Your Church Should Feel Like Rivendell

How The Lord of the Rings Helped Me Reimagine Church

A Place of Healing

In The Lord of the Rings, Rivendell is a realm in Middle-earth ruled by Elrond and the Elves. It is known as “the last homely house east of the sea” and is often depicted as a place of refuge, wisdom, and a place of strength amidst the evil forces of Mordor. Throughout the books, it is described as a place where time slows down, songs and good counsel abound, and where weary and exhausted travelers find healing. This quote from The Hobbit describes it best:

Rivendell was the perfect house, whether you liked food or storytelling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness. Evil things did not come into that valley.

Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness.

In other words, Rivendell sounds like church. Or at least, it should sound like church.

What does it feel like to walk into church on Sunday? Unfortunately, for many people today, walking into church feels less like walking into Rivendell and more like walking into another social club where we have to save face.

If walking into church on Sundays does not feel like a relief, then something has gone wrong.

The test of a church’s faithfulness is not merely its doctrinal statement, as important as that is. It is also the culture, the vibe, the environment, the ecosystem. As Ray Ortlund Jr. so faithfully has emphasized, if our doctrines of grace do not create a culture of grace, then our gospel message loses credibility.

In this kind of environment, exhausted sinners should be able to confess their sin, all who are weary should find rest, and anyone who fails should find strength from the risen Christ above.

For me personally, I find myself praying daily for my local church. As I counsel college students who are disenchanted and often jaded by the church, I pray for my church and every Gospel-preaching church in Nashville:

O Lord, be merciful to Immanuel Nashville, and to every gospel-preaching church in Nashville. Lord, as people walk through these doors, give them relief from weariness, fear, and sadness through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In Jesus name, Amen.

Imagine it: every week you sprint to church—you can’t get there fast enough!—because all week long this world is brutalizing, degrading, and making demands of you. You walk in, and you hear the cheering laughter of friends, the joyous singing of fellow saints, and the preaching of the Gospel (good news!) of Jesus Christ. You leave—perhaps even throwing your head back with joyous laughter—with a sense that you can face anything this week because of the finished work of Christ on your behalf. You deeply receive this good news, and then you go home and take a holy nap unto the glory of God.

If we resist this and turn our churches into solemn, morose gatherings—rather than gatherings of serious joy—then we risk becoming impervious to God’s salvation.

May God himself help us all to participate in the life of our churches in such a way that they start to feel more like Rivendell—more like Heaven—and less like the brutality of this world.