Second Presbyterian

The site for the Amigos de K’eckchi event was Second Presbyterian Church, a reasonably large church in SW suburban Nashville that apparently hosted a number of community events/services. The church we were told has a commercial quality kitchen that helps prepare Meals on Wheels for older adults in SW Nashville. On Saturday we were asked to park in a different lot because of an Exchange Club activity that took up two of the church’s parking lot – a – well – exchange – apparently the church and the Exchange Club of Nashville help facilitate Sat AM visitation transfers between parents. The lot we had parked in Friday PM was – appropriately, in our case – the designated mother’s lot. Another lot was the father’s lot (I actually didn’t see any of these transfers.)
The first hint that something might be unusual about this large church was when we walked inside Friday PM from what was the next morning to be the mother’s lot. Inside we found ourselves in a beautiful, modern/rustic café/fellowship hall/contemporary worship space with a small kitchen (with a dishwasher and round tables! – both of which we’ve been talking about acquiring at our church). It conjured up images both of 1960s coffee houses, Starbucks, and even a bar. We went to the counter around the kitchen for our buffet dinner, and sat talking in the round tables (they had assigned seats and disbursed us so we didn’t just talk with those we came with. Saturday morning’s worship turned the room more explicitly into a contemporary worship space, as four singers/musicians led us in singing, mainly in Spanish. For the workshops we retired to one of a couple of seminar/classrooms that ringed the big room. Apparently, the church had thought they would run out of money to fill in the big room with more facilities and built and planned the shell to be finished later. When the capital building fund actually exceeded their expectations they looked for ways to finish the facility. A church staffperson saw a similar space at another church, in a different town, and came home on a mission for Second to do something similar

But this was all actually part of a bigger story. Apparently earlier this decade the old Second Presbyterian sanctuary and some of the adjoining buildings burnt to the ground. Initially, suspicion fell on some of the clients of a homeless ministry church. But eventually it appeared that a wiring problem was to blame (possibly a boombox in the youth room...which was the point of origin for the fire and was found in the basement having burnt through the floor). The church negotiated an insurance settlement. As devastated as the church was, to a younger member who showed me some of the phoenix-like structures that emerged, the incident was actually a blessing in disguise. In addition to the room and classrooms that we saw, the church got to build an entirely new sanctuary and new downstairs children’s and youth education classrooms and activity rooms. As impressive as the whole thing was, the sanctuary itself – though I’m sure updated – didn’t really look 100% different from what I was imagining it looked like before. Maybe the balcony was bigger, maybe the acoustics and wiring (one hopes) were better, but the actual design probably wasn’t 100% different. Part of this is just habit – when in large new churches, I’m used to them being set up for contemporary worship, rather than more traditional – not just like Southeast Christian, with the huge 8,000-plus seat arena/sanctuary in southeastern Louisville, but also the church where Stephanie and I and our friend Sarah and her date and their friends went to see a Christian rock concert (also in eastern Louisville).

But the space where we spent most of our time did seem unique, and the downstairs classrooms/etc. we visited were very cool. It was almost enough to inspire one to think about renovations to our church that we’re contemplating, although I believe we’re going to be going relatively low budget. Good meetings, good people, great setting (See also “Hospitality” and the video with the link to it embedded) for a little more about the church.)

-- Perry