An Atlanta Church Restores Its Forest and Helps Urban Residents Connect with God and Nature" by Lindsay M. Moss On a hot, humid summer afternoon in Atlanta, children at Camp Beech Grove are enjoying their daily hike down to the creek. Here, in the nature preserve of Central Congregational United Church of Christ (CUCC), they find relief from the sizzling sun, surrounded by a canopy of trees -- many of them beech, the camp's namesake. In these woods, a butterfly goes by, a frog makes a splash, and children learn about the native plants that surround them.
Today, the children can enjoy all that nature has to offer here. But that hasn't always been the case.
For five years, the 450-member congregation at CUCC has been working to restore the 8 acres of woods surrounding the church. A certified wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), the woods offer a magnificent view through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the church's sanctuary. It was there that Ron Smith, gazing out those windows, had a vision.
"These woods were a mess," said Smith, who initiated the project. "Nobody went out there. They were overgrown, and they weren't inviting. And I thought to myself, 'I want to change that.'"
Smith set out to reverse decades of neglect and to rehabilitate the surrounding woods, where he says he can be closer to the Creator.
"God is speaking in nature, and we're losing something when we don't make nature a part of the community or when we don't show respect for it. He created all of this. All life is sacred, and all of nature is sacred," Smith said.
Active with the church since 2010, the year he retired from his 60-hour-a-week corporate job as a CPA, Smith knew that creating a sustainable wildlife habitat would also provide ecological benefits, including the preservation of native species and better air and water quality. What he didn't know is that his vision would ultimately bring an awareness of and connection with the surrounding community, providing an urban oasis and a place for the church's neighbors to be closer to God. Read more »
Environment, Creation care, Congregations
An Atlanta church restores its forest and helps urban residents connect with God and nature by: Lindsay M. Moss
The sanctuary of Central Congregational UCC in Atlanta looks out upon 8 acres of woods, which the congregation has been working to restore.Photos courtesy of Central Congregational UCC
Under the guidance of a visionary minister and an energetic lay leader, Central Congregational UCC turned its overgrown 8-acre forest into a nature preserve. The payoff has been far greater than the church expected.
On a hot, humid summer afternoon in Atlanta, children at Camp Beech Grove are enjoying their daily hike down to the creek. Here, in the nature preserve of Central Congregational United Church of Christ (CUCC), they find relief from the sizzling sun, surrounded by a canopy of trees -- many of them beech, the camp’s namesake. In these woods, a butterfly goes by, a frog makes a splash, and children learn about the native plants that surround them.
Today, the children can enjoy all that nature has to offer here. But that hasn’t always been the case.
For five years, the 450-member congregation at CUCC (link is external) has been working to restore the 8 acres of woods surrounding the church. A certified wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), the woods offer a magnificent view through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the church’s sanctuary. It was there that Ron Smith, gazing out those windows, had a vision.
“These woods were a mess,” said Smith, who initiated the project. “Nobody went out there. They were overgrown, and they weren’t inviting. And I thought to myself, ‘I want to change that.’”
Ron Smith works with kids planting a garden.
Smith set out to reverse decades of neglect and to rehabilitate the surrounding woods, where he says he can be closer to the Creator.
“God is speaking in nature, and we’re losing something when we don’t make nature a part of the community or when we don’t show respect for it. He created all of this. All life is sacred, and all of nature is sacred,” Smith said.
Active with the church since 2010, the year he retired from his 60-hour-a-week corporate job as a CPA, Smith knew that creating a sustainable wildlife habitat would also provide ecological benefits, including the preservation of native species and better air and water quality. What he didn’t know is that his vision would ultimately bring an awareness of and connection with the surrounding community, providing an urban oasis and a place for the church’s neighbors to be closer to God.
It started with a trail
Smith had learned to love the outdoors at a young age. He grew up in a farming area of Pennsylvania, and his mother had vegetable gardens and an infectious love of nature. From these influences, Smith said, he knew he would be a gardener when he retired. He first tackled the overgrown yard of a home he and his wife purchased in nearby Decatur before setting his sights on the distressed woods at CUCC.
“The times I accompanied my wife, Martha, to church, I would notice the magnificent trees that were dying from the oppression of invasive species,” said Smith, who is a member of the Georgia Native Plant Society. “The woods needed care, and I knew they offered a place of sanctuary for me.”
In spring 2011, Smith told his wife he wanted to work in the CUCC woods. He joined the congregation’s Garden Team, which meets once a month to work on the church grounds. As Smith worked, he realized that a path through the woods would not only invite people in but also provide the access needed to remove and replace unwanted plants.
Since then, much has happened to the neglected wooded area. Nature trails have been created. Trash and debris have been removed from the creek. Invasive plants -- aggressive species that grow outside their natural range and crowd out the native plants -- have been removed and replaced with species indigenous to the area. Meadows and gardens have been established.
