very readable, though. I think it would be an excellent church book group book.LKThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05791517233920008067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5044820951794078204.post-74170493012881481472011-01-21T07:04:08.282-08:002011-01-21T07:04:08.282-08:00Perhaps because I am a passionate member of a cong...Perhaps because I am a passionate member of a congregation that inhabits a beautiful but expensive old church building that also comes complete with a kitchen, I find that I am having a different reaction to this particular post than the approval above.<br /><br />First of all, there's a professional historical technicality that I ache to mention. The Whitebread Christian author's summary of the St. Paul's Church consultants' report may not have said anything about God, Jesus, or worship - but unless you can see the consultants' actual report, you won't know whether that's the consultants' own omission or their historian's omission about them. Furthermore, even if it were to turn out that the consultants had had nothing to say about God, Jesus, or worship, what would really matter in judging the church is whether the congregation itself had anything to say about those topics before, during, or after it commissioned them. Finally, if those conversations about God, Jesus, and worship happened chiefly in daily conversation around the congregation, they might never make it into the written record at all - but that would not mean that they were not part of what people were thinking about when they chose to build for the future of their parish. <br /><br />I don't know why my own church originally built its kitchen - but without it we would not now be able to feed the hungry and the homeless who come to our door twice weekly for food. Nor would we so easily be able to talk now about trying to expand upon that program to serve our area in other ways.<br /><br />Our building is expensive and I feel the burden of its budget - but I would rather feel my heart lift at the sight of our church's steeple than feel my heart sink at the sight of another empty building in a depopulated downtown.<br />If we left, I think we would be part of the problem. Because we stay, I hope we can be part of the solution.<br /><br />Jesus feeds us with the Eucharist, of course - but I am glad that we can also feed ourselves and our neighbors with ordinary, everyday food.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5044820951794078204.post-19042318905617255512011-01-20T21:30:33.522-08:002011-01-20T21:30:33.522-08:00Yep.
And it isn't just CHURCHES that have thi...Yep.<br /><br />And it isn't just CHURCHES that have this problem. The "build it and they will come" mentality is precisely what brought about "The Great Recession". We have all been sold on build out of everything. And it is, as you so so rightly observe, unsustainable.songs of a soul journeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5044820951794078204.post-88816444889187044432011-01-19T19:54:46.640-08:002011-01-19T19:54:46.640-08:00yeppa.
wv: blypt
heeeheee... it went blypt, build...yeppa.<br /><br />wv: blypt<br />heeeheee... it went blypt, buildings and all.it's margarethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13577280471100732619noreply@blogger.com