Early churches met in homes.
I don’t think the building should be anything great. The Church is not the building, it’s the Body of Believers that occasionally use it.
I'll bet you buy generic food, too. And won't you be happy when you can get all your nutrition from a tasteless pill?
But for the human race, the eternal is embodied in our art, whatever the medium, and our Holy Church will have the our holiest efforts.
The church building should inspire one to Heaven with beauty through art and architecture. I've heard the whole "church is the people line" for decades and, frankly, I need the beauty, which is why I belong to a parish which is one of the great cathedrals of the world. To think that artists create beauty in the name of God for the inspiration of the rest of us is a heady thought.
“I don’t think the building should be anything great.”
I was lucky enough to grow up in a church with beautiful stained glass windows and wonderful mosaics about many passages from the Bible. It was so inspiring as a child to look at the windows and see the way an artist poured his heart and talent out to make a beautiful work of art for God. I would study them to see what the artist’s focus was and how it related to the scripture passage. The windows are glorious. They never failed to lift my spirit.
If anyone ever gets the chance to visit St. Boniface Catholic Church in Anaheim, CA, I think you will enjoy the windows. The Church is very large and used to be overflowing with parishioners. It has fallen into disrepair these days but the windows are still wonderful.