David W. Swanson

Pastor and Author

sanctuary covenant church, sacramento

Just over a week ago I got to visit and preach at Sanctuary Covenant Church in Sacramento.  Last January my parents moved from Idaho to Sacramento for my dad to take the associate pastor position of this church.  Sanctuary is a fairly young church plant that seemed to be made up mostly of young individuals and families.  They currently meet in a high school gym, which they turn into a nice worship space every Sunday.  The church is also very invested in community development through The Greenhouse.

img_4786Here’s what becomes clear very quickly at Sanctuary on a Sunday morning: these people really like each other.  I’ve not seen this before, but during the service they take a break between singing and the sermon.  People leave their seats to get some coffee and pastries and end up having conversations with friends.  The break is supposed to last 5 minutes, but it was at least double that and it still took my dad a couple minutes at the mic to get people to come back to their seats.  Very cool.

The church has been spending time in the 4 gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, so I preached about Jesus the Revolutionary.  It is tricky to know how people are going to respond to a sermon when I preach away from my community, but people seemed to connect with the themes and content from the sermon.

After the service about 40 people went to a local Mexican restaurant for lunch.  Did I mention that these folks like each other?  Lots of good conversation over really good food.  I really enjoyed my visit and the hospitality of this church.  Hopefully there will be a return visit (with Maggie along this time) in the near future.

David Swanson

3 responses to “sanctuary covenant church, sacramento”

  1. Larry Eisner Avatar
    Larry Eisner

    What a cool community! It sounds like these people really get the “we are the church” concept. Are there multiple services? Does the “coffee break” time interfere with that setup, or is it planned in?

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  2. Jeremy Avatar
    Jeremy

    Yeah… I went to a church in Canada a couple years ago that did that coffee break thing in the middle. I am not too sure about it. The church did the usual evangelical format of quick, upbeat praise songs to begin with transitioning into more “worshipful” introspective slow songs to prepare you for the sermon… but then there was a coffee break that totally pulled me out of the mood, I guess.

    However, the people there were really friendly too and I had a good conversation for those also-extended five minutes.

    I have thought about that a lot ever since, and it is interesting to hear that some other church out there is doing it too. I am still not sure if I think it is good or not. Well… I guess I think it is good, but maybe everything around it should change to accommodate it. It should not be a thing forced into the center of the usual liturgy found in a contemporary evangelical service.

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  3. David Avatar
    David

    Larry, the church has one service so that makes it more doable.

    Jeremy, I agree that it shouldn’t be forced. I don’t think it was at Sanctuary. It felt like a natural part of the service. Of course, the church is used to taking a break to talk and catch up, so that contributes to the normalcy of it.

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