Why does the greenroom gather in a nightclub?
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. - Acts 17:24
“Space is never empty; it always embodies meaning.”
Henri Lefebvre, French Sociologist and philosopher
At the greenroom we believe that the setting and location of a community of faith’s gathering place conveys to the world the character of Christ himself. It communicates something eternally profound to the world about who we claim Jesus is, and how he chooses to function in the world he came to rescue.
In short, where we gather becomes the message of the Gospel itself.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus would continually shock and many times anger the religious leaders by choosing to hang out in the everyday places of life; more specifically, places that were considered unclean, ungodly, or unreligious.
Jesus’ actions revealed that every place and every moment is sacred. Not just certain places or even certain days (you may have noticed we gather on Monday nights; we know, strange). And while reading the Gospels we can’t help but get an overwhelming sense that Jesus’ frequent presence in these “unreligious” spaces was not because he felt he had to be there, but because he wanted to be there. He simply enjoyed being around the people he loved.
By intentionally choosing to hang out in the places and with the people that were deemed off limits, Jesus gave the world a glimpse of God’s true character; his radical and compassionate desire to love and be a part of those who live on the fringes of society, and he also gave his followers a model on how we are to express his church and his character to the world.
Simply put, we feel that gathering in a nightclub looks a lot like Jesus (we know, we probably could have just said that and saved a lot of time!).
The greenroom meets on Monday nights beginning September 27, 2010 at 7:30 PM at the Dream Nightclub near the corner of 4th and Liberty in Downtown Ann Arbor. The address is 314 South 4th Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2104. Click here for directions.
