Church Design

With Thanksgiving now behind us, churches across the country turn their attention to the Christmas season—transforming their church spaces into a wonderland of shining Christmas lights, shimmering garland, and colorful poinsettias. But setting up these delightful decorations can be fraught with danger for your church staff and volunteers. To help keep you all safe this holiday season, here are some tips on how to safely set up your Christmas decorations this season.

A church building is more than a place of worship. It’s more than a multipurpose space or classrooms. The building is the body language of the church. Everything about the space communicates who the church is.

As Sunday services go, Easter ranks as the highest attended worship service throughout the year—outpacing Christmas and Mother’s Day. You know this. You’ve seen your crowded worship spaces each year. And no doubt you and your ministry staff have already begun your sermon and lesson preparation for Holy Week. But in all your planning for the most important day on the Christian calendar, don’t forget to think beyond the pulpit.

I spent the better part of three decades in the high-rise world and thought that’s where I would spend my entire career, but then I bumped into a gentleman named Lyle Schaller. A member at my home church, he was a great influence on me. Before he passed away, Lyle would come up to me after worship on Sundays, tap me and say, "What's up this week, young man? What are you doing to advance the Kingdom? Never be afraid to use your secular gifts to do the Lord's work."

When we work with churches to design ministry space, high on their wish list is storage—space to stow seasonal decorations, banners, candles, music equipment, Sunday school supplies, tables, chairs, and so on. These are legitimate storage needs. But many times adding more storage isn’t the right solution. There are high, hidden costs attached to it. Before increasing the amount of square footage devoted to storage, here are five key questions churches need to consider:

Typically, the most heated conflicts in a church have to do with differences in theological or scriptural interpretations and doctrinal beliefs. But there’s another aspect of church life that gets temperatures rising and causes daily dissension—“thermostat wars.” How many times have you struggled to keep everyone comfortable in a sanctuary that’s not too hot, not too cold—just right for everyone? And when your heat or air conditioning kicks on, does it sound and feel like a sonic boom just went off?

Aspen Group works with a number of trusted tradespeople and professional partners on its church building projects. In this post, we’re highlighting Metropolitan Fire Protection (Metro FP), a leading commercial and residential sprinkler contractor, serving the Chicago metropolitan area and Northwest Indiana for more than 25 years.

At Stones Crossing Church in Greenwood, Indiana, roughly 900 people attend weekend services each week at the site they purchased and built on in 2003. Over the years, the church has become known for strengthening marriages and families.

Church facilities matter. The people and the physical spaces that make up the church are conduits for connecting people to God and others. But the story has shifted over the past few decades.

In this season of gratitude, we'd like to give thanks to our 2016 Alignment Conference Partners, who not only help us host the annual event for senior pastors, executive pastors, elders, and ministry leaders, but who also play vital roles in serving all our clients throughout the year. All these companies help bring our church projects into better alignment.