Yesterday, we examined Trend 6: Higher Land and Construction Costs from 7 Biggest Trends for Churches by Church Business. Today, we’ll be looking at Trend 7:Â
Building Community with Design
David Evans says:
 ”Connection spaces are a big trend — it’s the ‘third place’ concept of how we can connect with people, spawned from secular society. People can literally come to the church and hang out there all day. Connectivity is still really big and important, and I don’t see that changing.”
It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of community. Evans is correct in his assessment that people can hang out at church all day. However, facilities are in use not just all day on a Sunday, but all day everyday when schools and daycares are incorporated into church facilities. Some churches would even like to accommodate retail spaces in their facilties. (See Mixed Use Development) So when you think about building community with design, make sure to consider both the community that exists within your congregation, as well as the community that exists in the surrounding neighborhood, and make connections both ways.
This concludes our series on Architectural Outlook 2007:7 Biggest Trends for Churches by Church Business. We look forward to hearing your comments and seeing next year’s list.
Â
Technorati Tags: Architects, Ministry, TheMinistryCafe, God, church, growth, expansion, worship, planning, building, Facility, design, ChurchBusiness, Trends, 2007, community
[...] Tomorrow we’ll be looking at Trend 7: Building Community with Design. [...]
Good series, Jon. I like the ‘bite-sized’ approach to the information that makes it a quick read / easy to keep up with.