Bigger Crowds Don’t Mean Bigger Churches

Wondering just how big churches can get?   The number and size of megachurches – Protestant congregations that draw 2,000 or more adults and children in a typical weekend (attendance not membership) – continues to increase, but the same can’t be said of their worship spaces.  That’s the gist of a post on Ed Stetzer’s blog dated August 6, 2009.  Stetzer is President of LifeWay Research.

According to a national study by Scott Thumma and Warren Bird of Leadership Network, (attendance in megachurches is growing but sanctuary size is the same.  In fact, the average main sanctuary seating capacity in the typical American megachurch is only 1,400 (median).

Multi-site, multi-venue and multi-session strategies seem to be helping churches minimize the need for ever increasing seat counts.

Thumma’s and Bird’s research was published about a year ago.  Stetzer’s post, which includes a list of worship spaces that seat more than 5000 people, was prompted by the upcoming publication of a list of such spaces due in September.

Building Integrated Photovoltaics at Church

The most under-utilized spaces in your church building may be the largest ones.  If you multiply the population that occupies it for each use by the number of hours used and divide the total by the area of the room, your PHPSF (People Hours per Square Foot, a metric I just made up) would probably be lowest for the worship space or a gymnasium and highest for spaces like offices or even corridors.

Of course, the best approach to getting more out of your buildings to use each space in multiple ways throughout the week.  Another strategy may be to use the parts of your buildings in multiple ways.  Like the roof.

Some of the more interesting technologies coming out of the enthusiasm for all things green are those that use roofs and spandrels and windows to generate power.  So called building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are versions of the big black solar panels that have been around for a generation or two.  The newest generation started showing up as roof shingles, and currently take the form of panels and films that can be applied to, or integrated, into horizontal and vertical surfaces, like standing seam metal roofs.

Working with a church that operated under a pretty traditional schedule – meaning that the largest piece of their facility stood empty much of the week – we explored the potential of BIPV.  Their use pattern was ideal for generating power.  The worship space could be expected to draw only minmal power except in the evenings or on weekends, off-peak hours for utility companies.  We could generate more than enough electricity to run lights and air conditioning using just half the roof over a 1000-seat room.

The payback period (or the time it would take for savings to pay for the increased cost of the system)?  Around 30 years.  Too long for business owners to consider based on economics alone.  There are some tax and commercial subsidies that shorten that period to a quarter of that length, but (most) churches don’t pay taxes.

The best opportunities may come as utilities elect, or are pressed, to generate more energy from solar sources.  Early experience suggest that unlike traditional power plants, solar-generated power may come from a network of smaller sources.  Like church roofs.

Images of Church

PhotographyBlogger.net, in a July 28, 2009 post, features a collection of images of church buildings taken by a handful of photographers.  Photography Blogger describes itself as a “creative, inspirational photo journal featuring a variety of photography subjects, events, and photographer features.”  Worth a look.

Someone Else’s Church

It’s easy to go too far. Some churches fall in love with someone else’s worship style, or wipe out their budgets chasing the god of “just in case.”   And like the Cafetorium in your high school, they may end up unequipped to do anything well.

Recently we were asked to take a look at a church that had gotten itself into budget trouble.  It had experienced growth and wanted more space for worship, but for a variety of reasons, it had bitten off way too much.

One of the larger items on their plate was their AV budget.  For a room designed to seat about 1800,  consultants had them spending more than $700,000 on equipment and still more on a system of catwalks so they could tinker with it every week.  That’s a lot of money for any church, and may be the right amount for some churches.  But not for this one.  Here’s why:

Q: How would you describe the worship experience in your church?  A: Largely traditional, with occasional video presentations on special occasions

Q: How much does it vary from week to week? A: Almost none at all.

Q: Is there an desire to move to a style of worship that relies on electronic and visual media? A: No.

Q: Do you incorporate drama in your worship or in special presentations? A: We stage something about twice a year, but we’d like to do as many as three or four.

