Ministry Philosophy 3: Finding a Place

• People like places, especially safe places they can feel at home in.
• Psychologists call it place attachment or place connection — the idea that we want to feel safe, and that "we need to feel safe and secure in order to grow the crops outside the front door and keep the lion away from the cave and look after our own, our loved ones." (ABC website)
• People like to help build and make a place feel "theirs".
• A church building is one place, but often non-Christians do not feel at home there.
• A neighbourhood centre is a place that everyone in the community can feel at home in.
• Every church should aim to develop a neighbourhood space or spaces to connect with local people and provide them a safe place to interact.
• Before you have the resources for your own centre, make a space your own, for example a coffee shop, op shop, or other place.
• One of the keys to building spaces is making lots of relationships, and empowering others to "own" and help build the place.
• For example Mark and John in the late 1990s (in West End Brisbane), built a relationship with a Cafe owner and installed a free internet access point which attracted clients and also built connections.
• Compare this with Christ who invited Himself into people's homes and other people followed Him in, and Who preached out in public places (See eg. Luke 19:1-10, Acts 17:1-3, 18:4,7; Mark 2:13)