Analysts of church construction describe the popularity of the ‘third place,’ the ‘multi’ movement and other trends. Are these simply fads, or are they the future of church design?

SOCIETY IS CONTINUALLY CHANGING. And in order to serve the needs of its people, the Church must not only be willing to change, but actively pursuing it. This means re-examining everything about its operation, including the look, feel and availability of churches to the community at large. As churches make themselves more accessible and less distant from society, people begin considering churches as their “third place” – author Ray Oldenburg’s term for the social settings that today’s generations crave.

With home and work occupying the first and second places in people’s lives, these third places are essential to healthy community and public life, Oldenburg writes in his book, “The Great Good Place.” The third place is usually an informal public gathering place, such as a bar, coffee shop or bookstore; but it lends “a public balance to the increased privatization of home life,” he says. “What suburbia cries for are the means for people to gather easily, inexpensively, regularly and pleasurably – a ‘place on the corner;’ real life alternatives to television, easy escapes from the cabin fever of marriage and family life that do not necessitate getting into an automobile.”

The third place and its regular clientele are very similar to a good home, in that they offer psychological comfort and support, Oldenburg maintains. Unfortunately, the need for these places indicates “a diminishing aspect of the American social landscape,” he says. The good news is that a church can step into this void and offer its community what it desires, says Dan Carter, who handles project development for Kinetic Church Building Solutions in Evansville, Ind.

“God designed us with a desire for fellowship,” Carter states. “Fellowship space has not always been an intentional component in church design. But now, worship facility architects and designers are wisely incorporating this fellowship space or third place into the design of new facilities.”

Bill Chegwidden, president and principal of Marietta, Ga.-based CDH Partners Inc., questions whether churches have been intentional in their third-place endeavors, or if it merely evolved as a result of their nature – their effort to impact the needs of their communities with the Word of God. “Over the last several years, churches have begun to focus more and more on providing memorable spaces that are age appropriate, and are becoming much more focused on creating a real sense of community,” he reveals. “This intentional design focus on these spaces has created churches that have become third places.

“The more these churches succeed in reaching out and meeting the needs of the community, the more of a third place they are becoming. We are not working with any churches that are intentionally saying, ‘We want to be third places,’ but they are intentional about becoming vibrant churches.”

Daniel Cook, AIA, NCARB, partner architect and founder of BGW Services in Ogden, Utah, has also noticed the Church’s increased interest in serving those beyond its regular congregants. “We’ve found that churches also desire to host an increasing number of public and community events along within their worship space,” he reports. “As church becomes more of a community, we’re designing facilities to serve these needs – large meeting room space, fellowship environment and specialty shops within the buildings. This type of seven-day-per-week design requires open corridors and convenient restrooms, and doesn’t require limiting the building too much. However, the design trends have changed the way BGW architects and engineers managed HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] in order to keep efficiencies within the facilities.”

Commercial applications have taken the forefront in church design, affirms Kurt Williams, who does project development for T&W Church Solutions in Indianapolis. “Today, the Church is learning from the secular, consumer-driven markets about how ‘customers’ are drawn into and lured into spending time in their places of business,” he shares. Churches then take these commercial-design principles and incorporate them when creating new spaces.

“The important thing to remember is that these trends are popular today, but may not last after the next 10 years,” Cook cautions. “Each building we design has the flexibility to easily accept renovations in the future as trends change again. We do this by designing youth buildings, recreation centers and fellowship/game centers with gym-height ceilings. Remodels will allow this space to be used for any type of multipurpose activity.”

Beyond Buildings

Starbucks is one of the best examples of a popular third place. While many churches have experienced success mimicking the cafés – including their strategic use of space, color, light, furniture and music – Gary Nicholson, AIA, director of LifeWay’s church architecture department in Nashville, Tenn., is quick to point out there is no magic formula. He notes examples of churches across the nation that have focused on creating unique spaces for different age groups, including indoor playgrounds so parents can bring their kids together for play dates; high-tech, postmodern facilities for students; and attractions for young adults and seniors.