Over time, more people from the congregation have showed up to help: working, bringing plants or donating money. Local businesses and nonprofits have joined the effort, too. In 2012, Trees Atlanta donated 40 trees, while Hands On Atlanta sent 30 volunteers to help plant, clear ivy and mulch trails. Members of the Native Plant Society have also donated trees and shrubs, helped Smith identify appropriate grasses for the creek area and assisted with transporting the plants. The Garden Team and its supporters continue to invest their time and money to support the forest restoration and gardens as well.
And this past spring, reinforcements were brought in -- 12 sheep stayed for two months, eating the English ivy that overran the grounds. This literal flock was a big hit with the metaphorical one.
“The congregation fell in love with the sheep,” said the Rev. Ginnie Ferrell, the associate minister for children and youth at CUCC. “We can be so separated from creation that sheep … give us warm fuzzies.”
Sheep love to eat ivy, which is an invasive species that needed to be removed.
It’s bridging this separation from nature that inspires Smith and Ferrell to continue their efforts and watch the project evolve.
“Love is the greatest gift any of us can give,” Smith said. “It is an act of love to care for God’s creation. Humans do not and cannot exist in isolation from plants, animals, water, air or soil. Our earth is in peril. What greater mission could there be than to take care of all creation?”
Drawing from the congregation’s beginnings
At this liberal, progressive, mission-oriented church, Ferrell says, there’s a history of people wanting to worship in a natural setting.
When the CUCC congregation moved from downtown Atlanta in the late 1960s to what was then considered the suburbs, it chose to build the church in the middle of an 8-acre forest. Today, that property is surrounded by an urban landscape. It’s just minutes from downtown, located on a major four-lane road.
The congregation continued to enjoy the leafy view from the sanctuary, but over time, the land -- like many urban forests -- became overgrown. Every urban woods, forest and preserve fights invasive plants, Smith said; the deterioration is slow and organic.
The church started to take notice and reverse this decline shortly after Ferrell joined CUCC in 2008.
The team divided the land into 35 sections. Members were asked to adopt a section, which they tended on their own time. This worked well, and the team took steps to have the forest designated as an NWF wildlife preserve. This is significant, Smith said, because the certification is a badge telling people the land has intentionally been set aside to be cared for in order to provide refuge for wildlife.
Children examine life under a log.
Now, on any given day, members of the church and surrounding community can be found walking the nature trail, which starts at a memorial garden just outside the sanctuary. At the creek, 700 feet down the path, they’ve built a fort for children out of the remnants of Chinese privet, an invasive plant that was removed from the forest.
Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts spend time in the woods, now referred to as the nature preserve, to plant, work on trails and visit the award-winning pollinator garden, which is designed to attract insects that feed on and pollinate surrounding plants. Children, from the on-site preschool and the summer camp, are out in the woods almost every day of the year.
This, according to Ferrell, is how it should be. Worship and outreach are amplified to include the earth, she said.
“When we walk out into a forest or step into a creek, we are reminded that we are a part of the natural world,” Ferrell said. “Our time watching a bee sleep on a flower or a goldfinch sitting on the tiniest stem brings us in touch with the gifts of our Creator. The forest helps us to remember the incredible gift of life, all life, on this planet.
“If people realize from an early age that they are a part of nature, will they grow up to live more sustainably and to invent things that are more compatible with the natural world?”
Children at Camp Beech Grove take a nature walk near the restored creek.
According to Richard Louv, the author of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” and co-founder of the Children & Nature Network, the answer is yes.
“Smart religious leaders of all faiths, and many nonbelievers as well, intuitively understand that all spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and that sense is usually formed early in childhood, often in natural settings. Most religious traditions and, especially, indigenous cultures offer ways to discover the divine in the natural world. In these cultures and faith-based communities, individuals, families and religious organizations can play an important role in helping children and adults know the world and beyond through nature,” Louv said.
There is also an expanding body of scientific evidence linking experience in the natural world to better physical and mental health and enhanced cognitive abilities, Louv said. How can we tap into this for ourselves and our children? The answer, according to Louv, is to rethink nature within cities. And CUCC is doing just that.
Authentic mission
When Smith looked out the sanctuary windows that Sunday in 2011, his desire was to heal the earth. But this mission has also helped the congregation cultivate relationships in the community, largely through the preschool (link is external) and the summer camp (link is external).
“Camp Beech Grove and the preschool would not be here today without the trail,” Ferrell said. “They are both nature-oriented, and without this land, we couldn’t have done it.”
Children at the creek in 2014, before the invasive plants were cleared and replaced.
Since 2012, the church has hosted Turning Sun School, a place-based preschool that emphasizes the local community and natural environment as an extension of the classroom. The children have fun with activities such as the fall lantern walk, a nighttime family hike along the trail, illuminated by lanterns they have made, and the spring fairy breakfast, for which they create their own fairy houses.
“Having the nature preserve outside our windows and within our reach has been such a great resource to our school,” said Alicia Karpick, the school director. “Children need to be able to play and experience nature with all their senses. If we want children to be environmental stewards, we need to give [them] the freedom and space to love and understand nature.”
