At The Village, we go to great lengths to create environments for people to experience God. From our Sunday worship experience to community groups to leadership meetings, we are creating environments. We do this in order to help people begin to understand the need to develop environments in their own lives to do the same thing.

One key in developing these environments is creating atmosphere. We create atmosphere in everything we do. When we invite people to our homes, we typically clean and do our best to bring them in to a welcoming and comfortable environment. When I am writing or studying, I prefer an atmosphere that is quiet with as few distractions as possible around me. Those atmospheres though, do not happen by accident – they are intentional.

In our Sunday worship experience, we do our best to intentionally create an atmosphere for worship. An entire team of dedicated people arrives at the school we meet at hours before anyone else shows up in order to transform a building from a school into a church. Our goal is to create an attractive, welcoming and exciting environment in which people can have an encounter with God.

For this to happen though, we must be intentional in every aspect of the atmosphere that we are creating. We could show up every week, put out chairs and use the provided lighting with no sound equipment and see what would happen. But we do not feel that this would be the best atmosphere to attract the most people in Midlothian to hear the Gospel. Nor do we feel that we would be giving God our absolute best and bringing him the most glory through everything that we do, as He calls us to in 1 Corinthians 10:31.

God has gifted us with the ability to be creative, and one way that we use this amazing gift is to create an unforgettable atmosphere that lends itself to the worship of God every Sunday. Through the simple use of pipe and draping, as well as creative signage and lighting elements, we have the ability to transform a harshly lit cafeteria into a sanctuary of worship that is both inviting and conducive to excitement.

The message that they will hear during this experience will probably be one of the most uncomfortable and convicting messages they have ever heard. We would like to keep that message the most uncomfortable thing they encounter that morning. If someone never comes back to The Village, we would prefer it be because the Gospel is offensive, and not because we were too lazy to be creative and create an atmosphere for worship.