Our topic will be Third Places and Sacred Spaces and our special guest will be Dan Endicott, co-owner of Forest & Main Brewing Company.

We are going to be talking about the unique role community hubs like Forest & Main play in our community, and the ways in which they can even function (as they have for us at God on Tap many times) as sacred space.

I’ve had the chance to talk with Dan on a few occasions about the story of Forest & Main—what they envisioned as they started out and what they have learned along the way. I think this conversation will give us a better appreciation for this place we’ve been gathering over the last two years, and our own God on Tap experience.

Before we get together, it might be helpful to describe what we mean by “third place” and “sacred space.”

Third Place

In his book, The Great Good Place, sociologist Ray Oldenberg calls gathering places like Forest & Main cultural “third places,” which he defines as “the great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” These include pubs, coffeehouses, as well as shops, bookstores, and barber shops, among others. While home, the “first place,” and work, “the second place,” usually have prescribed roles and responsibilities, third places are more flexible and open. Like Forest & Main, they have a unique character and function in the community. They are local, conversational, welcoming, rooted in the neighborhood, and valued as much for the community they cultivate as the cuisine they serve.

Sacred Space

Churches like Upper Dublin are increasingly using these third places as venues for connecting with people beyond their church buildings, affirming the ordinary, and engaging in meaningful encounters and conversations. As connections are made and conversations take shape, these third places can become profoundly sacred spaces. We can be drawn into an encounter with the divine, and find ourselves standing (or sitting) on holy ground.

Author of the book, Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation, and God, Bryan Berghoef, told me that in these moments the pub “becomes sacred in a more accessible everyday way, and the dualism between sacred and profane whether we are thinking in those terms or not sort of dissipates, and we see that unity and sacredness of all of life and if I can have a conversation with a stranger…we can have this human engagement and I can hear their story and I can see their authenticity in it and I can see God in it. And that’s a holy, sacred moment.” In these moments, a sociological third place becomes spiritually sacred space.

What role do third places play in your life? Do you ever experience them as sacred space?

For more on this theme, you can check out my article: The Digital Cathedral: Distributed and Situational Sacred Space in Faith & Form.