On "Third Places" and Why St. John the Divine Should Be One

Sometimes inspiration comes from unlikely places. I recently stumbled upon an article published in the winter 1997 issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal (of all sources!). I think it offers important wisdom for congregations desiring vitality and growth. The essay was written by an urban sociologist named Ray Oldenburg and entitled “Our Vanishing ‘Third Places.’” What can today’s Christians learn from a 28-year-old piece written for city planners and secular authorities dealing with land use issues? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Oldenburg’s article presupposes that since World War II, too much modern residential and urban development has been designed to protect people from community rather than to connect them to it. He describes American culture as one in which many people live out their days between increasingly privatized home lives and office-centric work lives. Oldenburg argues that a glaringly missing link between the two primary places of home and work are “third places"— informal public spaces where citizens have traditionally gathered, socialized, and developed community.

Historically, “third places” in American life have been general stores, inns, taverns, soda fountains, diners, and coffee shops. As anyone familiar with Starbucks knows, “third places” are central to that coffee chain’s strategy of creating environments for social gatherings outside of home and work.

As a little boy growing up in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, I knew a Saturday morning trip to the Post Office with my father would mean waiting for him to visit with fellow townspeople for at least 30 minutes. A downtown excursion with my mother to the drug store involved milling about the aisles while she conversed with the pharmacist about his family, with patrons about current events, and with the women behind the lunch counter about the soup of the day! There was no running an errand without socializing. Our town was brimming with “third places.”

The local church where I grew up was also a deeply formative “third place” of communal life. I came to understand that the end of the worship service was merely the beginning of the social hour. The experience of being a Christian was more than personal salvation. It was about important social fellowship with other members of the body.

I often reference this passage from the Book of Acts describing the life of those first Christians in Jerusalem: “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home, and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (Acts 2:46-47). I love this text because it is a supreme witness that joyful Christian fellowship is not only the vision for church life; it is also the means of missional attraction. People want to be part of a joyful fellowship.

As we continue developing our strategic plan for the future, central to our vision is to be more and more a parish of warmth, welcome, belonging, and fellowship where friendships, life-long as well as brand-new, are formed among diverse but united believers in Christ. I am paying attention to accumulating social survey data that indicates more unchurched people and young adults exploring church are seeking relationships before content, and social spaces more than teaching, or even inspirational, spaces. This is why our newly developed Master Campus Plan is so important for our future. Our proposed improvements cohere around large, open social spaces for people to gather, socialize, and get to know one another every day of the week.

In 2025, we will focus on ways that SJD can grow as a dynamic “third place” for our members and the city. We will seek to re-energize and expand small groups, bring greater clarity to how newcomers can integrate into the life of the parish, encourage our membership to invite friends and neighbors to SJD, and assess how our outreach ministries may serve as “on-ramps” to relationships within our parish. I envision a day soon when many more people will want to be on our campus not only for inspiring worship, sound Christian learning, and well-run programs, but because it is an inviting, life-giving “third place” to “hang out,” socialize with others, and experience the joy of Christian fellowship.

Almost 28 years ago, Oldenburg recognized people’s “frustrated need for affiliation.” Many cultural observers say our age is characterized by an “epidemic of loneliness.”  Since Oldenburg’s article appeared in the 1990s, many have taken advantage of highly convenient but socially isolating remote work, further exacerbating this problem. Oldenburg writes that it is not “a coincidence that the joie de vivre cultures of the world are those in which third places are regarded as just as essential as home and work. ‘Joy in living’ depends upon peoples’ capacity to enjoy the company of those who live and work around them.”

“Joy in living” depends not only on spaces that offer opportunities for social interaction and fellowship with others. The relational joy that our Lord desires for us in the Christian life – and that so much already defines our special character at St. John the Divine  –  is also the spark that lights the fires of mission. “Day by day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” 

Weekly Wisdom

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t’ really matter.”

—Francis Chan, American Christian writer, speaker, and teacher

One Good Recommendation

Unveiling Mercy: 365 Daily Devotions by Chad Bird (New Reformation Publications, 2020)

The upcoming beginning of a new calendar year is an excellent time for a New Year’s resolution devoted to daily devotional reading. I recommend this resource with its one-page daily mediations based on passages from the Bible. Bird is a writer, lecturer, and professor of the Old Testament who is especially gifted in identifying the seeds of the gospel sown in the Hebrew Scriptures. I found this book highly readable and inspiring.