Ferrell echoes this sentiment, which is why she, along with the CUCC Board of Christian Education, created Camp Beech Grove, a summer camp offering six one-week sessions focused on learning about the outdoor world and the sacredness of creation. For years, Ferrell and the board discussed this idea, hoping to create a way for children and families of the community to be connected to the church, and after five years of rehabilitating the nature preserve, Ferrell knew they could offer something great.
“Stepping into a cool and shaded forest, we feel like we are walking into a mysterious and healing space where we are cradled by the trees and the land,” Ferrell said. “That is what we hope children will feel as they walk through the forest at church, or anywhere in nature -- that they are held by God’s gift of the whole earth.”
The camp, held in June and July, had 61 campers this first year. The church offered 45 scholarships to children in a nearby neighborhood. Campers began each morning with a sacred story before a daily hands-on nature lesson. This type of learning was especially beneficial to 6-year-old Gabe Narducci, who attended all six weeks of Camp Beech Grove.
Storytime at Camp Beech Grove in the indoor church space.
“He is an outdoors kid, so we knew this camp would be perfect for him,” said Donna Narducci, Gabe’s grandmother, who found out about the camp from a community email list. “The things he learned on the nature walks were really interesting, and he would come home and tell us about a bird or bug or something growing there. It really allowed us to engage with him and find out more about how much he learned and retained.”
And Camp Beech Grove is just a first step. As the project continues to evolve, Smith has plans for more trails and gardens, including a community vegetable garden, where neighbors can participate in growing their own produce.
“The preserve keeps us alert to the hope of nature’s ability to heal and to our need as humans to heal and restore the earth in all the ways we can,” Ferrell said. “As humans, it is more clear every day how much we have impacted all life and the very ground on which we live. The whole church is called to remember this sacred planet, our home. If we want to have a healthy planet for future generations, then the whole human community needs to learn to live sustainably.”
Questions to consider
Today, the children can enjoy all that nature has to offer here. But that hasn’t always been the case.
For five years, the 450-member congregation at CUCC (link is external) has been working to restore the 8 acres of woods surrounding the church. A certified wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), the woods offer a magnificent view through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the church’s sanctuary. It was there that Ron Smith, gazing out those windows, had a vision.
“These woods were a mess,” said Smith, who initiated the project. “Nobody went out there. They were overgrown, and they weren’t inviting. And I thought to myself, ‘I want to change that.’”
Ron Smith works with kids planting a garden.Smith set out to reverse decades of neglect and to rehabilitate the surrounding woods, where he says he can be closer to the Creator.
“God is speaking in nature, and we’re losing something when we don’t make nature a part of the community or when we don’t show respect for it. He created all of this. All life is sacred, and all of nature is sacred,” Smith said.
Active with the church since 2010, the year he retired from his 60-hour-a-week corporate job as a CPA, Smith knew that creating a sustainable wildlife habitat would also provide ecological benefits, including the preservation of native species and better air and water quality. What he didn’t know is that his vision would ultimately bring an awareness of and connection with the surrounding community, providing an urban oasis and a place for the church’s neighbors to be closer to God.
It started with a trail
Smith had learned to love the outdoors at a young age. He grew up in a farming area of Pennsylvania, and his mother had vegetable gardens and an infectious love of nature. From these influences, Smith said, he knew he would be a gardener when he retired. He first tackled the overgrown yard of a home he and his wife purchased in nearby Decatur before setting his sights on the distressed woods at CUCC.
“The times I accompanied my wife, Martha, to church, I would notice the magnificent trees that were dying from the oppression of invasive species,” said Smith, who is a member of the Georgia Native Plant Society. “The woods needed care, and I knew they offered a place of sanctuary for me.”
In spring 2011, Smith told his wife he wanted to work in the CUCC woods. He joined the congregation’s Garden Team, which meets once a month to work on the church grounds. As Smith worked, he realized that a path through the woods would not only invite people in but also provide the access needed to remove and replace unwanted plants.
In what ways would this be a useful attitude in your church or institution?
With no church budget, Smith personally purchased the first equipment and plants and began clearing a path to the creek, thinking, “If I build a trail, people will come.” And he was right.Since then, much has happened to the neglected wooded area. Nature trails have been created. Trash and debris have been removed from the creek. Invasive plants -- aggressive species that grow outside their natural range and crowd out the native plants -- have been removed and replaced with species indigenous to the area. Meadows and gardens have been established.
Over time, more people from the congregation have showed up to help: working, bringing plants or donating money. Local businesses and nonprofits have joined the effort, too. In 2012, Trees Atlanta donated 40 trees, while Hands On Atlanta sent 30 volunteers to help plant, clear ivy and mulch trails. Members of the Native Plant Society have also donated trees and shrubs, helped Smith identify appropriate grasses for the creek area and assisted with transporting the plants. The Garden Team and its supporters continue to invest their time and money to support the forest restoration and gardens as well.
And this past spring, reinforcements were brought in -- 12 sheep stayed for two months, eating the English ivy that overran the grounds. This literal flock was a big hit with the metaphorical one.
