The Great Good Place

I could feel the spirit in the place when I walked in. It was present in a sense of welcome, anticipation, and an undercurrent of enthusiasm. It was a feeling not all that common in mainline American churches before the Sunday service. Usually, there's an air of polite and dutiful solemnity, as if people dressed up for a wedding or funeral have gathered to endure a spiritual version of a minor dental procedure. They believe, or hope, that they will be better off for having done it.

But on this Sunday at the Arlington Street Church in downtown Boston, the buzz of quiet, eager conversation and greetings seemed to promise a livelier experience. My impression seemed to jibe with what the minister, the Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie, told me later: "It's a very caring congregation; when you come in you get hit with a love wave."

A smiling, attractive young woman with highlighted blond hair, Ms. Harvie came to the pulpit to welcome people informally and speak to them of her vision for what the church might be at its best. She had come across the work of Ray Oldenburg, a sociologist known as "the Einstein of place," who coined the term "the third place." She explained that in his theory, the first place is home. The second place is work. And the third place, where your community thrives, is called "the great good place."

Oldenburg wasn't primarily thinking of churches, as one can see from the title of his book: "The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community." But why couldn't a church be the "great good place" in the America of the new millennium? Particularly in light of Oldenburg's description of this third place as "a radically different kind of setting from a home," but one that is "remarkably similar to a home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends."

The kind of comfort and support we find at home is created by the attitude and actions of the mother and/or father, the "head of the household," and I think the same is true of many institutions and groups. Just as the character of a football team is shaped by the coach, so the spirit of a church is, in large part, a reflection of the minister.

Continued on page 2: »