“Churches and society are still experimenting with these elements and learning about what works,” he says. “What attracts one group may repel another.”

And while architectural design and longevity are important components of third-place success, they are by no means the heart of it. Becoming a third place “is much more than an architectural problem,” Nicholson admits. “It involves an assortment of factors that come together to achieve that special quality that makes people feel comfortable and eager to share their lives with a group in a special place.”

One of the key elements is people. “Creating a warm and inviting room alone will not make it a third place,” he acknowledges. “What seems to make a place successful as a true third space has as much to do with the chemistry of the people as it has to do with the physical environment. Finding those key people to facilitate interpersonal relationships with the people of a particular community is the most important piece to the success of the church becoming the third place in the lives of today’s diverse cultures.”

Sanctuary Design Trends

When it comes to church design trends, one word that can’t be ignored is “multi”: multi-venue, multi-site, multipurpose, multi-media – in short, multi-options! Richard Shiffer, AIA, LEED AP and senior principal at Denver-based architectural firm RNL, defines a multi-venue strategy as building multiple smaller worship spaces in lieu of one large sanctuary. Shiffer says these spaces are beneficial because they:

• tend to be more intimate, 
• provide a platform for different worship styles, 
• can increase attendance because they provide options, 
• offer flexibility for multiple uses during the week.

He warns that more space can lead to more challenges, however, including the need for additional A/V systems, worship team members and staff. Delivering the sermon in multiple locations also requires more skilled staff or volunteers, as well as a higher level of technology, which is becoming more prevalent in all venue formats.

“Video, high-quality sound, and extensive arrays of theatrical lighting have become commonplace in churches today,” Nicholson reports. “Spending 10 percent of the construction budget or more on such technology is not unusual. The design needs to be able to accommodate what is currently available, but to also look to the future in anticipation of what might be needed for yet-to-be-developed ministry tools.”

Williams agrees. “Today’s church is realizing that they need to have more technology in their worship center than what the members have in their cars,” he says. “In order to reach the current lost population, the Church needs to at least meet them where they are with sound, light and visual technology. The AVL budget for churches is growing at an exponential rate, but is money well spent to reach the unchurched and de-churched.”

Multiple sites offer additional avenues for reaching people. “Thirty-nine of the top 100 fastest-growing churches in America are multi-campus,” says Dan Brusnahan, a principal with Todd & Associates Inc. in Phoenix. “Central Christian Church of the East Valley made the decision to continue to grow their existing Mesa, Ariz., campus while completing their new campus location in Gilbert, Ariz. Their original plans were to move the entire campus to the new site in Gilbert, with the intention of having only one large campus.”

Brusnahan notes that the church chose different sanctuary styles for its two locations. “The Mesa campus has theatrical seating for 1,800 persons, with a sloped floor,” he says, “while the Gilbert campus sanctuary is a flat floor, multipurpose space with moveable seating accommodating 1,300 persons.”

The multipurpose strategy is one many churches are employing, and it includes the trend of having a worship center, as opposed to a traditional sanctuary. “Multifunctional space is one of the key design concepts of 21st-century church design,” Nicholson remarks, adding that many churches are compelled to resourcefully design places that can double for worship and either dining or recreation. “Flexibility demands they use chairs instead of pews or other fixed seating. This avoids duplicating that square footage elsewhere in the building, saving thousands of dollars in construction cost to achieve the same functions.”

Thomas Panzica, ASID, certified church consultant and executive vice president of Panzica Building Corp. in South Bend, Ind., says the shift away from pews increases effective seating capacity by up to 20 percent in the same area. His theory? “Many seeker-churches started out in rented movie theaters, where they became comfortable with and accustomed to the nontraditional amenities of such venues, choosing to replicate that when building a new church.”