“The congregation fell in love with the sheep,” said the Rev. Ginnie Ferrell, the associate minister for children and youth at CUCC. “We can be so separated from creation that sheep … give us warm fuzzies.”
Sheep love to eat ivy, which is an invasive species that needed to be removed.
It’s bridging this separation from nature that inspires Smith and Ferrell to continue their efforts and watch the project evolve.
“Love is the greatest gift any of us can give,” Smith said. “It is an act of love to care for God’s creation. Humans do not and cannot exist in isolation from plants, animals, water, air or soil. Our earth is in peril. What greater mission could there be than to take care of all creation?”
Drawing from the congregation’s beginnings
At this liberal, progressive, mission-oriented church, Ferrell says, there’s a history of people wanting to worship in a natural setting.
When the CUCC congregation moved from downtown Atlanta in the late 1960s to what was then considered the suburbs, it chose to build the church in the middle of an 8-acre forest. Today, that property is surrounded by an urban landscape. It’s just minutes from downtown, located on a major four-lane road.
The congregation continued to enjoy the leafy view from the sanctuary, but over time, the land -- like many urban forests -- became overgrown. Every urban woods, forest and preserve fights invasive plants, Smith said; the deterioration is slow and organic.
The church started to take notice and reverse this decline shortly after Ferrell joined CUCC in 2008.
What natural resources could your institution protect, nurture, share or explore in order to cultivate a sense of wonder about God’s creation?
Wanting to create manageable volunteer opportunities to help with care for the church’s gardens, Ferrell established the Garden Team.The team divided the land into 35 sections. Members were asked to adopt a section, which they tended on their own time. This worked well, and the team took steps to have the forest designated as an NWF wildlife preserve. This is significant, Smith said, because the certification is a badge telling people the land has intentionally been set aside to be cared for in order to provide refuge for wildlife.
Children examine life under a log.Now, on any given day, members of the church and surrounding community can be found walking the nature trail, which starts at a memorial garden just outside the sanctuary. At the creek, 700 feet down the path, they’ve built a fort for children out of the remnants of Chinese privet, an invasive plant that was removed from the forest.
Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts spend time in the woods, now referred to as the nature preserve, to plant, work on trails and visit the award-winning pollinator garden, which is designed to attract insects that feed on and pollinate surrounding plants. Children, from the on-site preschool and the summer camp, are out in the woods almost every day of the year.
This, according to Ferrell, is how it should be. Worship and outreach are amplified to include the earth, she said.
“When we walk out into a forest or step into a creek, we are reminded that we are a part of the natural world,” Ferrell said. “Our time watching a bee sleep on a flower or a goldfinch sitting on the tiniest stem brings us in touch with the gifts of our Creator. The forest helps us to remember the incredible gift of life, all life, on this planet.
“If people realize from an early age that they are a part of nature, will they grow up to live more sustainably and to invent things that are more compatible with the natural world?”
Children at Camp Beech Grove take a nature walk near the restored creek.
According to Richard Louv, the author of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” and co-founder of the Children & Nature Network, the answer is yes.
“Smart religious leaders of all faiths, and many nonbelievers as well, intuitively understand that all spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and that sense is usually formed early in childhood, often in natural settings. Most religious traditions and, especially, indigenous cultures offer ways to discover the divine in the natural world. In these cultures and faith-based communities, individuals, families and religious organizations can play an important role in helping children and adults know the world and beyond through nature,” Louv said.
There is also an expanding body of scientific evidence linking experience in the natural world to better physical and mental health and enhanced cognitive abilities, Louv said. How can we tap into this for ourselves and our children? The answer, according to Louv, is to rethink nature within cities. And CUCC is doing just that.
Authentic mission
When Smith looked out the sanctuary windows that Sunday in 2011, his desire was to heal the earth. But this mission has also helped the congregation cultivate relationships in the community, largely through the preschool (link is external) and the summer camp (link is external).
“Camp Beech Grove and the preschool would not be here today without the trail,” Ferrell said. “They are both nature-oriented, and without this land, we couldn’t have done it.”
Children at the creek in 2014, before the invasive plants were cleared and replaced.Since 2012, the church has hosted Turning Sun School, a place-based preschool that emphasizes the local community and natural environment as an extension of the classroom. The children have fun with activities such as the fall lantern walk, a nighttime family hike along the trail, illuminated by lanterns they have made, and the spring fairy breakfast, for which they create their own fairy houses.
“Having the nature preserve outside our windows and within our reach has been such a great resource to our school,” said Alicia Karpick, the school director. “Children need to be able to play and experience nature with all their senses. If we want children to be environmental stewards, we need to give [them] the freedom and space to love and understand nature.”
Ferrell echoes this sentiment, which is why she, along with the CUCC Board of Christian Education, created Camp Beech Grove, a summer camp offering six one-week sessions focused on learning about the outdoor world and the sacredness of creation. For years, Ferrell and the board discussed this idea, hoping to create a way for children and families of the community to be connected to the church, and after five years of rehabilitating the nature preserve, Ferrell knew they could offer something great.
