Last week, we examined Trends 3 & 4 from the 7 Biggest Trends for Churches by Church Business. Today, we’ll be looking at Trend 5:
Traditional Design Elements Make a Comeback
Mark Hilles says:Â
“I think there’s a collision of thought about contemporary, non-discrete, commercial-looking, seeker-sensitive churches. I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of traditional pursuit of steeples and those kinds of traditional elements, but I do think churches are looking for an identifying point of interest or feature that gives people a reference point about what they’re doing — almost like a corporate branding.”
I agree with Mark’s comment on this trend. There are some churches seeking a more traditional church, while there are other churches that don’t want their building to look like a church at all.Â
Across the country, there are many churches meeting in warehouses, movie theatres, and other buildings that look nothing like churches. The advantage to these facilities is that there are certain people who would attend a worship service at a non-traditional facility that would never step foot in “church”. Often, when churches move out of these types of ‘temporary’ facilities to build their own structure, they build a ‘traditional’ church and eliminate a portion of their audience that may need God the most.
On the other hand, there is a post-modern generation that expects to see genuine spirituality when they attend church. Rather than attend a ’seeker-sensitive’ service that attempts to frame the gospel for the non-believer, they prefer to see true believers worshipping unhindered by who might be watching them. This generation has a ‘vintage faith’ (as Dan Kimball would say) and may not be discontented by a traditional church building. However, it is perfectly possible to have a ‘vintage faith’ type of service in a warehouse, so what the building looks like from the outside may not be the most critical factor.
Tomorrow we’ll be looking at Trend 6:Â Higher Land and Construction Costs.
Technorati Tags: Architects, Ministry, TheMinistryCafe, God, church, growth, expansion, worship, planning, building, Facility, pews, traditional, seeker-sensitive, seating, design, ChurchBusiness, Trends, 2007
[...] In the next installment, we’ll be looking at Trend 5: Traditional Design Elements Make a Comeback [...]
[...] Yesterday, we examined Trend 5: Traditional Design Elements Make a Comeback from 7 Biggest Trends for Churches by Church Business. Today, we’ll be looking at Trend 6: Higher Land and Construction Costs [...]