Leadership Journal

Nontraditional meeting space has become a standard utensil in the outreach toolbox. Restaurants, school auditoriums, theaters, community centers, even bars and pubs have been put into use for Sunday services. In addition, these "third spaces" (not homes, not workplace) are perceived as safe zones where people can engage the Christian community without full exposure to organized religion.

Leadership has watched with interest as congregations take over innovative spaces for worship. But we have been particularly intrigued by a developing movement that is thinking beyond Sunday morning and has found a unique venue that is both a meeting place and a mission field—the YMCA.

We were introduced to the Y church movement in 2008, when I interviewed Pastor David Newman, whose church meets in the Countryside YMCA in Lebanon, Ohio. "Antioch the Church of the Y" began meeting there as a temporary solution until they could afford to build or buy a permanent facility. But within a couple years, they realized they had stumbled into a mission field.

"I have thousands of people a day walking the halls in the place where I minister," David told us then. "That's an extraordinary opportunity."

Now instead of simply holding services in the Y, Antioch Church understands its ministry as taking place primarily in the Y and through its programs. We reported briefly on this ministry in the Fall 2008 issue of Leadership, noting then that Newman's vision is to see a church meeting in every YMCA in the world—all 14,000 of them.

Shortly after the article ran, we received news that several pastors had read the piece and contacted Newman about planting in a Y. In the months that followed, more than two dozen pastors and planters asked Newman for more information. Of those, five have made earnest efforts to plant missional churches in a YMCA. One church at a time, it seems, Newman's vision of 14,000 lighthouses is becoming a reality.

The YMCA works as a meeting place for a number of practical reasons. The facilities are ready made for the most basic of church ministries—there are classrooms, nurseries, and recreation areas. Many Ys have chapels, which can easily be made into worship space on a Sunday morning. And because most branches don't open for business until late morning or early afternoon on Sundays, churches can hold services without fear of interruption. Plus, someone else is responsible for maintaining the premises, which takes a load off the congregation.

David Newman says of his Y meeting place, "I never have to worry about the property. Instead we are able to focus all of our time and energy on ministerng to our community." That's enough to warm any pastor's heart.

But Newman and other pastors I've talked to are also attracted to the Y for philosophical reasons. There is a golden rule in both real estate and outreach: location is everything. One quality that makes the YMCA attractive to church planters is that they can be found everywhere, from affluent suburbs to inner city neighborhoods, in this country and all over the world. There are nearly 2,700 YMCAs in the United States, which provide services for some 21 million members.

PAGE 1 of 5