Church facilities have the potential to distract, or to communicate an unwanted message. At their best, they can glorify God and invite people into Christian fellowship.
—Leith Anderson
Whenever I attend another church, I notice what the surroundings communicate. If the bulletin says, “Hymn—to be announced,” or if the sermon title is missing, it suggests that worship may not have been properly prepared. Likewise with the building and grounds: if the exterior doors look weathered, or the parking lot stripes have faded to invisibility, I wonder how much people care about their church.
Little things say a lot. And the seemingly minor elements of our building and grounds also say a lot, particularly to newcomers. For example, during the week groups that use the sanctuary sometimes move the American flag and don’t think about how it’s put back. But during worship a visitor may be bemused that the eagle atop the staff is facing backwards.
That illustration may seem silly, but the point is that church facilities have the potential to distract, or to communicate an unwanted message. At their best, they can glorify God and invite people into Christian fellowship.
The Pastor’s Role
As pastor, I have been involved in minor building-and-grounds decisions, for example, the placement of mirrors in the hallway and the size of brick for the building. Some people wonder why I fiddle with such details. In essence, they’re asking, “What is the pastor’s role in the building and grounds? Should pastors stick to leading worship and preaching, or should they also help decide the color of paint in the nursery?”
The answer varies in each situation, but several guidelines have helped me establish the level of pastoral involvement in building and grounds.
1. Delegate responsibility but demonstrate interest. During a major building project, I may spend no more than half an hour a week on it. The building committee includes people who understand building issues far better than I. They give me information, and I attend meetings of the building committee (or a subcommittee), but for the most part, other people choose the pews and pick the colors. Unless a dedsion involves something critical or affects me personally, I delegate.
My role is not to make all the decisions, but to support those who are responsible for them. The public statements a pastor makes about a building project establish the congregation’s attitude toward it, so I craft what I say. I explain how the building furthers the corporate mission, I thank those directly involved, and I demonstrate that I know and care about the project.
2. Concentrate energies on areas that relate to pastoral duties. The stress levels of concrete in a proposed church building don’t directly affect pastoral ministry (unless there’s an earthquake). But other aspects of the building do affect ministry, and during decisions about these, a pastor needs to communicate specific preferences.
Pastors usually counsel people in their offices, and the office surroundings affect that interaction. When the building committee planned Wooddale’s current building, I asked that the proposed pastor’s office have a parlor separate from the study area. In this parlor, there are no fluorescent lights, only table lamps. It is the only room in the building that has a pad under the carpet, and it is furnished with warm, comfortable furniture such as might be found in a family room. These simple, relatively inexpensive modifications help to achieve an important pastoral purpose: to help people relax and talk openly.
Decisions on sanctuary furnishings also call for pastoral involvement. During plans for Wooddale’s new sanctuary, I asked for several specific qualities in the baptistery to make the baptism experience more relaxed and meaningful to those involved. The water will be heated, so that people don’t get chilled. The baptistery includes an area in which people can get acclimated to the water before coming into public view. The top of the front of the baptistery is glass so that the congregation can see the water; this makes the ordinance more meaningful to them. Since I am right-handed, the baptistery is designed primarily for a right-handed person; this allows me to concentrate on ministry rather than the mechanics.
Sometimes a staff person will say to me, “The way the building committee designed this room, it will not work for my program.” Again, because this part of the building affects pastoral duties, it is my responsibility to represent the staff and try to get that corrected.
3. Become knowledgeable in the areas of pressing concern. I’m not an expert on Arianism, but if I were preaching a sermon series on the four great heresies, I’d work at becoming one. The week of the message on Arianism, I would read theology and church history—enough so that when I stepped to the pulpit, I would be knowledgeable.
Similarly, pastors don’t need to know a lot about church buildings and grounds—until it’s time to decide something critical. I never knew much about acoustics until the church began planning a new sanctuary. If preaching was going to be heard by anyone in the new building, the sound system needed to be constructed properly. In order to enter those discussions, I studied about reverberation times and decibel levels. Pastors don’t need to be knowledgeable about every area of the building and grounds. But they need to become conversant in the subjects currently under discussion.
