Once upon a time, some San Francisco roommates put some air mattresses out for paying guests and disrupted the entire hotel industry.
Not right away, of course. And not without controversy. In 2007, three young friends tried to solve some problems. The first problem: they were broke.
The second: lots of people were coming to town for a conference, and all the hotels were booked. By using a little entrepreneurial spirit and what they had at hand, they launched a bare-bones website called Air Bed & Breakfast, and hosted three guests (two men and one woman). The $80 nightly rate included a place on the floor, Wi-Fi, desk space, and breakfast in the morning (which famously included untoasted Pop-Tarts).
Fast forward 20 years, and Airbnb is a ‘paragon of the disruption economy’ - a company that discovered a new system for offering an established service. The three original founders are still on the board, and Airbnb brings in $12 billion a year.
They’re still innovating, though. Or as they would say, ‘redesigning’ what it means to be in the hospitality industry in the 21st century. Among other things, ironically, people can now book hotel rooms through Airbnb.
And, for the first time, Airbnb owns its own headquarters - in New York, where it employs over 600 people. People who wanted a place to gather and feel like a team.
Airbnb bought 281 Park Avenue South -
the original Episcopal Church Headquarters.
In other news: Just weeks ago, the Episcopal Church announced the sale of 815 Second Avenue - the monolithic 1960s successor to 281 Park Avenue South.
Years ago, in my first book, I compared the work of a Free Range Priest to the scrappy culture of early tech startups - how do we look at the mission of a particular institution (hospitality, medicine, law, religion), and re-imagine the system around it for the world we live in?
I specifically pointed to Airbnb as an example of an agile, networked, technology-based movement breaking out of the rigid old model of the hotel industry.
Now I am floored by the irony that Airbnb itself has purchased the historic center of Episcopal Church mission that I only discovered in January (and was moved to write about it then…)
I can’t help but feel the significance of how a mission-minded, expanding church built an iconic building, then abandoned it for a 1960s high rise, which quickly became an albatross they finally managed to get out from under. Meanwhile, an avatar of startup culture decides they need a permanent home and buys the actual home of the mission-minded church.
The $135 million church building no one can use
How a new way of being church was overrun by 20th century bureacracy.
Once upon a time, a rapidly expanding church built an innovative, evangelical church hub to support its missionary work.
The official, legal name of the Episcopal Church is ‘The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (DFMS)’.
The name was adopted in 1821, as the Episcopal Church was expanding into the ‘Western Reserve’, and there was great excitement and energy to share the Gospel in new ways.
A movement soon grew to create a unique, important building on Manhattan’s ‘charity row’ that would provide a central location hub designed to bring people together, and then propel them and their mission outward into the city and the world.
Bringing church to people, as I might say!
The building was expensive - $500,000 of late 19th century money - meant to be a symbol of God’s great work in the world. It included an ornate chapel, designed to be the physical and spiritual heart of the building.
The facade - which includes busts of St. Augustine and Samuel Seabury - the first American Episcopal bishop - was meant as a theological text, readable to the passerby. It’s very structure was an evangelical act, and it was designed to inspire people to dedicate their lives to the Gospel, and share that Gospel far and wide.
It was so successful that it eventually became obsolete.
As missionary excitement gave way to established institution, the glorious building became an impediment to a permanent staff, which needed cubicles, meeting rooms, and all the trappings of mid-20th century business success.
The Episcopal Church sold its iconic missionary headquarters and bought a midtown office building, which was dedicated in 1963. It was the absolute height of mainline church attendance and belonging: nearly one out of every 56 Americans was a baptized Episcopalian in the 1960s.
We all know what happened next. Church decline and cultural change, which has only expanded into the 21st century. Today, one out of every 250 Americans identifies as Episcopalian.
And the mainline church in general is stuck in the grip of a rigid old model of what it means to be church.
Airbnb bought more than an iconic building. It bought the spirit of innovation in physical form.
Fitting for them, potentially inspiring for us.
