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Topic: Sanctity of the Sanctuary

Is the gymnasium at the 'Y' as a good of a church* as a cathedral?

by Michael Ramsay

Founder, H-V News Service

November 3, 2003

Believe it or not, this is actually quite a controversial question: Is the gymnasium at the  'Y' as a good of a place for Christian worship services as a cathedral?  There are actually two separate issues tied to this topic and a third that is not entirely divorced from it: 1) Is it good to hold services in buildings designed for non-Christian purposes? 2) Is it good to rent out the Church sanctuary to non- or anti-Christian organizations? 3) When building a church, is it good to build a sanctuary that doubles as a gymnasium?

Is it good to hold services in buildings designed for non-Christian purposes?

Claiming or reclaiming from the World (or the Devil) something for God, cannot be bad.  If something has been built for evil or non-Godly purposes, it cannot be bad to take it over and use it for good.  That is a victory for God and a cause for celebration for His soldiers! 

If one rents space not exclusively dedicated to God for a few hours a week, one does need to be wary of a few things, however.  The building, in this case, does not belong to God. One must pray for the building (and / or rooms that the church members are renting) before conducting the service. For those who accept the idea of demonic activity, they must be careful ask God to clear the church of any demons.  For those who do not full-heartedly embrace the idea of a particularly active spirit realm, it is still very important to make sure that the building is dedicated to God - after all the service that you will be holding there is supposed to be for His benefit!

One should also pay attention to what the money one spends on renting the facility actually goes towards. Remember that the money you are spending to rent the facility has been dedicated to God. You would hate to have money dedicated to God spent on the Devil or anti-Christian activities - right?

Is it good to rent out the Church sanctuary to non- or anti-Christian organizations?

Just as taking space from the Devil to give to God is a cause for celebration, so taking what is God's and giving (or worse) renting it to the Devil cannot be good. In my opinion, the best thing about some of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world is simply the fact that they were build for the glory of God: sure the money could have been spent on other pursuits but, like Mary's perfume, it was meant to honour Jesus.

What possible reason could one have for renting something that is God's to the World? Isn't that similar to renting out your spouse to someone? Both your marriage and your Church building, after all, are dedicated to God. Can you imagine approaching your spouse, "Honey . . . after all it is only for one hour and a half a week and we need the money. With some of that money we could go out for dinner on Tuesday  . . ."? 

You do not take from God. He will provide for His ministry. Believe it or not he doesn't need you to accomplish His goals; He certainly does not need you to lend out or rent out what is His because you seem to be a little short of cash. 

One has to make a decision: is the building built, or dedicated, to the glory of God or not? At best, if you rent it out you are only doing so because you are attempting to serve two masters - God and money. At worst, you are intentionally trying to profane the holy.

When building a church, is it good to build a sanctuary that doubles as a gymnasium?

Well, what do you think: is the sanctuary a particularly holy part a holy building or is it just another room in the building?  If it is wholly set aside for the worship of God, than it should remain as such. If one room was (is) as equally dedicated to God as another and it matters not to anyone in the congregation (we would hate for anyone to be alienated, or stumble, when it is so easily avoided in this case) where 'outreach basketball' is played on Wednesday evenings at seven, then why not have it in the sanctuary? Really though - it is not  necessary to have basketball in the sanctuary if simply building a gym would be looking out for the weaker brother or sister. Realy, what's more important?

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* for the purpose of this article the word "church", unless otherwise specified, refers to a building in which church services, masses, or meetings are held. 

Michael Ramsay was the founding publisher of Waves Magazine: the Journal of International Education, a former college director, and principal. He also worked at the BC Ministry of Education in the Examinations and Learning Resources Branches as well as at Defence Research - Dockyard Lab Pacific.  He started Havelock-VIHA for us back in 1996. He is currently the CEO of Galileo College as well as a part of the management team of Pacific Rim College and serving with 614, of the Salvation Army, in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, B.C., Canada. 614's mandate is to win the world for Christ starting with the downtown eastside.

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