4. Teach people to notice what facilities communicate. When the new pastor of one Baptist church arrived, he told the trustees, “We need to do something about the grass in the parking lot.”
“We don’t have any grass in the parking lot,” they said.
“Come outside,” he told them. Once there, they noticed the grass growing through cracks. They had driven over that grass for ten years and hadn’t seen it—until they looked at it as a newcomer would.
Each year, I take the staff through the building. In each room, I ask, “If you were a first-time visitor, what would you notice?”
The answers range from “Last week’s bulletin sitting on top of the piano” to “Sunday school papers left behind.” Members of a church don’t normally pay attention to these things, but walking through the building like this sensitizes them to the effect a building can have.
I regularly tell people that if they see a piece of paper on the ground, they should pick it up; if something isn’t working, they should tell the custodian it needs to be fixed. In short, as pastor I emphasize that the building is everyone’s responsibility.
The Building’s Purpose
Church facilities should be consistent with the purpose of the church. Since Wooddale’s purpose involves “bringing lives into harmony with God,” our building should help people want to come here to worship God, and once here, to feel at home.
The expectations for church facilities vary, of course, with the community. A building in Harlem, New York, should be different from one in Haarlem, Holland. Yet, for most congregations from middle-class America, the expectations will be much the same.
Several years ago Wooddale conducted a survey and found that in suburban Minneapolis, church is a positive word. People here are accustomed to buildings that look and feel like churches, so the planning committee decided that the new sanctuary would have a traditional, Gothic appearance.
Near Wooddale, a church meets in a warehouse. At first, the informal setting helped in reaching less-traditional people. But after ten years, it has helped stall growth, because it runs counter to prevailing community expectations.
A corollary of the expectations principle: Most people become slightly disoriented, often subconsciously, if an individual room doesn’t conform to its purpose—for example, if the sanctuary looks like a gymnasium, or a classroom looks like a library. Instead, the worship center ought to look like a worship center, classrooms like classrooms, offices like offices, and nursery like a nursery.
Wooddale never used to have symbols, not even a cross, in the worship center. When people objected, I explained, “We don’t have a cross because we worship a risen Christ.” True, but I overlooked the fact that visitors, who may have been unchurched for thirty years, grew up worshiping in buildings in which there was a cross. In suburban Minneapolis, at least, a cross is part of cultural expectations for a sanctuary. So we enlisted a craftsman to build a wooden cross.
An Evangelistic Building
Wooddale wants to be a church that reaches out to people. One strategy for doing that is to make our building available to the community. We have invited businesses to hold events here. Rusty Scupper, a restaurant chain, held its annual staff party in our building. Outsiders use our gym. The bloodmobile comes here. We hope the building will someday be used as a voting precinct. In short, the facility is regularly and consistently used by and for the community.
Why? Because the hardest time to get someone into the building is the first time. If people come for a community event and learn how to get here and where to park, they will feel more comfortable in visiting on Sunday.
(We have, however, established limits on the building’s use. It is not used for weddings of non-Wooddale members. That may seem inconsistent, but in our theology of marriage, weddings aren’t an outreach activity. In addition, we don’t allow alcoholic beverages to be served in the building.)
A Reason for Every Decision
I won’t argue about the color of the nursery. But I will argue that a church should have a reason for the color it chooses. It’s not enough to say, “I like this color, and I don’t like that one.” Instead, churches need to ask, “What is this going to mean in twenty years? What does this communicate to the visitor? What is the meaning behind this?”
Here are several areas in which conscious decisions can aid a church in fulfilling its mission.
Colors. The Christian Science Church near Denver Seminary is white. In fact, many Christian Science buildings are white or off-white. It’s not a coincidence that Christian Science practioners don’t believe in sin or death.
