An interesting book written in 1990 still infects the language of our culture. It is called The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day, by Ray Oldenburg. Oldenburg calls one's "first place" the home. The "second place" is the workplace, and the “Third place” is where people hang out. What is interesting to find since the ’90s is that for most young people their “third place” is cyberspace (i.e. Facebook, tweets, and texts). They don’t even gather to be together. The sad social commentary is that the church is no longer even on our social networking radar.
According to Oldenburg, the makings of a good “third place” are that they should be free (or at least inexpensive); provide food and drink; be highly accessible (even within walking distance); encourage "regulars"; be welcoming and comfortable; and allow for both new friends and old to be found in its confines.
Some churches (Seeker sensitive, and Emergent) are trying to create the third place atmosphere of cafés and pubs. But, is that really how we want to win the lost, and is that the goal of assembling? Getting more people into our building doesn’t mean we have made followers of Christ, though it could be a good hangout. Part of me wishes the church was a third place for our society, but when I think about it Biblically, the church is not the building we gather in. When we speak of the church we must remember she is the living body of Christ, not a location. When I first read about this phrase I was sad thinking why can’t church be the “third place” in people’s lives? But then it hit me, it’s not about the gathering at the building it’s the gathering of the body.
When we want the church to be the third place for our society we make the building the issue and that is wrong.
The early church was a "third" place for many in Jerusalem but it was more than a first-century Starbucks. When they met at the temple daily (Acts 2:46) they gathered under the anointing of the Lord, not the comfort of the flesh. The presence of God was so amazing people lined the streets to join them. The reason they gathered is described in Acts 2:42,
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.”
So what is missing in our gatherings is the glory of God. It seems that “third places” replaced the church in our society because the glory of God is absent from the gathering of the believers. We must be so careful not to fall into the trap of getting people to gather at our building for the comfort of a hangout, it then just becomes about the building and the product.
Our third place actually must be the fellowship in the Spirit wherever we are. Remember Jesus said that the “third place” for the people of God is wherever two or more are gathered. Jesus said it is there that “I am in your midst.” While so many churches are trying to design ways to get people together as a third place, there is a place that we should occupy daily; a place where we go with other believers as our third place, no matter where we are gathered. That place is not confined by walls but is the fellowship in the Holy Spirit.
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