Beyond seating, “more attention is now being paid to sophisticated lighting, daylight control and A/V multimedia elements of the sanctuary than ever before,” Panzica continues. “We also see more space being allotted in the sanctuary for pieces of a full contemporary music ensemble, including drum kits, horns and multiple keyboards.”

David Evans, AIA, president of Mantel Teter Architects in Kansas City, Mo., has also observed an emphasis on the experiential worship environment. Churches are returning to intimacy, as many of them choose to limit the size of their sanctuaries to 1,000 seats or less – even if that means building multiple sanctuaries on the same campus. He says a nurturing atmosphere is also achieved through the use of rich, warm-colored rooms decorated with “nonoverbearing” Christian symbols.

David F. Schultz—AIA, NCARB, ALA, IFRAA—president of Barrington, Ill.-based David F. Schultz Associates Ltd., has seen a continued emphasis on space designed specifically for children and youth. “Families will tend to not come to worship if there isn’t a strong children’s ministry,” he emphasizes. “From what we understand, unless this is a strong element, it does not matter what you pour into worship. Adults with children want a good experience for their children.”

Focusing on children’s ministry can come at a cost, Nicholson warns, as it sometimes leaves “students and adults to fend for themselves for space. This is negatively impacting the discipleship and education programs of churches and student ministries,” he continues. “This is a dangerous trend in part because of the statement it makes about the priorities in ministry. If discipleship is relegated to the leftover spaces for long, it will create an imbalanced and weak church membership, lacking the strong leaders needed for the future.”

State of the Industry

Church construction trends are impacted by many factors, including the global economy. Experts have several concerns in this area. “The first is inflation due to the demand from India and China,” Cook remarks. “The second is the value of the dollar as it weakens against the Euro and the Canadian dollar, because we’re seeing rising costs for items purchased abroad.”

There are concerns on the home front, too, including the labor supply. Cook has observed rising costs among the Hispanic labor market. “As this labor pool becomes increasingly organized, labor has become more expensive and scarce within the commercial building market,” he explains. Additionally, he sees highly qualified trade labor – such as plumbing, mechanical and electrical subcontractors – dwindling. “As many [of these] workmen hit retirement, less and less qualified replacements are coming into these trades, challenging church builders in the areas of craftsmanship and timeliness for the completion of projects.”

On the other hand, Chegwidden predicts the cost of site work will decrease, due to the amount of site contractors who are available since large housing projects have been on the decline. “Overall, the cost of construction is increasing about 2.5 times the CPI [consumer price index],” he reports. “The overall labor cost is not responsible for the large increases. Much of this increase is coming from rising material cost, and the steep increases in material costs are being driven by the global demand for construction materials.”

Nicholson agrees that construction costs will continue to climb as the cost of materials – and fuel – keeps rising. “This impacts the Church by forcing the consideration of how to best utilize every square foot of space,” he shares. “Making the most of their construction dollars affects not only new construction, but also reassigning, reconfiguring or renovating existing space to maximize its effectiveness for ministry.” He adds that many churches avoid or delay construction by implementing other strategies to meet people’s needs, such as multiple service times or small group sessions. Along these lines, he also stresses the importance of master planning in order to help churches best accommodate growth in a challenging economy.

Ryan Bowden, project manager for Bowden Contracting Co. Inc. in Kansas City, Kan., is working with a church that has a master plan for a larger sanctuary in the future. In the meantime, they are building a multipurpose area that will double as a sanctuary. “The multipurpose area will still have productive use when their larger sanctuary is eventually built,” Bowden shares.

Panzica expects that the practicality of multipurpose building will influence other construction decisions as well. He foresees a “return to ‘stick-built’ churches of locally stocked dimensional wood or light-gauge steel components,” rather than pre-engineered steel structures, which need to be fabricated and trucked from a plant usually hundreds of miles away. “This factor may tend to favor more emphasis on site-cast, tilt-up concrete construction as well,” he says.

