Clue To Christian Churches -- Unlock Your Doors

[Tace]

I was just walking down the street and noticed that the local Roman Catholic church was locked down tight... doors and gates locked. And this is a Sunday.

I know this isn't just a Catholic thing. All Christian churches lock their doors most of the time. Even the Quaker meeting, of which I am a member, has its doors locked to the public most of the time.

Message from Christ -- Unlock the doors to the churches. Give water to the thirsty. Feed the hungry. Provide a roof to the homeless. Provide solice to the troubled.

Just what the heck do you think you're doing anyway?

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. Capitalism trumps religion 10 out of 10 times.

[Initech]

2. I think the fact that TBN made $120 million last year proves that!

[FreedomAngel82]

3. Interesting

My church does lock it's doors when nobody is there but there's a phone book to call and during the day there's secretary's there and stuff and they can decide to let you in or not. On Sunday's there's several things going on so the door's are usually open then. :shrug: Strange. Were their doors locked during services?

[Tace]

5. I'm Sure The Doors Were Open During Services

I posit that church doors and gates should not even have locks.

Why locks? So stuff doesn't get stolen? Consider the Bishop in Les Miserable who, when confronted by police with a man who had taken his silver candlesticks, told the police that he had given them to the man.

In other words, nothing can be stolen, if we don't define it as theft.

Church doors should have no locks.

[Bouncy Ball]

4. The problem in my UU church is that it has been

burglarized and vandalized three times in three months. They've had to replace windows over and over each time they are broken. The crazy thing is there isn't much of value in our church. They started to take the microwave oven last time and I guess just changed their mind or got scared and left it right outside the back door.

We had a big banner outside that announced us as a welcoming congregation for the GLBT community and someone spray-painted anti-gay slurs on it so bad that I won't type them out here. We had to take it down. Can't re-use it and it was $150. Not a small amount to a congregation with 75 people.

:shrug:

Otherwise, I'm sure the lay minister of our church would LOVE to do so.

[Tace]

6. I Certainly Understand The Reasons The Doors Are Locked

Yet, I suggest that locking the doors keeps God's children out.

[Bouncy Ball]

7. God's children are welcome in my UU church.

In fact, seeing as there are atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Jews, every different kind of Christian, pagans, etc and people of all skin colors and sexualities, I'd say they are more welcome there than in any church I've ever attended.

Which is SO damn nice, I have to say.

http://www.uua.org

To hear the lay minister speak out against racism, bigotry, homophobia, poverty, etc is just.....well....amazing. I've honestly never heard that in a church before, and that's sad (we were Methodist and I was born Church of Christ).

[Tace]

8. UU Churches Are Great

Now if we can just figure a way to keep the doors open, so that someone thirsty, hungry, homeless and troubled at 4 a.m. in a snowstorm can find shelter.

[Bouncy Ball]

9. No one would be there, though.

Do you mean in cases where someone is there all the time or not? Maybe I misunderstood.

And I do hear you--that would be just ideal!!! Wonderful. And didn't churches used to do that? I thought I remembered reading big churches in Europe were open to anyone all the time, you could run into a church for shelter.

[Tace]

11. There Was A Church In Philadelphia That Kept A Chapel Open 24/7

It wasn't staffed. I was broke, hitchhiking through Philly, and I pulled on the door... and it was open!

There wasn't any heat. But I slept that night on a pew. I suppose I could have stolen a few dollars from the little collection box, without guilt, but I didn't. I think that church had the right idea.

[Bouncy Ball]

12. That's so great.

[alfredo]

19. Does the UU still shut down in the summer?

The UU church burned down in my old home town. They were very active in the anti war movement. I think that was why they got torched.


I went to a meeting there during the Vietnam war. When we left, the church was surrounded by police in riot gear. We were told by the organizers to stay silent, don't make eye contact and do not do anything that would give them reason to attack. There were no incidents that night. It was difficult to pass between them without brushing against one, but we had to because that could have been seen a provocation.

[BeTheChange]

10. It is interesting you bring this up...

Well, atleast to me because its something our family was discussing recently.

My husband and I moved to Dallas about a year ago and we havent made any strides to find a church. The type of Christianity Ive seen here hasnt been one that I wanted to be a part of. I really need to refocus my eyes on that and drop my predjudices.. but that is a whole other post.

