Church Design

The mass exodus of Millennials (those born between 1984-2002) from the Christian faith has caused many leaders to wring their hands about the future of the church. Some have answered Millennials’ criticisms that the church is irrelevant and boring by trying to be trendy and hip. But an Aspen/Barna study—Making Space for Millennials—reveals that Millennials may be looking for just the opposite.

Talk to any church leader, and they’ll tell you it feels more challenging than ever to get people to come to church on a Sunday. Even in growing churches (like ours), the competition for peoples’ time, attention and devotion seems to get more intense every year. You’ve felt it too. So what’s up? And where is future church attendance heading?

Throughout 2018, we've published a year's worth of blog posts to help leaders like you maximize your ministry impact. Here are our Top 5 most-read blog posts for 2018:

Church building projects often grow out of a need for more space, or a desire to adapt existing space to better suit a church’s ministry goals. Leaders will often call Aspen Group with pressing questions—questions that relate to tactical aspects of adding on space, such as how much square footage to build, or how many seats to add in the sanctuary to accommodate growth.

"We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14 From a stable to our sanctuaries, wherever Jesus makes himself known is sacred space. It has been our privilege to partner with churches to make space for Immanuel, "God with us."  

Anyone who considers adding a gymnasium to a church construction project or upgrading an existing gym space knows how large of a project it is to tackle. For some churches, building a gymnasium is a massive undertaking that reaps significant ministry rewards. For other churches, however, building a gym is a diversion from God’s plan and a waste of precious resources.

During Aspen Group’s 2018 Alignment Conference, Josh Gregoire, Church Relations Coordinator for Aspen, facilitated a panel discussion about structuring churches to help them regain impact in their communities. The panel included three influential church leaders: Dave Davis, Parkview Community Church; Matt DeMateo, New Life Centers of Chicagoland; Mike Martin, All Nations Worship Assembly. Here are four tips these leaders shared for increasing your church's impact in your community:

I have three children in their 20s. Once in a while, they still ask me, "Dad, what do you do for a living?" The best way I know to describe it is that I help people navigate change. Change is constant. Having worked with organizations in the social, private and public space for years, we've discovered certain patterns of change. And based on those patterns, we created the following Change Formula to help with that process:

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Psalm 107:1  At Aspen Group, we have much to be thankful for this year. In 2018, we completed several new church design-build-furnish projects, and we launched many new ones in South Carolina, North Carolina, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Texas. It’s a privilege to partner with churches as they embark on a building project to expand and enhance their ministry impact. If you’d enjoy following our progress on these projects, be sure to subscribe to our blog and monthly newsletter.  

Leadership development may often be perceived as vague, time-consuming, or intimidating. In reality, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Using “Tony” as my fictional example, here is a proven, five-step mentorship/apprenticeship model that can be used to develop new leaders in church ministry.