“Stepping into a cool and shaded forest, we feel like we are walking into a mysterious and healing space where we are cradled by the trees and the land,” Ferrell said. “That is what we hope children will feel as they walk through the forest at church, or anywhere in nature -- that they are held by God’s gift of the whole earth.”
The camp, held in June and July, had 61 campers this first year. The church offered 45 scholarships to children in a nearby neighborhood. Campers began each morning with a sacred story before a daily hands-on nature lesson. This type of learning was especially beneficial to 6-year-old Gabe Narducci, who attended all six weeks of Camp Beech Grove.
Storytime at Camp Beech Grove in the indoor church space.
“He is an outdoors kid, so we knew this camp would be perfect for him,” said Donna Narducci, Gabe’s grandmother, who found out about the camp from a community email list. “The things he learned on the nature walks were really interesting, and he would come home and tell us about a bird or bug or something growing there. It really allowed us to engage with him and find out more about how much he learned and retained.”
And Camp Beech Grove is just a first step. As the project continues to evolve, Smith has plans for more trails and gardens, including a community vegetable garden, where neighbors can participate in growing their own produce.
“The preserve keeps us alert to the hope of nature’s ability to heal and to our need as humans to heal and restore the earth in all the ways we can,” Ferrell said. “As humans, it is more clear every day how much we have impacted all life and the very ground on which we live. The whole church is called to remember this sacred planet, our home. If we want to have a healthy planet for future generations, then the whole human community needs to learn to live sustainably.”
Questions to consider
- Ron Smith began his work on a path through the woods surrounding his church by thinking, “If I build a trail, people will come.” In what ways would this be a useful attitude in your church or institution?
- Why did this nature preserve project attract the attention and resources of the wider Atlanta community? What project are you excited enough about to share with your community?
- Smith and the Rev. Ginnie Ferrell note that the woods foster a sense of wonder. What natural resources could your institution protect, nurture, share or explore in order to cultivate a sense of wonder about God’s creation?
- What resources -- natural or made by people -- are abundant in your setting or organization? How might you use them to cultivate a thriving community?
Monday, September 14, 2015
Greening Spaces for Worship and Ministry provides a rationale, strategies, and resources for fulfilling environmental stewardship through the land and buildings of Christian and Jewish congregations. The challenges and opportunities inherent in new construction, renovation, and historic preservation projects are addressed. Ten congregations from across the United States and Canada are featured as examples of excellence in creation care in and through their built environments. Buy the book » 
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Ideas that Impact: Stewarding Sacred SpaceCreate Places Where People Can Flourish: A Faith & Leadership Interview with David Greusel
All Christians should care about the built environment, the buildings where people live, work, pray and gather, says a noted architect. It is part of our duty as stewards of creation. Read more »
From ballparks to churches, architecture has a significant impact on people’s lives and should therefore be about the creation of places where people can flourish, said David Greusel, an architect who specializes in the design of public buildings.
Unfortunately, much architecture today, both sacred and secular, has not been about human flourishing, Greusel said. Instead, architecture in general has been about originality at the expense of tradition, while church architecture has been marked by mediocrity born of pragmatism.
“The church had a central role in the discussion about what is good architecture but basically abandoned it,” he said.
Greusel has worked as an architect for more than 30 years and is the founder of Convergence Design (link is external), a Kansas City-based practice specializing in places where people gather. Earlier, while with another firm, he was lead designer for two major-league ballparks: Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, and PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Greusel writes and speaks frequently about architecture, work and faith. He is a contributing writer for the website Cardus (link is external) and was a presenter at the Jubilee 2012 Conference, a conference on work and faith.
Greusel spoke with Faith & Leadership recently about architecture, work and faith. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: I understand that your approach to architecture -- in both its design and its business aspects -- is shaped by your Christian faith. How so?
A few years ago, our church started thinking about how faith and work relate to each other. And we really began to see the things we do at church and on Sunday as part of an integrated whole.
When I started Convergence Design a couple of years ago, I wanted to carry that idea into the workplace. Not that everybody who works here has to be a Christian, but just that we view our lives as an integrated whole -- that our work and our family and our community commitments, whatever they might be, should be seen as a seamless fabric rather than a series of compartments.
And in our practice of architecture, obviously, we see architecture as having a significant impact on people’s lives. Winston Churchill said, “First we shape our buildings, and afterward they shape us.”
So we take what we do seriously; we try to create places where people can flourish.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s always what architects try to do when they envision a space. But it’s very much what we try to do.
Q: Your firm specializes in public spaces, places for people to gather.
Yes. We specialize in “public assembly” architecture -- basically, any large building where large numbers of people are likely to come together. That includes churches, but also stadiums, ballparks, arenas, convention centers, conference centers, amphitheaters and places like that.
Q: Speak some about the nature of sacred space. I gather that for you, sacred space is not exclusive to houses of worship.
