Coworking Space?

In my last blog I mentioned the innovation factor that happens when city blocks are diverse and short.  People, different kinds of people, end up walking and mixing.  Then there is through that interaction a combustion of ideas and partnerships.  And that’s why churches as they measure their health ought to consider as one of their factors their “mix” – especially new members and tenured members, young and old.

USA Today featured Atlanta amongst its articles this week.  Atlanta is becoming a high tech center.  One of the signs of that was how a Coworking space dedicated to high tech sold out even before it was finished. 

Coworking?  It is an open office and people bring in their desks plus computers.  There’s a common coffee pot and drinking fountain.  There’s a common kitchenette.  There’s whatever the “tenants” and the developers come up with that they want to have in common.  But it is space where people under a theme (like, in this case, tech) come together to do their own private work.  But they talk on the way in.  They meet each other and catch lunch together.  One ends up resourcing the other.

It could happen in a chat room or through Linked In.  But there’s something in the face-to-face and serendipity that I suspect can’t be duplicated virtually. 

The thought I had pop up as I read about Coworking Space was how churches could be leaner and brighter if they had coworking space.  In any community draw a radius of three miles and you will find five or ten churches most likely.  Imagine one office centrally located with shared copier, curriculum, coffee pot, secretarial pool, coop purchasing power, library, …. The list of cost saving and … here’s the point … cross fertilizing opportunities is big. 

I’m a Presbyterian and that’s somewhere in our idea of connectionalism.  Problem is we’re spread a pretty good distance and we’re all in the same camp.  Coworking in tighter geographical but broader denominational circles could be pretty exciting for Christ and his kingdom.