They’re building somebody else’s church.

Virginia Conference on Sacred Space

The Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architect’s Interfaith Forum on Religion Art and Architecture will be offering a day-long conference called The Nature of Sacred Space: Context and Culture on November 6, 2009 in Richmond.  It’s part of the larger VSAIA annual meeting that concludes on the same day.  This is the second such opportunity organized by the group in as many years.

The program features a first-rate list of speakers: Paul Braoudokis (Willow Creek), Mel McGowan, AIA (Visioneering Studios), Mark Torgerson (Notre Dame), James Williamson, FAIA (Askew Nixon Ferguson) and Tom Findley, FAIA (Leo A. Daly Architects).  They will presumably duke it out over what the press release refers to as the “diametrically opposed” traditions of traditional architecture “that promote and inspire liturgical based worship” and “market driven designs” stripped (“in some cases”) of “any element that would distinguish them as a “place of worship.”

They go on to take this either/or approach, and will apparently focus on the differences between “performance type and spiritual type worship environments.”   It seems poised to take on the same flavor as other aspects of the worship wars, where personal and cultural preferences are given theological weight by their subscribers and the opposition is demonized, however graciously.  I hope not.

It’s too easy to chase caricatures, but given their fine work in the first such conference, Virginia’s IFRAA can be counted on to do it well, and offer some valuable discussion.

Download the IFRAA Press Release and a detailed Schedule (PDF)

Religious Architecture on ArchDaily

ArchDaily, a site that provides the “latest architectural news: projects, products, events, interviews and competitions” has republished images of newly completed religious architecture.  Projects featured in Part 1 are a monastery on Tautra island in Trondheimsfjorden (Norway), the city morgue in León, Spain; The Church of the Holy Cross in Jyllinge, Denmark; a temporary chapel for the Deaconesses of St-Loup (France), and the Prayer Pavilion of Light in Phoenix, Arizona.  My favorite, due in part to its elegant simplicity, is the Phoenix project, but the morgue is pretty powerful, too. Take a look.

New Buildings in Traditional Settings

What’s the proper architecture for a traditional campus or aesthetic?  There’s no clearcut answer, but the design your architect proposes for your next building will probably fall into one of just a few categories, any one of which may be appropriate for your organization.  Although, I’ve no doubt that architectural philosophers have outlined these options in excruciating detail, I recently found myself explaining them to a client in literary terms.

Quotation
Reproduce what you already have.  It’s unlikely that an existing building can, or should, be copied as is, but reusing the scale, materials and details is the most direct way to continue a satisfactory theme.  For leaders, this approach carries the least risk and will often have the broadest public support.  Detractors would call this plagiarism.

Allusion
Incorporate the best or most meaningful or most iconic elements of existing buildings into something new.  Referring to history without copying it requires a sharp eye and deft hand.  Done well, a new structure takes on a sense of place and “fit”; done poorly, a cheap imitation of the real thing.  Some would consider this a better description of “quotation” than the one I used above.

Contrast
Challenge what you find with something new.  Communicate clearly that a new day has dawned or that something unique is happening inside.  Such an approach need not be iconoclastic, it may simply use a different language to draw attention to itself or an important idea.  Some ask why this is necessary.  As one skeptical speaker put it, “everyone knows what a house looks like, but architects act like they’ve never seen one.”

In practice, most buildings fall into the middle category, sliding along the spectrum between new and old.

Lifeway Survey Skips Data

In another odd piece of research, LifeWay asked about 1,000 Protestant pastors whether, in their opinion, adding a worship service or expanding a building had positively affected attendance.  Many did, but it’s not apparent that any measures were taken to verify the numbers independently.   That’s like asking someone who just spent $300 on a gym membership if he’s lost weight – without putting him on the scales.

Respondents were asked to consider seven types of expansion: building new or additional ministry space on their present site (27% of those surveyed had done so) building at a new site (4%), adding services on or off site (28% and 10%), going online with streaming worship or teaching (14%), launching a new church (28%) or merging with another church (3%).