I would say that all space is sacred in that everywhere people are is important space and needs to be treated with reverence. Obviously, houses of worship are a special category, where people intentionally meet to have an experience of God.
But I take the view that there’s no square inch of creation that Jesus doesn’t claim as his. So we tend to think all space is sacred in that sense.
Q: You were the lead designer for the Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ PNC Park. Does faith bring something even to the design of baseball parks?
Those ballparks were very much about seeking the welfare of the cities where they are located. As an architect from out of town, I first try to understand the city where I’m working -- its history, traditions, architecture and people.
But beyond that, I’m trying to bring my best understanding of urban design to a large building (because ballparks tend to be very large buildings) and design it in such a way that it can help the city to flourish -- not just people in the ballpark but also people around the ballpark.
That means responding to the street in a certain way and responding to the pedestrian who’s walking by in a certain way, and really keeping all those things in mind as you design the project, not just trying to come up with a zoomy shape that’ll look good on a magazine cover.
Q: What’s your assessment of the current state of architecture broadly and church architecture specifically?
Architecture broadly, for about 100 years, has been headed off in a direction where the search for original forms of expression trumps everything else. Because of how our profession is structured, with few professional journals and a relatively small number of schools, many architects get oriented in that mindset and try to outdo themselves in originality of form.
While there’s nothing wrong with trying to express yourself in a new way, it gets carried to extremes in architecture. Often, the buildings on architectural magazine covers are buildings that most people react to negatively, yet the profession celebrates them.
So I’m trying to push back against that. I’ve been reading an excellent book by Eric Jacobsen, called “The Space Between,” that talks about the public realm.
Eric has a lot of wise counsel. He reminds us that traditions become traditions because they have value. And for the last 100 years or so, the architectural profession has been busily destroying tradition and eliminating it from the curriculum, to our detriment.
Church architecture is in a different place. Because of the fundamentalist movement of the last 100 years or so, churches have tended to treat buildings as unimportant. As churches -- in North America, at least -- focused on saving souls to the exclusion of everything else, they tended to ignore the physical facility where they worshipped and treated it as an afterthought.
Because of that, you see a lot of mediocre or less-than-mediocre church architecture that’s born out of a spirit of pragmatism, which is a very un-Christian way of looking at building.
The pragmatism comes from thinking that if it’s not related to saving souls, it’s unimportant. Therefore, buildings are unimportant -- we should just move into the cheapest, crummiest building that can keep the rain out.
That is a distortion of the creation mandate in Genesis to cultivate and subdue the earth, and a distortion of what the church is supposed to be about.
Q: You also say the church shares responsibility for the state of architecture generally and that it should care about architecture even beyond its own walls. Why?
In the history of Western civilization, the church has always been the most important, most beautiful, most expensive building in town. But if you think about the church in North America today, none of that is true.
The church is no longer important, it’s no longer beautiful, and it’s no longer expensive. It’s unimportant, cheap and shoved off to the side in our public discourse.
Most of the history of architecture is the study of religious buildings, from ancient temples through the cathedrals right up until about the middle of the 19th century, when it started to be about other buildings, like museums, schools and libraries.
The church had a central role in the discussion about what is good architecture but basically abandoned it. And that abandonment was about the same time as this interest in personal evangelism came along, and I think those two things are related.
Q: What are the most important, expensive and beautiful buildings today?
Art museums and performing arts centers are now the largest, most expensive and most important buildings in town.
Kansas City just opened an expensive new performing arts center that is enormously popular, and a few years earlier, a big addition to the local art museum.
If you ask people on the street to name the two most important buildings built in Kansas City recently, almost everybody would say, “Well, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the Bloch addition to the Nelson Gallery.” And I wouldn’t disagree.
Buildings for the arts are where people focus their attention architecturally and where they put the most resources and money.
Q: What does that mean for the church?
I think it’s bad from the church’s point of view. The arts have taken the place of the church as the place where people put -- you might say, invest -- their spiritual dollars.
People want to feel spiritual. At least, we recognize that we are spiritual beings and not just blobs of flesh.
But they invest those dollars in the arts rather than in the church, which is obviously unfortunate for the church. We’ve spent 150 years getting to that place, and it’s probably going to take us 150 years to get out of it, if we do get out of it.
Q: What about Minute Maid Park and other public spaces? Does the church have a stake in what they look like and how they function?
Absolutely, but we’ve narrowed the discussion so much that it’s going to be hard to get a seat at the table again.
Minute Maid Park is built across the street from a church, and the only real interaction that we had with that church was trying to get around the arcane Texas liquor laws that state how many feet an establishment that sells alcohol has to be from a church. That was the extent of it.
But I think the ballpark actually expresses some architectural ideas that are borrowed from the church. The intent was to make it a harmonious neighbor with the church, so I was aware of the existence of the church and kind of baked that into the design.
But it wasn’t like folks from the church were calling us up saying, “Let’s talk about how we can work together to make this a better neighborhood.” Nobody thought in those terms, and perhaps we need to be.
