In praise of the caffeinated beveragePart Two: The Third Place

Much has been written about the Third Place. I'm just going to throw it out there rather than get all academic on its ass.

The notion is simple. We live and sleep, we work, and we do whatever else we do. Our home is our first place (live and sleep). Our workplaces/study-places are our second place (work). And that leaves our Third Place—our other place (or places). These are the places where community is cultivated and enjoyed. Probably a place to be renewed or revived. And definitely a place to hang.

The Third Place comes with challenges and opportunities for Jesus-lovers.

For centuries, the Third Place was the church. Traveling through old towns across Europe you see the same agglomeration of functions and buildings again and again. The church was (or is) the centrepiece of the town. In older Australian towns it's often the Town Centre or Town Hall. Predominantly though, in towns the world over, it's the church right there at the fulcrum. It was the dominant meeting place and the dominant place to invest your disposable time. When you weren't working and weren't sleeping or feeding your family, you were active in your local church.

Many years later, Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks made a critical observation: we've lost our Third Place. We still have homes, we still have jobs. But we've become insulated from the world by those first two places and we've begun to view the church as irrelevant. It has ceased to be the critical Third Place it once was. And it's left an unoccupied void for many.

In his book, The Great Good Place: cafés, bookstores, bars, coffeeshops, hair salons and other hangouts at the heart of community, Ray Oldenburg investigates and explains the Third Place that Shultz found essential to the success of Starbucks. The Third Place, says Oldenburg, is where people congregate to find a sense of community outside of the home and workplace. By their nature, humans have a desperate need for somewhere to meet friends or take solace in the familiarity of both people and their surroundings.

Shultz sought to create Starbucks as a viable Third Place. Whatever you think about Starbucks isn't particularly relevant here. The deal is: Third Places are important because community is important.

A host of emergent church blogs talk about the significance of the café as the Third Place. I think the deal is that God colours can emerge wherever we are. Rather than working out how we can turn cafés into churches (not that it's a bad idea) or capture a caffeinated crowd and get 'em into church, I think we need to bring Jesus into our Third Places—wherever they are. The café is without doubt a Third Place. So is your favourite bar, or pub, or hair salon, or sporting club. Wherever you spend a chunk of your non-work, non-home time and enjoy or create community—that's your Third Place.

The important thing is to have one (or some).

The church is a brilliant Third Place. In its beauty, Third Places don't come as spectacular as the church. For Jesus-followers they're a a contextualisation of what's pre-eminent in our First and Second-places. But they're not the only Third Places. It's just as possible for churches to fail as vital Third Places too, so I'm not assuming that church equals great Third Place.

Jesus had Third Places. They were all over the shop. Mostly other people's houses. Friends, tax collectors et. al. He spent time in the synagogues too and, as an itinerant, called home wherever he lay his hat. Jesus formed, challenged and created community wherever he went and in many ways redefined what was acceptable as a Third Place—before we started calling it a 'Third Place'.

Here's another interesting thought to ponder: the size of your triangle.

There's an obvious triangle to be formed by the connection of your work, home and Third Place/s. There's no prescription here, but if you work in Joondalup, live in Mandurah and have a Third Place in Mundaring, chances are you true Third Place is probably your car. The proximity of your places is in large part about convenience, but it's also about community. Asking your next-door neighbour along to church (or a coffee) in Mundaring might be a bit of a stretch, but five minutes away?, that's not too much of a challenge.

There's an intentionality in urban planning these days to engender community and facilitate the Third Place. I think we need to play our part too. Some of the most vibrant communities are either villages or built around the principles of a village—a small collective of homes and businesses that share their lives together. It's not as though there's a magic distance for the dimension of a triangle that will produce community. It's more that there's a social, environmental and economic priority or benefit to keeping the distance low.

There's a balance that's created by having distinct places. The ideal isn't to live in the basement of the church where you work. Good on you if you do, but you'd be best to find a place beyond those walls where you can a) get some sunlight and b) enjoy and be part of building community.

It's easy enough to have a 100 metre triangle yet remain utterly disconnected from those around you. So, I figure, it's more about being intentional in our decision making. Intentional in building community and intentional in finding your Third Place. And intentional (or thoughtful) about the proximity of those places.

There's way more to chew over as far as Third Places go. Plenty that's already been written from a variety of perspectives. I'm just adding to the commentary really. Like you.

Got a Third Place? Looking for one?