Researchers admit that pastors in churches that have implemented a particular type of expansion were “more likely to strongly agree that it leads to growth.”

Balcony Stairs

It’s a practice that’s at least 200 years old, but I don’t know if it really works.  Like many church practices, it may exist simply because it makes us feel better to know they’re there.  Balconies (or rather, galleries, existed in churches long before they were used for public seating.  Even so, I suspect it’s a relatively recent idea to place the stairs that serve them inside the nave, or main room, for the purpose of making it possible for persons seated there to respond to altar calls.

I don’t have any real objection to an open stair that decends directly to the main floor or altar platform, but these “Baptist balconies” (my term) bring to mind 18th Century evangelist Charles Finney’s “anxious bench,” a place down in the front where those considering becoming Christians could come to receive prayer.

Who uses them when a better means exists?  The common argument for including them is that they offer fewer obstacles for those in the balcony who wish to come forward.  My sense, though, is that balconies often provide a safe haven for those who aren’t sure they want to be noticed, either because they’re late or new or whatever.  They allow some to stick their toe in the water before they dive.  If that’s the case, who would wish to expose themselves to even greater view by hiking down what is usually a prominent structure.  Go ahead; I dare you!

This is not to say that there aren’t other reasons to consider a Baptist balcony.  First Baptist Church in Greenville, SC has a sweeping, assymetrical balcony that joins the balcony to the main floor with seating (and forms the ceiling of a chapel below).  Provisions in the International Building Code, most likely because of the popularity of open stairs in churches, allow them to escape demanding requirements that other stairs face.

Know why you build what you build, including stairs.  As they’re typically configured, balcony stairs set in the worship space occupy valuable floor space.  They steal seats, limit flexibility and complicate sightlines.  I also suspect that the cost of complex or decorative railings they require (or tempt you) to build exceeds the cost of enclosing simpler ones.

Flickering Pixels: The Skin We’re In

It’s startling to some to realize that the largest human organ is not the brain or heart or lungs.  They’re the sexy starlets that get the most media attention, but these gadgets pale in comparison to the skin, the quiet character actor.  And though most of the glory goes to the media systems that animate modern worship and communications, its easy to forget that the buildings in which they reside are a powerful medium in their own right.   It was with this in mind that I read Shane Hipps’ Flickering Pixels.

At the heart of Flickering Pixels is Marshall McLuhan’s now-familiar observation that “the medium is the message” in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.  A “medium,” for McLuhan, is anything that amplifies or accelerates existing processes, introduces a change of scale or pace or shape or pattern into “human association, affairs, and action” – buildings included.  While Hipps is focused on other technologies, it’s easy enough to draw a couple of implications for buildings.  Here are a few:

Unambiguity
uildings, like print, or other finite media, tend to distill the message they convey into a more concrete and less nuanced versions of the original.  I’ve written here before (The Unambiguity of Bricks, February 2007) )about the risk this creates for leaders of new churches.  Geometry, in the built world, doesn’t leave much room to negotiate.  In response, some architects look for ways to “de-materialize” structures or objects, designing them in a way that makes their edges, and even their presence, less certain.

Process orientation
It’s a rare church leader that doesn’t talk about community.  Rarer still is the building that contributes to the health of one.  Most structures used by churches serve best as symbols and shelters, rather than as nurturing environments.  That’s a tall order for any designer, but most church buildings focus on delivering people efficiently from activity to activity or place to place (even if its a Third Place), a linear process increasingly out of sync with contemporary culture.

Impact on Message
Architecture, more often than other media, is used intentionally to reinforce the message it conveys.  Hipps points to God’s use of media – the burning bush and the stone tablets – and wonders if the Ten Commandments might have been received differently if they’d been written by a skywriter on a breezy day.  Building designers routinely use rhythm and mass to emphasize or even exaggerate the presence or absence of purpose and power.

Any more parallels or applications come to mind?