Although believers of yesteryear often worshipped together in homes, today's churches meet in a variety of unusual spaces. While the YMCA, movie theater or the mall may not have been designed with churches in mind, pastors and their congregations have found them to be suitable, albeit nontraditional, venues for worship, fellowship, evangelism and discipleship.

When my wife and I began searching for venues to launch our church, a movie theater was not the first place that came to mind. We began by looking at some of the more "traditional" locations, such as schools, community centers and warehouses, yet for some reason, God kept drawing us back to the our local AMC theater. What some may have considered an unusual choice of venue seemed to us like the perfect opportunity. In our minds, the theater was fun and innovative, allowing us to connect with our target audiences, those who did not know God or were not already connected to any local faith community.

As we began to plan and dream about North Star Community Church, we started to imagine the creative ways we could use our theater venue to reach people in our area. As pastors, we were a "young-ish" couple who had not begun serving God until our early 20s. We both had life-changing encounters with Jesus, and we wanted to introduce Him to people who were just like we were.

The movie theater seemed like it was an easy, neutral ground between us and the unchurched for many reasons. First, it was a place that most people in our community were already familiar with, so the baggage that came with a "religious" environment would already be removed. Second, the concept of church in a theater was also fun and a little out of the box, just like our church would be. Lastly, this venue helped to communicate the desire we had to be actively involved in our city. Our unique setting showed that North Star was not what our community would expect out of a church, and our hope was that those who walked in with preconceived notions about "religion" would let down their guard with us, if at least for the sake of curiosity.

Starting Conversations Naturally

When looking for a location for our church, we intentionally considered what we call the "intrigue" factor, which we hoped would open doors for conversation. We're often asked, "What is a church doing in a movie theater?" or "How does church work in a theater?" Our personal favorite is: "Does the church own the movie theater?" Some of these questions have given us an easy "in" for getting to know more about the person we are engaging, including his church background, if any, which leads to a natural opportunity to extend an invitation to North Star. This conversation starter has helped us to connect many times with strangers in a coffee shop, friends in a moms' group or players on a baseball diamond. We even had a press release covering our church's grand opening hit the Associated Press, which led to our church being featured on local news stations simply because we were meeting in such a unique place. Our location choice served us more than we originally imagined it could!

As new church planters, we encountered many things that we didn't expect while meeting in a theater environment—some of which were harder than we'd imagined—but many that have been amazing and divinely inspired. When we launched North Star in February 2011, we soon found that we would have many God-ordained conversations because the theater played movies at the same time as our church service. Because of that timing, week after week we encountered people that you would not meet in a traditional church environment. From families who were searching for a church but couldn't find one to people who walked into our theater looking for a movie and ended up finding Christ, we are in awe of how God has used this nontraditional venue to engage people from all walks of life and in all stages of faith. Along with the theater providing a great way to connect with new people Sunday mornings, we also found that our unusual setting gave us creative ways to market ourselves as a church. From purchasing the website URL that capitalizes on our location, thechurchthatsmellslikepopcorn.com, to getting customized microwave popcorn bags with our logo and service times, our venue gives us many fun ways to uniquely market and show off our fresh attitude towards church.

Adding Value Intentionally

Being a church in a movie theater also has helped us in our approach to outreach, which is to find ways to "add value" to people's everyday lives. One of the ways we've tied our venue to our outreach has been to host activities like our free "Rio 2 Family Movie Event." During this event, we opened up the entire theater for anyone to enjoy a free movie—on us. Not only did this give us favor in our city but also with our theater manager, who fully appreciated the additional revenue and numbers received that weekend.

We've also leveraged the theater theme in outreach by distributing "Free Movie Night In" gift bags to people in our city. These packages included a free Redbox code, microwave popcorn bags (with our logos and information), candy and an invitation to our "At the Movies" series.

Lastly, as an Easter Sunday outreach, we've enjoyed hosting our HIStory Easter 3D movie twice in the last few years. Showing the movie during multiple Easter services helped us reach a large number of people for Christ. Pastor Kevin Gerald at Champions Centre in Washington State created the 3-D movie that explains the life and story of Jesus. Not only did their resources help our church build the kingdom, but also because we were new church planters, they worked within our church-planting budget so we could afford to show the movie. We sure had fun watching people come for an Easter service and picking up their 3-D glasses on their way to church!