I would be surprised if Airbnb’s leadership knows about the history of 281 Park Avenue South, beyond the ‘fake heiress’ story. Though the exterior church missionary frieze is still there, the interior has been largely renovated and the chapel is a restaurant now.
Still, I think God works in mysterious ways.
I don’t believe it’s at all coincidental that a famously agile tech company - which had rented space but never bought a building of its own - chose a headquarters that was built as a hub for both expansion and gathering community.
Airbnb employs over 600 people in the New York area, and they decided they needed a place where people could gather, know one another, exchange ideas, and continue to innovate even as they grow.
They chose a home originally designed for a very similar mission.
Today, the church is losing buildings at a rapid rate, and the ones we have are often burdens of an outdated system we can no longer afford to maintain - spiritually or financially.
We have a problem: the system is broken. Like those long ago roommates who couldn’t pay their bills, there’s nothing wrong with admitting our primary motivation is survival.
But what they did next - and what I think the mainline church has yet to do - is to solve their problem by figuring out how to solve other people’s problems.
When the church traded its glorious monument to mission for a soulless office building, it gained space for cubicles, but the chapel was an afterthought, not the center.
It was a pre-Transfiguration moment: this is so great, we will set up our booths and stay here forever.
And the dazzling vision of the Kingdom of God started to fade, because it wasn’t just at the mountaintop. It was in following Jesus - being able to let go of how we think it should always be in order to find where God is calling us.
Which does not mean giving up our buildings, I don’t think. It means returning to the idea that they are launch pads for sharing the Gospel.
The church exists to solve the biggest problem we ever have:
Our deep, desperate need to be loved.
To understand ourselves as part of a larger story, full of meaning, hope, suffering, and ultimate redemption and salvation.
The church alone calls us into the answer to all our problems: relationship with God, membership in a God’s beloved community.
The reason we are stuck is not that our mission is complete - it’s that we’ve largely stopped trying to redesign the operating system.
Once upon a time the mainline church got stuck.
But it’s not too late to get ‘unstuck’.
I admit that I really, really wanted to buy 281 Park Avenue South (alas, I could not scrape together $80 million or so…). Then I was going to write this blog as a plea for the Episcopal Church to buy it back as a symbol and sign of a revitalized mission launchpad.
Until I realized it was no longer for sale, and the powerful irony of it becoming the home of Airbnb.
I applaud the Episcopal Church’s decision to sell 815 Second Ave, the 1960s office bldg. And the vision of the Episcopal, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe:
“Investing in congregational vitality is critical to the future of our mission and ministry, and I am selling the actual house to do it.”
AND - I’m wondering what ‘congregational vitality’ means to the Episcopal church leadership, and how prepared we are to ‘disrupt’ the business office mentality along with shedding the real estate.
The first Episcopal Church headquarters was established with great energy and enthusiasm for how the Holy Spirit was calling people towards new horizons of sharing the Gospel, and meant to support that.
I’m waiting for the vision of how our buildings are meant to serve that function today.
No, actually I’m not waiting.
I’m trying to figure out what I’m called to do with the spiritual equivalent of a few air mattresses, some pop tarts, and enthusiasm to find a better way.
Reimagine ministry with Free Range Priest.
Get unstuck from institutional gridlock and discover more sustainability and JOY in serving the church.
Become a paid subscriber to join the Weekly Coaching email list:
Explore small changes that make a huge difference in the future of church.
Maintain/sustain spiritual fitness by learning from the earliest church teachers at the spiritual gym.
Meet other Cage Free Ministers and learn from them.
Become a Founding subscriber for personalized coaching, free courses, and a library of Cage Free Ministry concepts to help you reimagine your own ministry (coming soon).
At Free Range Priest, we're:
Bridging the first and the 21st centuries - worship and practice from the earliest church with today’s agile, networked systems.
Bringing church to people - instead of waiting (and waiting…) for people to come back to church.
Busting out of organizational models and concepts that are sapping our energy for sharing the Gospel.