In anycase, my FIL is a minister. He was a hippie who found God during the 70s, so he is a different kind of minister then most. He came to visit us from home in CA for the first time recently and it was important to him that we tried to go to a Wednesday night service. I wasnt raised religious, persay.. we were catholic until my mother got remarried and then of course, we werent welcome in the same way anymore which left a bad taste in my mouth for religion for about 15 years. But I was so surprised when we started calling churches to find a service we could attend with him and found that here, in the land of mega churches, we could not locate one that had a wednesday night service. Not Prestonwood, not the Pottershouse, not anywhere... 21000 person congregations! FIL specializes in travelling around giving lectures and writing books about growing your church and we had a lengthy discussion about how this was become alot more common. Which is just unfathomable to me. If you are a church like The Potter's house that makes millions upon millions of dollars every year, I feel like I should be able to walk in at 3am on a Tuesday night and be able to speak to someone. On wednesday night, there should be a service for me to attend.. or tuesday, or anyday. I remember growing up in NY and being able to show up at the local parish in the dead of night and there would be someone there. It greatly troubles me that the more money some of these churches make, the more they bang they try to get for the buck and forget what their purpose truly is.

[Nikia]

13. Several churches in my hometown are open

All of the time. My dad's cousin was a minister of an intercity church in a large city and they kept their doors unlocked too as a matter of principal. My grandmother told her church about this and insisted that they didn't lock their doors either.
I haven't been to churches around here except on Sunday so I am not sure about their locking policies when no one is around.

[Tace]

15. That Sounds Good

Why lock the doors?

The answer to that is the starting point.

[flordehinojos]

14. i know that years ago, the Catholic Church i used to go to, kept its doors

unlocked, until they had more than a couple of robberies from the box for the poor, the sacristy and the box for the poor which was kept inside the church. then they started to lock the church during those times when there were no massess being said.

[Tace]

16. That's Too Bad

My feeling is that we need to look at the reasons for locking the doors. People stealing stuff? Is that a good reason? Why are people stealing?

Well, you get my point.

[Cleita]

21. Not to mention that the chalices and patens are often of

gold and silver and not just plated.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. There was a time when churches didn't lock their doors

[WillowTree]

18. We can all assume, then...

....that you don't lock your home or car.

[BeTheChange]

20. Heh...

You do make a good point :)

[TrogL]

22. Trying to prevent theft

We've had people come in and steal stuff from the sanctuary while the service was in progress never mind while the church was relatively unsupervised.

[NMMNG]

23. Security

They need to protect themselves from theft and liability. It would be nice if people could just walk in and find shelter but if they do and get injured they might turn around and sue the church for damages. How many churches can afford that risk?

It's a sad world out there, but thank all the ambulance chasers for that one. (not to impugne the legitimate lawyers of course)

[DemBones DemBones]

24. So, do you lock your house? Do you lock your car?

Churches have learned that unlocked doors are an invitation to burglars and vandals, not to the needy looking for shelter. There aren't that many people who steal only to eat, a la Jean Valjean. Some people would go into an open church and trash the place, steal anything they thought they could sell, tear up hymnals, just dumb stuff like that, stuff that wouldn't help them but would cost the church money.

Most churches are involved in feeding and sheltering the poor in some way -- some operate shelters or community kitchens themselves, on their own property, some contribute to local operations but don't manage the programs themselves. Most churches also contribute to efforts to help the poor in other countries. Since you mentioned the local Roman Catholic church being locked, I must note that the Roman Catholic Church has a particularly good record of serving the poor around the world.

There are practical reasons why simply opening a church's doors to the poor doesn't work. Suppose the First XXX Church decides to do that -- just leave the building open at all times for anyone to use. How long do you suppose it would be before someone entered the open building to rob and/or assault anyone who had sought shelter there? Opening the church to anyone means rapists and robbers can get in, too.

To prevent such a thing, the church would have to come up with the funding to provide good security round the clock. I doubt your Quaker meeting could do that; I doubt most churches could. Even if a church could afford that, is that the best possible use of their money? Couldn't they be more effective putting that money into programs to benefit the poor directly, including already existing shelters and feeding efforts? A church with doors open to all round the clock would also need increased janitorial staff, unless you think allowing the poor to sleep in a filthy space would be a good idea.

Just opening the doors sounds good but practicalities argue against it.