North Star has also applied the theme of "adding value" to our relationship with the theater in which we meet, working to find ways to bring value to the venue. We have respected the theater's role as a business by continually stating that "we understand they are a movie theater first, and not a church." We have reminded our team and congregation of this fact.

Because we have been intentional in adding value and respecting our theater's primary function, we have been given many advantages. For example, the theater has blessed us with access to a large storage room big enough to house all of our portable equipment as well as the use of extra storage space under the theater curtains. The theater was also very generous in allowing our church to permanently fix our lighting fixtures to the ceiling. Benefits like these have saved our congregation many of the headaches of portability such as keeping expensive technology from being destroyed with all of the hauling back and forth for set up, dealing with frozen or hot coffee creamer due to extreme temperatures and having a much easier time with set up and tear down than many portable churches experience. For those who understand what a "Minne-snow-ta" winter is all about, the snow removal that the theater, and not our church, is in charge of throughout the winter months is a great bonus for us!

Overcoming Obstacles Creatively

Although we could list pages of benefits to our particular meeting place, there have been, of course, some challenges too. For example, we will never forget when Lady Gaga's voice interrupted our service by singing "Poker Face" through the loudspeakers. Thankfully, we were able to weave in some humor and share with the people that Lady Gaga herself was helping with the altar call! We all laughed and secretly hoped this would not be a recurring issue.

We faced another challenge with our kids' ministry: Although the children love the fact that they can find a Skittle or two during kid's church, our parents and volunteers have not always been as fond of that bonus treat.

Along with the popcorn and candy "bonuses," we also have limitations in terms of space for the kids, who require plenty of room for the movement and the fun factors we add to our "Navigation Station" children's ministry. Giving our kids the room they need to play in a theater setting has been an issue we've had to work through creatively. We recently relaunched our K-5 kids ministry and, thankfully, for the first time in our history, we felt like we utilized the theater environment to its fullest—creating the kids' ministry we'd originally dreamed of at the inception of North Star.

Along with the challenges to the children's ministry, there have been obstacles that come with church growth. Theaters have a number of shows they are required to play every day, so we have been limited in our service time frames. We have worked to approach with creativity the time constraints while adding services, but we have not yet experienced the results we desire. Considering that a large percentage of our congregation has young children, the fact that the next service starts shortly after the first means if a family is running a little late to church, it's not a big problem because they can easily shift into the second service, but encouraging people to attend an earlier service has been difficult. Time limitations make the transition with check in and check out of kids challenging between the two services. All the coming and going with youngsters in a smaller space can be confusing and frustrating when parents want to get into the service quickly or out to lunch in a hurry.

Lastly, for our staff and volunteers, greeting people has been unique with the short time frames. In the confusion, we have said "goodbye" to many people coming in and "hello" to many people on their way out of church.

Clearly there are practical issues churches encounter while "doing church" in a movie theater, but sometimes we just have to find creative ways to overcome obstacles. We thank God for His ability to give us innovative ways to work within these unique situations. The creativity He has given us never ceases to amaze our congregation.

The last issue we faced with our theater location was also a bonus, which was the fact that movies played during church when we first started meeting at an AMC. This was amazing for evangelism and connecting to our community. Our complimentary donuts and fresh, hot coffee bar were something we offered to patrons as they are on their way to an early movie showing. Having strangers at our doorstep, however, was unsettling at times for parents with young children, and it motivated us to be innovative with security. When we shifted to the theater we meet in now, we eliminated a lot of the struggles we'd faced in AMC with security, as our current cinema does not start showing movies until noon, and by that time, our service has concluded.

Although we've met some unexpected challenges, we would not change the fact that North Star began in a movie theater. We love that we can be different, having fun with our church and leveraging our venue for marketing and outreach. We appreciate the stories of life change that have happened simply because someone wandered in to go to a movie and instead wound up having an appointment with God. We laugh as we recall that our congregation has eaten popcorn during church in our "At the Movies" series and worn 3-D glasses on Easter. We smile knowing that our kids have learned that God can use anything, anywhere and anyone for His purposes, and that "church" can happen outside four walls. Our location has been fitting because of who we are as pastors and for our fun, creatively minded people.

All in all, North Star's theater location has helped us tear down walls and preconceived ideas about the church, allowing us to bring lightness as we talk about our faith and being the church right where we are—even if it means our shoes are stuck to the ground with popcorn butter and Slurpee juice.  

John Velsor is founder and lead pastor of North Star Community Church in Minneapolis. He is also a speaker and facilitator for the Church Multiplication Network.

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