In one Pentecostal church in Ohio, the back of each seat is black, but the front is red. The idea: go in reminded of your sin, and come out recognizing the blood of Christ.
In short, color has meaning; it makes emotional impressions and has theological implications that need to be considered.
For example, building committees often are dominated by men, and men tend to choose blue. But blue gives a “cold” feeling, not a feeling of warmth and intimacy, to many people in our culture. Green, for some reason, is not a positive color in our society. Almost never will a business executive wear a green suit, and few bestsellers use green on their cover. When green is used in natural landscaping, it is accepted, but it rarely will succeed as a central interior color.
Further, colors have lifespans. Orange was popular in the sixties, black and pink in the fifties. Many homes built in the late fifties or early sixties have bathrooms tiled in black and pink. Mauve is widely used in the late 1980s. Mauve was suggested as the integrating color scheme in Wooddale’s new building, but the idea was later discarded because mauve probably will pass away in popularity.
Which colors last? In the cathedrals, and in churches and homes that have stood for hundreds of years, the predominant colors usually are white, brown, and red.
Women’s service areas. Usually, women decide which church a family will attend. The most important areas, therefore, in making a church building attractive to visitors, are the woman’s restroom and the nursery, for women will most likely use and notice these.
The ladies’ room, then, needs to be clean, spacious, accessible, well marked, and brightly lit. We have placed mirrors in hallways outside the restroom so that women who only want to check their hair don’t congest the rest room. (Also, because more and more fathers are changing diapers, in our new facility the men’s rooms will have diaper-changing tables as well.)
It’s vital that the nursery be attractive. Baby boomers have fewer children, and they spend a lot of money and attention on them. They expect high-quality children’s facilities.
Hallways. One mistake in the design of our current building was that the ceilings are too low and the hallways too narrow. Between services, hallways were congested, and people felt cramped. When we raised the ceiling and widened hallways, it not only eased traffic, but it also encouraged fellowship, which often takes place in hallways. The higher ceiling gives the hallways a less-confining feel, and the wider hallways permit tables for coffee and refreshments.
Sanctuary. Consultants say that facial expressions can be seen from a distance no greater than eighty-five feet. So our proposed sanctuary places all seats within that distance. It also eliminates pillars, which interfere with sound and sight. Because in our community most people expect pews, it will use those rather than individual seats.
Acoustics. Sometimes people come away from a church service irritated, but they don’t know why. In some cases, the reason is poor acoustics, particularly if people see the speaker in one place and hear the voice through speakers elsewhere. In most televisions, for example, the sound comes from near the picture. Occasionally I’ll visit a home in which the television is wired to the stereo system, and the sound comes from an area far from the picture. Most people cannot tolerate that for long. As a result, many churches are now clustering speakers toward the front center of the sanctuary.
The key acoustical challenge for churches is to provide an environment that serves both music and preaching. Music calls for a long reverberation time; speaking requires a short one. In the Basilica of St. Mary, the reverberation time is seven seconds: a person can utter a sound and still hear it seven seconds later. This may be wonderful for some choral singing, but it makes human speech almost unintelligible. For Wooddale’s new sanctuary, we settled on a reverberation time just under three seconds. That’s rather long for speaking but long enough to satisfy musicians.
Safety. To make people feel comfortable, it’s important to insure their safety. We asked local fire and police departments to analyze our building and recommend safety improvements. We now hold fire drills twice a year. An emergency procedure sheet is stored in the pulpit; if an alarm sounds, the person in front reads it to instruct people how to vacate the building. We also developed a procedure for getting babies out of the nursery in an emergency.
Employing Expertise
Because there are so many concerns in designing an effective building, for major projects, it is vital to use knowledgeable consultants. They bring trained, outsiders’ eyes; they see things we cannot.
I unintentionally functioned as a consultant while on vacation one Sunday after Christmas. I attended a pastor friend’s church. My family and I were late as we drove into the parking lot—typical of visitors, because they have trouble finding the church and don’t know where to park. We were directed to park at what seemed to be the other end of the world. As we walked back to the buildings in subzero temperatures, we noticed several empty parking places labeled, Reserved for Staff By the time I walked into the service, I was not a happy man.