Being an architect, I sometimes forget Step 1, but Step 1 is to convince the church and Christians generally that caring about the built environment is part of our duty as stewards of creation, stewards of this beautiful world that we’ve been given.
We have a responsibility to care about this stuff. And if we care about it, we have a responsibility to speak up and let our voice be heard.
Q: You said that architecture has thrown out all tradition in its quest for originality. What’s the right architectural balance between tradition and innovation?
I would express it this way: I’m not interested in doing the same building that somebody did 100 or 500 years ago, but I’m interested in learning from it and building on tradition.
What’s different about the modern movement is rather than building on tradition, they swept it all away and said, “Let’s start over.” That sounds appealing when you’re in a revolutionary mood, but there’s a lot of wisdom that goes out the window when you do that.
My interest is not in replicating the classic forms that are found in the 500-year-old pattern books but in learning from and being informed by them to design buildings that look like they’re part of a conversation where a building can be more contemporary than its peers but it still looks like it fits in with its peers.
One of the main critiques of modernism generally is that the buildings never look like they fit in. They look like they’re the one guy at the party wearing a bunny suit, and they don’t seem to be able to have a conversation with their peer buildings.
That’s something I’m sensitive about. I try to make buildings that look like they’re part of a community and not something that got dropped from a UFO.
Q: Your firm’s slogan is “a particular space for a particular time in a particular place.” You don’t sit in an office and design a generic building to drop down in a vacant lot.
Right. Part of my method is to immerse myself in a community where I’m going to be designing a building and figure out what makes it tick. What’s neat about it? What’s unique? What ethnic heritages do people bring to the table?
I try to understand and absorb all that before I design anything, so that the building looks like it’s part of the community and not just something brought in from outside. That immersion and understanding is an important part of the design process.
But other architects keep repeating themselves over and over again, regardless of what city they’re in. Their work seems to be very popular, and they’re highly celebrated architects. So I can’t say that my method is better; it’s just my method.
Q: What’s a well-designed church supposed to do?
A well-designed church is supposed to put people in a proper frame of mind to think about and experience and have an encounter with God. That’s a really heavy responsibility for the architect of a church.
So I -- not having any great confidence in my own abilities -- look around and ask, “How has that been done in the past?” And I see these amazing Gothic cathedrals and amazing Classical churches of antiquity, and wonderful Colonial churches in New England.
And I say to myself, “Well, those folks got it mostly right, so there’s probably a lot I could learn from them.”
So I try to let myself be taught by the people who have gone before rather than assuming that I know everything and can completely imagine from whole cloth what a worship-experience space ought to be like.
A House That Will Last Forever by Charles P. Henderson
Those who undertake the task of creating, maintaining, or living with buildings that people identify as "sacred" need to undertake their work with both caution and humility, cautions the executive director of CrossCurrents.Read more »
Unfortunately, much architecture today, both sacred and secular, has not been about human flourishing, Greusel said. Instead, architecture in general has been about originality at the expense of tradition, while church architecture has been marked by mediocrity born of pragmatism.
“The church had a central role in the discussion about what is good architecture but basically abandoned it,” he said.
Greusel has worked as an architect for more than 30 years and is the founder of Convergence Design (link is external), a Kansas City-based practice specializing in places where people gather. Earlier, while with another firm, he was lead designer for two major-league ballparks: Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, and PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Greusel writes and speaks frequently about architecture, work and faith. He is a contributing writer for the website Cardus (link is external) and was a presenter at the Jubilee 2012 Conference, a conference on work and faith.
Greusel spoke with Faith & Leadership recently about architecture, work and faith. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: I understand that your approach to architecture -- in both its design and its business aspects -- is shaped by your Christian faith. How so?
A few years ago, our church started thinking about how faith and work relate to each other. And we really began to see the things we do at church and on Sunday as part of an integrated whole.
When I started Convergence Design a couple of years ago, I wanted to carry that idea into the workplace. Not that everybody who works here has to be a Christian, but just that we view our lives as an integrated whole -- that our work and our family and our community commitments, whatever they might be, should be seen as a seamless fabric rather than a series of compartments.
And in our practice of architecture, obviously, we see architecture as having a significant impact on people’s lives. Winston Churchill said, “First we shape our buildings, and afterward they shape us.”
So we take what we do seriously; we try to create places where people can flourish.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s always what architects try to do when they envision a space. But it’s very much what we try to do.
Q: Your firm specializes in public spaces, places for people to gather.
Yes. We specialize in “public assembly” architecture -- basically, any large building where large numbers of people are likely to come together. That includes churches, but also stadiums, ballparks, arenas, convention centers, conference centers, amphitheaters and places like that.
Q: Speak some about the nature of sacred space. I gather that for you, sacred space is not exclusive to houses of worship.
I would say that all space is sacred in that everywhere people are is important space and needs to be treated with reverence. Obviously, houses of worship are a special category, where people intentionally meet to have an experience of God.
