The Vision: How We'd Use the Space Part 2...Downstairs

Yesterday we talked about how we'd use the upstairs parsonage space for various ministries if we converted it for church use.  Today we get to the most exciting part of all...the downstairs.  You're not going to believe this!

When talking about the upstairs we talked about Sunday School, counseling, small group meetings.  We didn't mention the youth much.  The youth would use the upstairs for sure.  Their Sunday School classes would be there...confirmation too probably.  By that long table in the dining room would be a shelf with board games so they could just grab, sit, and play.  They'd use the kitchen for food/drinks and the living room for small group meetings just like everybody else.  But the really special youth-group-oriented "wow factor" stuff happens downstairs.  Here we can do things that nobody else has even thought of...that few youth groups dream of.

When you descend the stairs into the parsonage basement you're in a rectangular room, much wider left to right than it is front to back.  Right now we use this as our exercise room.  But we've also hung a TV on the wall and it doubles for another purpose:  movie watching.  In fact the room and TV are so good for this that we actually found some discount movie theater chairs which Brent Studer was kind enough to mount on small risers for us.  When you walk into our basement you see five seats just like you'd have in a real cinema, with folding bottoms and arms and cup holders and everything.  In fact our chairs are nicer than some of the ones in actual theaters.  And they aren't that expensive if you know where to look.  The TV is the perfect size for the room.  The end effect is that, once seated, you feel like you're in an actual theater.

Now, because we're using the room for more than one purpose we can only fit five seats in there so it's for small-group movie watching only.  But if you cleared our stuff out I'm guessing you could fit between 16 and 21 theater seats in that space while keeping a good sight-line to the screen for everybody.  That means you'd have Genesee's only actual movie theater in our basement.  The screen is there, the player is there, the sound system is set up...it's already ready to go.  Imagine movie night actually being MOVIE NIGHT!  And all without ever leaving town.

There's also a side area to the main basement room perfect for putting the small pop fridge that's in our church kitchen now.  It would be cool to have a couple of the guys maybe build us a cabinet for snacks as well.  Without much work our theater now has its own snack bar attached.  What could be cooler?

Note also that any Sunday School classes who wanted to use videos could just walk down the stairs and watch!

There are five rooms off of the main basement/theater room.  One is a bathroom.  Two are unheated and are suitable mostly for storage, but they'd provide a lot of that.  The fourth would become the middle-school Sunday School classroom.  Again there's plenty of space and storage within this room, just like the upstairs ones.

The fifth and final room would become another youth haven.  It's fairly small and rectangular but it's eminently suitable for conversion into a computer room.  It's not hard to get slightly older computers and to hook them together through a Local Area Network.  You could probably set up 5-6 in that room.  Throw in chairs to sit in and you have a dual-purpose homework area and computer game room.  The youth and I have several games we like to play together via computer.  The problem is, in order to make it work folks have to tear down their desktop computers, bring them over to the parsonage, find a place to set them up, hook up the network...it's an hour of work minimum before we can even start playing.  I can't tell you what a blessing it would be to have a half-dozen computers already hooked up and ready to go.  We'd say, "Hey, want to do this?"  Then we'd walk down there, turn on the computers, and be ready to go.  Anybody who needed to do work on a computer for school could also use the system.

Again, we're not talking state-of-the-art computers here, but we don't need those.  We have several entertaining games that can be played on computers that are 3-4 years old or older.  And those same computers serve well for word processing or internet research.  We could probably set up the whole system for the price of one super-duper fancy brand new computer.

Since we talked about Sunday School and counseling last time, let's take a look at what we've given the youth group here.  We're not doing things much differently than they normally do.  We're talking board games, movies, snacks, video/computer games, and a space to hang out and shoot the breeze.  We're just doing the things they already love to do...stuff that comes naturally.  In the normal course of things, though, they'd each be doing these things in isolation, alone in their rooms or living rooms without much interaction except through a screen.  Making this space available will pull them out of those isolated rooms, get them together, let them interact, give them some adult interaction as well.  This space--even if it's just the amazement at being able to go watch a movie in actual theater chairs--will be a reminder that somebody's interested in them and somebody cares...half the battle in any youth ministry.  And I guarantee you that the kids who come to use the space will be bragging to their friends around town that they have this...and their friends, by the way, will also be invited.

Next time we're going to talk about the unique characteristics of this project...why nobody (even people who build grand and glorious youth ministry complexes) has anything like this and why maybe they should.  We'll also cover how this project is distinct from the also-excellent effort to get a community center going in town and why such an effort--for all the good it would do--would cover different bases than the ones we need for these purposes.  Then early next week we'll take a look at the cost (hint:  it ain't that much) and what steps, challenges, and obstacles remain between us and making this vision a reality.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)