Church Design

When footage of an inferno engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris flashed across our news feeds, it felt as if the world collectively gasped. How could this iconic cathedral be at risk of total destruction? What would Paris be without Notre Dame to anchor her? One day later, the fire barely extinguished, $300 million was donated to restore the nearly devastated 800-plus-year-old building. Before the end of the week, donations had reached $1 billion and counting.

Easter is the culmination of the gospel message—foolishness to those who don't yet believe, and ultimate power for those who follow Jesus. At Aspen, our mission is creating space for ministry impact. We're lifting up churches in prayer this Easter, that all who hear the gospel may experience the significance of Christ's death and resurrection, and the ultimate transforming power of salvation for every person. May the Holy Spirit make space for this kind of impact within the hearts of all who attend your church this Easter.   

When it comes to designing children’s ministry space, safety and security are the top priorities. “Security is the number one conversation churches want to have with us when we’re discussing a remodel or building project where kids space is addressed,” says Greg Snider, account executive for Aspen Group.

Much has been written about the difficulty churches have in finding great staff members, particularly for leadership positions. Among other factors, the job market is strong and Baby Boomers are retiring at a pace faster than new talent is entering the workforce. While Aspen Group is not a church, we can certainly relate to the struggle to find great employees.

Healthy churches are led by leaders who are intentional about coaching up and leading others on their team. But how do pastors do this well? In Tom Verducci’s classic book, The Cubs Way, he chronicles the team’s owner Tom Ricketts’s acquisition of Theo Epstein to head all baseball operations, the subsequent construction of the team, and manager Joe Maddon’s leadership style, which he calls his “13 Core Principles Of Managing.”

Easter is one of the most highly attended church services of the year. I suspect this isn’t new information to most of you involved in ministry. You have likely experienced the significant influx of attendees on Easter and Christmas. Though these holidays represent the most widely attended church services of the year, there are differences between them. In this article, we’ll explore who’s most likely to attend church this Easter, and how we can prepare for them.

Pastors who are focused on church planting and multiplying often focus on leadership and ministry as the key aspects of launching new churches. But one critical piece is almost always missing from the multiplication plan—a facility strategy.

When Julie Bullock, Senior Generosity Strategy for Generis, guides leaders on how to inspire true, transformational giving in their church, she uses a “ham or eggs” model to illustrate the difference between transactional and transformational giving. Bullock discusses the high cost of output-focused giving. You can read about this in Part 1 of this two-part blog series on inspiring total generosity in your church. Instead of focusing solely on outputs (amounts and/or percentages of giving) when it comes to giving in your church, leaders should focus their people on the heart condition and place of all givers who are exploring and growing in their own discipleship journey. In this post, Bullock identifies five types of givers and how to celebrate generosity as part of their overall discipleship journey.

Julie Bullock, Senior Generosity Strategist for Generis, likes to talk about giving in terms of ham and eggs.  “It’s the notion that when the pig produces the ham, there is a total transformation that happens,” she explains. “The pig is never the same. You can't get the pig back to its original form. For the pig, it was a total commitment.

In 2004, religious facility construction was an $8 billion a year industry in the U.S. That's a lot of church buildings. At the same time, other research was emerging that indicated that church attendance and growth had plateaued or was declining. We saw a massive stewardship issue—how could so many churches be renovating and building new facilities and yet not experiencing growth, either in attendance or in spiritual maturity?