One final consideration when surveying the construction landscape is the state of finance and capital campaigns. “It seems that capital campaigns are falling short of target, and that the finance-approval process is getting more difficult,” laments Williams. “A lot of the shortfall is being attributed to the adjustable home-mortgage rates. Capital campaigns are drawing less because of the increase in the home mortgage payment, and finance is tighter because the financial institutions know that a great number of those contributing towards the building project will be impacted by those same higher mortgage payments.”

Feast or Famine?

Despite the financial difficulties, Williams anticipates his company will see a 30 percent to 40 percent increase in construction volume in 2008. “The bulk of that increase is attributed to churches who actually wanted to build sooner, but were slowed down by the capital campaign results or the finance-approval process,” he says.

Brusnahan notes that many residential and commercial developers are in more of a “wait and see” mode, delaying development until 2009. By contrast, Nicholson believes some churches will take the plunge and build soon, since construction costs have been rising faster than the interest rates on loans – and both are likely to continue increasing.

Cook suggests the churches that are in the best position to build are those with the most congregants. “I believe we’ll be seeing the larger ministries increasing significantly in the coming year – and building facilities to keep pace with that growth,” he states. “We’ll probably see a quieting of the smaller-church market, but an increase in construction for churches of 500 or more – this is the fastest-growing segment of churches today.”

Leadership issues may also be a factor of the quieting of small churches, Cook believes. “We are seeing a shortage of really great communicators,” he admits. “And as the good communicators gravitate to the larger churches, we may see these smaller churches maintaining with less growth.”

Up and Comers

A few trends that haven’t fully exploded – but are well on their way – include commercial applications and green design. On the commercial front, there are two interesting transactions taking place: 

1. Churches intentionally design facilities to be sold to commercial or industrial end-users. “The logic is that when a church facility is sold, they receive 50 cents on the dollar, due primarily to the fact that the purchasers are buying real estate, not a building,” Williams explains. “We are using precast concrete to create an edgy commercial/industrial look to reach a generation that will feel more comfortable visiting a place that looks that way, while at the same time enhancing the resale value – if and when the opportunity comes to relocate.”
2. Churches pursue adaptive reuse of former commercial structures, such as shopping-center storefronts or big-box retail stores. These buildings “can offer a fine ‘vanilla box’ from which to carve a new church,” Panzica offers. “Years ago, such an option would seldom have been considered, because a typical commercial structure was so far-removed from the traditional church image.”

Most churches – traditional or otherwise – have only recently become interested in sustainable design, also known as the “green” movement. Shiffer has seen the design and construction industry becoming more serious about this trend in the last five to 10 years. “Buildings have typically used 12 percent of water used in the United States, filled up 65 percent of landfills from construction waste and use 70 percent of the nation’s electricity,” he shares. “Green design uses good design practices to reduce these numbers to protect our resources and our environment.”

Panzica concurs that the Church will increase its green focus. “Use of recycled materials, energy efficiency of the thermal envelope and mechanical systems, [and] better land-use planning will all find their way more and more into church planning,” he predicts. “Churches will become more willing to pay a modest initial cost premium in exchange for the lifecycle cost savings of sustainable design because of the perception that ‘it’s the right thing to do.’”

When it comes to the vast array of operating decisions religious leaders make about “the right thing to do,” there are no easy answers. Churches today are implementing vastly different designs, ministries and methods – and all with varying degrees of success. Regardless of what the future holds for church construction, the heart remains the same: figuring out how to reach people for Christ. Whether that’s accomplished in a worship center, coffee shop or movie theater, one thing holds true: “The third place invites believers and nonbelievers to meet on familiar territory,” Carter affirms. “God does the rest.”

Bob Adams, certified church consultant with Walkertown, N.C.-based JH Batten Inc., shares the unprecedented happenings at Elevation church in Charlotte, N.C. Less than two years old, the church launched a capital campaign to reach people for Jesus – but this campaign was about giving away money – $40,000, to be exact. Members received an envelope with the simple instructions to use the money to bless somebody else. Check out the inspirational testimonies at www.blessbackproject.com.