Later my friend called and asked me about my impressions. I told him, “From a visitor’s point of view, it looks like you care more about your absentee staff than about visitors. You save parking places for staff members who don’t come and make your visitor walk huge distances in subzero weather to get to church.” He hadn’t realized the problem, because he and his staff have dozens of things to think about on Sunday morning, and they hadn’t considered the effect of their parking on the newcomer. It took an outside “consultant” to point it out, but then they immediately improved the situation.
At Wooddale, we have hired an acoustician, a landscape architect, and even an educator to help us design the nursery. In the long run, consultants lead to a better facility and savings in not having to redo expensive projects. Even small churches can tap skilled community people who will offer counsel for very little or even free. If I were in rural Minnesota in a region with several smaller churches, I would try to set up a consortium. Six churches could each contribute one person to an evaluation team; over three years the team would visit each church and evaluate it.
Another type of “free consulting” is to visit other churches. Our building committee has spent many evenings visiting other churches in our area. The committee members have seen other sanctuaries and listened to other sound systems. This adds to their knowledge when planning.
Front-End Investments
Finally, pastors need to deal with two key concerns that people have about buildings.
The first is that new buildings (and remodeling old ones) cost big money. Whenever such expenditures are contemplated, the pastor will be asked, “Couldn’t that money be better used for missions or to feed the poor?”
That tension is inevitable, and every church has to decide how to balance concern for facilities and concern for mission. In our case, we have decided to spend money on the building because we see it as an investment for mission.
When Wooddale relocated several years ago, we spent a lot of money. But we dramatically increased the number of people that we reach. That enlarged our missions giving and the number of people going into missionary service. Although we put a lot of money into buildings, it was like a high front-end investment. Once that investment has been made, the building lasts for a long time, and meanwhile, we have a larger base of operation for missions. The initial cost is disproportionate but for a limited time.
Consider a young couple buying their first home. At first, they have to commit an uncomfortable percentage of their income to the mortgage payment. Later, as inflation takes its course and they advance in their careers, the payments become manageable. But all along the house is theirs to use for greater ends, like raising children.
Ministry versus Maintenance
A second question that buildings raise, and pastors need to answer, is: How much should the building be used? The question pits ministry against maintenance.
While I was serving a previous church, the congregation hired as custodian a man recently retired from a successful banking career. Being a precise person, he wanted to get and keep the building in perfect shape. A few weeks into his tenure, after he had made the building immaculate, some kids playing baseball on the church’s front lawn hit a baseball through a window of the sanctuary. The broken glass littered the pews. Our custodian was furious; he refused to return the kids’ baseball until they fixed the window. The kids got their parents, and everybody ended up on the church lawn, neighbors and custodian confronting one another. The parents ended up calling me at home, and I had to come and intercede. Eventually, I managed to get the ball and give it back to the kids, but the custodian didn’t approve.
The church’s goal was to introduce these people to Jesus Christ. The custodian’s goal was to clean up the glass, get a new window, and teach these kids a lesson. The incident has served ever since as a reminder of the friction that can occur between those responsible for the building and those responsible for the mission of the church.
We try to ease that natural friction in three ways. First, we explain to the maintenance staff that the building is not a museum; it is meant for ministry. The building is going to have some wear and tear. Their job is to do their best at keeping it up, but the church has a higher purpose than upkeep.
Second, we honor many of our custodian’s concerns. We put in stain-resistant carpeting. We do not allow any red beverage—punch, Kool-Aid, or soft drinks—in the building, because red and orange dyes cause stains.
Third, we incorporate our custodian in the larger ministry. He attends coffee breaks and prayer times with the rest of the staff. That way the pastoral staff feels more responsible for the building, and he feels more responsible for the ministry.
This kind of partnership is our goal in managing the buildings and grounds.
Copyright © 1990 by Christianity Today
