Planting A Church In A Movie Theater

I spent some time yesterday afternoon with Tony Balsamo, associate pastor at Grace Gospel Church, who is getting ready to plant a new church on Easter Sunday next year. He's looking for a place to rent for Sunday services and seems to have been quite inspired by our innovative use of a movie theater.

So I went with him to check out the Movieland Theater on Montauk Highway in Mastic to see whether it would be suitable for a church to rent. It looks pretty positive, though the largest theater only holds 200 and like most modern movie theaters, they don't have the stage that we are blessed with in Theater 13 at Patchogue UA. Now he has to sort out price and make up his mind if that's where he wants to be. Movie theaters are tailor-made for churches.

I know a bunch of guys who are using them - all over the country. Hardly a week goes by without me getting a call from someone who is thinking about renting one for a church and they want to know our experience.

Here's what I like about our theater - in no particular order -

1. IT'S CHEAP
It's slightly more than half the rent we were paying at Patchogue-Medford High School and less than we paid at the Crystal Swan for more than three years.

2. IT'S SPACIOUS
I have no idea how many square feet we actually use, but when you take into consideration all that we do in the foyer, the hallways and the theater for our service, we use a heck of a lot of space.

3. NO AGGRO
This is huge. We have a great relationship with the management. They know us now and trust us to get on with it. So a manager opens up for us each week - generally Tina - and then totally leaves us to do our own thing. So we can do breakfasts, baptisms, or whatever other crazy things we occasionally get up to.

4. IT'S NON-THREATENING
Now I don't know about you, but the nine months we spent in the school were not my favorite time in the life of our church. Apart from getting bounced out of there every third week because of recess, school concert, graduation or they just didn't want us, my main issue was I get horrible flashbacks when I go into a school. I'm 55 years old, but when I go into a school building, I feel like I'm still the fourth grader trembling in front of the fearful spinster, Miss Kynaston who was my teacher. I was glad to get out of school. Going to movie theaters on the other hand, is fun!

5. IT'S ACCESSABLE
There's no spell-check on this thing - is that spelled right? Anyway, the point is, movie theaters are generally on major roads and are easy to get to. Ours can be reached easily from north, east or west - of course there isn't too much south of us, but that's close too. Most people also know where it is, which saves detailed directions having to be written on a diner napkin.

6. IT HAS A BIG SCREEN
I know that's stating the obvious for a movie theater, but I don't know too many other churches that have screens as big as ours.

7. IT GIVES YOU AN ANGLE
We milk the churchatthemovies thing for all it's worth. It has become part of our identity and helps us stand out.

So until we have a place of our own - we'll keep enjoying life at the movies!