What would your ideal church be like?

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A few years back i joined the Unitarian Universalists church. Can truthfully say it was one of the most positive experiences i've ever had with an organised 'spiritual' system.

i understand that the UU cogregations may vary somewhat according to what each particulairly emphesises...some lean more toward christianity some toward some other, some toward a more humanistic view. The one i joined was the latter, but all are concerned with modern issues, and with approaches to improving things both localy and globaly. And they work toward those ends.

All are welcome in all UU churches...the best in view education of gay families i got was from members of this church, i mention it because living in the backwater of a backwater presents little oppertunity for that kind of encounter.
They made many occassions to get together and celebrate, each Sunday service ends around a coffee pot and talk and laughter and munchings. There is more then one special intrests 'fun' group for during the week-socialising.

The one reason my association ended with them was the long distance for attending, and my eyesight made night driving dangerouse.

The thread theme was what would my ideal church be like, well, this is it, i don't have to make one up.

Last year myself and some friends had a couple of open air services... the simplicity and the closeness to nature made it a really special experience.

So that would be my ideal church... outside, maybe under a tree.

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http://www.fireinthehapter.co.uk - A hapless webcomic

The World as described by Louis Armstrong

I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
I really know they are saying I love you
And I think to myself what a wonderfull world


Now thats a Church

A synagogue.

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"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

"An Ideal Church is Human Body.'

i like that pinski.

Interestingly, last week, as I was recounting my the history of my church affiliations, someone asked me why I had switched deniminations so often.

And it all came down to friendliness, or some sort of special attraction that had nothing to do with dogma or doctrine. I first switched from the United Church I was raised in to a Presbyterian congregation because when we moved to a new locality it was more friendly and welcoming. Later, in another town, I attended an Anglican church so I could sing in the choir as the local United Church had none. When I married a Baptist, I took classes and accepted baptism by immersion (though I had been previously baptized by sprinkling) and joined the Baptist Church. When my husband (not me) became dissatisfied with the Baptist congregation (it was not his original one as we had moved to a new locality) we explored other options and settled again on Presbyterian where I remained for thirty years. During the last ten years I was on the national staff of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. So when I moved once again, I checked out the local Presbyterian congregation first, then the United congregation (where I still feel at home) but settled on the very welcoming Anglican congregation.

So for me, it is people who have a welcoming attitude toward newcomers that makes an ideal church. Probably because for so much of my life I have been the newcomer.

My ideal church is much the same way I precieve god:

A silent, invisible, oderless, tasteless, formeless entity that emits no energy and bears no effect whatsoever on anything real.

Waka-waka! Just a little atheist humor.

Really, if by church you mean a place to meet and unite with other people, I would say a wild setting, perhaps nestled in the mountains in a grassy clearing next to a spot where a stream pools up under a waterfall, would do the trick. A place that required some effort to reach and offered the reward of fresh air, naked nature and a long view of the world at large would give the attendees a sense of accomplishment and unity.

Being a Baha'i we don't have "churches" ... No ministers or church buildings. Most Baha'is meet in each others' homes or occasionally a Baha'i CEnter. Baha'is elect their own Local Spiritual Assembly annually which sees that various services are carried out....

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

We already live in a large church called earth, but people have this compulsion to build boxes and call them "special" or "holy" when one plot of dirt is just as "holy" as the next. There is no "God-forsaken " place anywhere.
We walk around in bodies which are living "tabernacles" and the congregation includes everyone with no distinction.


Eventually humanity will wake up to such a paradigm and see the wonder in the "simple and common" things which they overlook as they seek in vain elsewhere for that which is right before their eyes.