Church Design

People find community in many places—at work, in a book club, in a neighborhood group, or by joining a gym—all fantastic ways to connect and build relationships with others. Our church lobbies play a critical role in building true community by giving people a space to encounter God together. Engaging in a church experience is about developing a deep relationship with God and fostering meaningful relationships with others.

Your visitors will encounter many things before they choose a seat and listen to your sermon this Easter Sunday. How is your church facility preparing the way for your guests and helping to draw them in? Seeing your facility through the eyes of your guests will help you create a more welcoming environment and give them a reason to return. The following five tips will help you shape a positive guest experience this Easter.

Chapelstreet Church was looking for a unique solution for the addition and renovation of their North Aurora, Illinois campus. This compact facility required an efficient design so the spaces could be adapted to have more than one function. Aspen was called in to help, after having partnered with Chapelstreet on their South Street and Keslinger campuses, as well as their Shepherd’s Heart Care Center. The outcome was a facility with a high level of flexibility for Sundays and mid-week activities, setting them up for success in a fast-changing culture.

Waypoint Church in St. Charles, Missouri, has a mission of "Worship. Love. Go." This thriving community of faith wanted to adapt their church building to create a cohesive, effective, and engaging ministry space that would allow their congregation to experience a deep and intimate connection with God and others. We partnered with Waypoint on an addition and renovation aligning with these core values of relationships and missional living. Here are five ways we intentionally designed the space to foster discipleship:

Pioneering as an online church may not have been at the top of your plan last year, but you faced challenges and discovered opportunities in the midst of a pandemic. Now, you’ve shifted into a time of anticipation and planning for what comes next for your church, both online and in-person.

Lobbies are mission critical for churches. This is the primary space where people congregate to connect with others. However, right now, your congregation is unable to have the close-knit interactions that we encourage in lobby spaces, even if you have returned for in-person worship and gathering at your church.

Editor's Note: Greg Snider and Josh Gregoire of Aspen Group presented a talk to a full room of leaders from across the country at Exponential in Orlando on March 3, 2020 on "3 Myths About Facilities that Keep Church Planters from Multiplying." Their presentation drew heavily from the same content featured in the post below. Based on positive feedback on the content of their talk, we're featuring this post again on our blog in case you missed it in previous weeks.    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.

Churches once held a place of influence at the center of our communities. In the past, many hospitals, colleges, and social services were launched out of a vision to obey Jesus’ admonition to give to the poor, clothe the naked, care for orphans, and visit the imprisoned. Churches were viewed as an anchor in our communities, and they literally were given a central place in the town square.

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?

Every church is driven primarily by the same mission: To “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . .” (Matthew 28:19). How a church goes about making disciples can be vastly different though. To be effective, each church needs to identify its growth engines and growth barriers—aspects of ministry that either foster or inhibit growth, whether in the number of people who attend, or in their levels of spiritual maturity.