When one stands in the 4th Story Theater of West End United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tenn., it is hard to believe that only a few years ago this expansive venue held junk.
“It had become the church’s junk room,” says the Rev. Michael Williams, the senior pastor.
Well, not anymore! That stuff is gone, and the space has been converted into a theater that can accommodate an audience of more than 400. It would rival most independent theaters anywhere in the country.
In fact, the church’s theater ministry just closed its production of “The Hobbit” a few weeks ago. (In the costume department, which is twice the size of a hotel room, you can still see drawers marked “Gandalf” and “Elves.”)
On the Wednesday that I visited West End, the space was configured for a more intimate conversation about vocation with guest speakers from Vanderbilt Divinity School and the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility, a prison for inmates with medical problems.
There are wingback chairs and a coffee table on stage, and a dozen or so round tables with radiating chairs for the audience. Black pipe and drape frame the space and create a welcoming and trendy-looking environment for the Wednesday night program.
The theater is a marvelous example of what Leadership Education likes to call traditioned innovation. The metamorphosis from junk room to enviable performance space came about because Williams remembered attending plays in that space in the early 1980s, before he was ever pastor at the church. He recounted his story to the congregation and offered a vision for an outfitted theater that could be as much an asset to the neighborhood as to the church itself.
In so doing, he reclaimed a part of the church’s past, gave it new meaning in the present, and improved upon it to reach out into the community in new ways.
Williams is quick to give credit to the large number of persons who worked to renovate the space. They have built risers and constructed sets. They have found and mended old costumes and made new ones. They have gotten television stations in Nashville to donate lighting and sound equipment. They have planned productions and worked with actors, old and young. The work of the community has made it a theater for the community.
So, the next time you are in Nashville, look to see what is playing at the 4th Story Theater at West End United Methodist Church. Of course you can expect to enjoyed the production, but the space is a lesson in and of itself.
It’s gone from junk to treasure -- a part of the church’s past is building its future.
