Sacred space: function and mission from a sociological and theological perspective

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with 21 individuals who attend religious services mainly for religious holidays and rites of passage and case studies with a Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation and a Roman Catholic congregation, we offer a sociological and theological discussion of ‘sacred space’. Sociologically, we argue that sacred space is an important reason for why annual attenders attend religious services when they do, mainly because sacred space helps to centre them with some semblance of meaning and direction, transition and transformation in life. Theologically, we show that church leaders, when thinking about and creating sacred space relative to the mission of their church, give importance to individuals' religious journeys and transformation. However, they appear to give greater ascendancy to the missional belief that sacred space should facilitate horizontal relationships between humans more so than vertical relationships between humans and God.