In Defense of the Edifice Complex

One of the cleverest phrases to come out of the emerging church is right there in the title to this post: Edifice Complex.

In case you’re not sure why this is clever, I’ll explain. An “Oedipus Complex” (pronounced Ed-i-pus) is a romantic love or desire for one’s own parent.

To be fair, it was not the emerging church community who coined this term. It’s been used more widely in regard to politics and business than religion.

More Buildings. Bigger Buildings.

No matter what arena (no pun intended) of life it refers to, an Edifice Complex implies a fixation on the need for more buildings, or bigger buildings, or nicer buildings, to accomplish one’s purposes. Often this obsession relates to visibility: the more impressed people are with the number and/or size of your buildings, the more favorable will their opinion be of you and your operation.

So it’s easy to see why the emerging church would level this accusation at the institutional church. The phenomenon of the 90s was Megachurch; swelling and bloating as the influx of attendants reaches into the thousands and even tens-of-thousands.

The phenomenon of the 21st century has taken us in a different direction… Multi-site churches. Rather than build larger and larger buildings, as these churches grow they establish more and more campuses. Usually this involves a whole separate staff for each site, with the exception of the grand exalted senior pastor, who is “beamed” in each Sunday by closed-circuit television, or failing that, by tape.

Forgive me for sounding cynical. I will state outright that many Megachurches, and many Multi-site churches are populated and run by wonderful people, and are doing huge amounts of good in their respective communities. But if there were examples to point to of the Edifice Complex, look no futher. More buildings… Bigger buildings.

Just in case you’re in danger of some type of clarity, I’m now going to flip this whole thing upside-down. Because in our rebellion against the Edifice Complex, many of us have become suspicious of church buildings altogether. Some have come to believe that the church should not own property or equipment, or have a maintenance or housekeeping staff. Because the church is simply people, and people can meet anywhere! Especially when we are keeping things small and intimate.

And I would agree to that last sentiment. We can meet anywhere. Even in larger groups we have far more choices than many Christians seem to realize. But there is an important aspect of humanity that is getting left out of the equation here, and that is:

A Sense of Place

It is ironic that, even as our society’s Edifice Complex has raged out of control, we have been losing our sense of place. On the other hand, it may not be ironic at all. The more buildings we build, and the more quickly we build them, the less of ourselves we invest in the quality of those spaces, and the less relevance they will have in our lives.

I have few complaints about my workplace. It may not be fancy or well-appointed on the inside, but it is a 100-year old building in a historic district, and I like that. But when I go to my friend Raeganne to get my hair cut, I go to a brand-new building that looks 100 years old, and sometimes I wish I could work there instead. You could show up an hour early and sit down to wait without ever picking up a magazine, and yet you’d be entertained. I wish I was sitting there as I write this, so I could describe the décor in detail. But this salon, called Mojo Pie, is one of the wackiest places you’ll ever experience. It’s as if a pirate and a hippie got married and took up interior design together. When you’re there, you feel like you’re someplace.

Even as our sense of space has increased (especially in Texas) our sense of place has flown out the window. Our memories are wrapped up indelibly in the places they occur. The aesthetics of our daily commutes guide our thoughts, and the layout of our homes determine our movements. Each place has a feel, a personality, and a spirit of its own.

It is obvious that God understands this. He tied every story, and even the vast majority of spiritual concepts, to physical places: Jerusalem, Egypt, Athens, the Temple, the Tabernacle, the Stone of Help, the Jordan River, the Garden of Eden, the Camp, the Altar, the Desert. Our story is wrapped up in specific years, in proper names, and in real locales… it is a story with flesh on its bones. Even “The Word” is more a Person than it is a concept.

So for a church to have a sense of space is only natural. To want to own that space is not necessarily wrong. But to entertain that sense of space without a sense of place is a big mistake, and a failure to understand the human spirit. We need to think about how life really happens, and mold our spaces into places that will put flesh on the bones of our own stories, as they unfold from day to day.

If we’re going to have edifices, then so be it. But let’s not build them and decorate them so hastily and thoughtlessly. Let’s invest ourselves in them, to become the stuff of relationship, of emotion, of growth, of challenge, of memory, of welcome, and of the body-life that God intended us to live.



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