But I take the view that there’s no square inch of creation that Jesus doesn’t claim as his. So we tend to think all space is sacred in that sense.
Q: You were the lead designer for the Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ PNC Park. Does faith bring something even to the design of baseball parks?
Those ballparks were very much about seeking the welfare of the cities where they are located. As an architect from out of town, I first try to understand the city where I’m working -- its history, traditions, architecture and people.
But beyond that, I’m trying to bring my best understanding of urban design to a large building (because ballparks tend to be very large buildings) and design it in such a way that it can help the city to flourish -- not just people in the ballpark but also people around the ballpark.
That means responding to the street in a certain way and responding to the pedestrian who’s walking by in a certain way, and really keeping all those things in mind as you design the project, not just trying to come up with a zoomy shape that’ll look good on a magazine cover.
Q: What’s your assessment of the current state of architecture broadly and church architecture specifically?
Architecture broadly, for about 100 years, has been headed off in a direction where the search for original forms of expression trumps everything else. Because of how our profession is structured, with few professional journals and a relatively small number of schools, many architects get oriented in that mindset and try to outdo themselves in originality of form.
While there’s nothing wrong with trying to express yourself in a new way, it gets carried to extremes in architecture. Often, the buildings on architectural magazine covers are buildings that most people react to negatively, yet the profession celebrates them.
So I’m trying to push back against that. I’ve been reading an excellent book by Eric Jacobsen, called “The Space Between,” that talks about the public realm.
Eric has a lot of wise counsel. He reminds us that traditions become traditions because they have value. And for the last 100 years or so, the architectural profession has been busily destroying tradition and eliminating it from the curriculum, to our detriment.
Church architecture is in a different place. Because of the fundamentalist movement of the last 100 years or so, churches have tended to treat buildings as unimportant. As churches -- in North America, at least -- focused on saving souls to the exclusion of everything else, they tended to ignore the physical facility where they worshipped and treated it as an afterthought.
Because of that, you see a lot of mediocre or less-than-mediocre church architecture that’s born out of a spirit of pragmatism, which is a very un-Christian way of looking at building.
The pragmatism comes from thinking that if it’s not related to saving souls, it’s unimportant. Therefore, buildings are unimportant -- we should just move into the cheapest, crummiest building that can keep the rain out.
That is a distortion of the creation mandate in Genesis to cultivate and subdue the earth, and a distortion of what the church is supposed to be about.
Q: You also say the church shares responsibility for the state of architecture generally and that it should care about architecture even beyond its own walls. Why?
In the history of Western civilization, the church has always been the most important, most beautiful, most expensive building in town. But if you think about the church in North America today, none of that is true.
The church is no longer important, it’s no longer beautiful, and it’s no longer expensive. It’s unimportant, cheap and shoved off to the side in our public discourse.
Most of the history of architecture is the study of religious buildings, from ancient temples through the cathedrals right up until about the middle of the 19th century, when it started to be about other buildings, like museums, schools and libraries.
The church had a central role in the discussion about what is good architecture but basically abandoned it. And that abandonment was about the same time as this interest in personal evangelism came along, and I think those two things are related.
Q: What are the most important, expensive and beautiful buildings today?
Art museums and performing arts centers are now the largest, most expensive and most important buildings in town.
Kansas City just opened an expensive new performing arts center that is enormously popular, and a few years earlier, a big addition to the local art museum.
If you ask people on the street to name the two most important buildings built in Kansas City recently, almost everybody would say, “Well, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the Bloch addition to the Nelson Gallery.” And I wouldn’t disagree.
Buildings for the arts are where people focus their attention architecturally and where they put the most resources and money.
Q: What does that mean for the church?
I think it’s bad from the church’s point of view. The arts have taken the place of the church as the place where people put -- you might say, invest -- their spiritual dollars.
People want to feel spiritual. At least, we recognize that we are spiritual beings and not just blobs of flesh.
But they invest those dollars in the arts rather than in the church, which is obviously unfortunate for the church. We’ve spent 150 years getting to that place, and it’s probably going to take us 150 years to get out of it, if we do get out of it.
Q: What about Minute Maid Park and other public spaces? Does the church have a stake in what they look like and how they function?
Absolutely, but we’ve narrowed the discussion so much that it’s going to be hard to get a seat at the table again.
Minute Maid Park is built across the street from a church, and the only real interaction that we had with that church was trying to get around the arcane Texas liquor laws that state how many feet an establishment that sells alcohol has to be from a church. That was the extent of it.
But I think the ballpark actually expresses some architectural ideas that are borrowed from the church. The intent was to make it a harmonious neighbor with the church, so I was aware of the existence of the church and kind of baked that into the design.
But it wasn’t like folks from the church were calling us up saying, “Let’s talk about how we can work together to make this a better neighborhood.” Nobody thought in those terms, and perhaps we need to be.
Being an architect, I sometimes forget Step 1, but Step 1 is to convince the church and Christians generally that caring about the built environment is part of our duty as stewards of creation, stewards of this beautiful world that we’ve been given.
We have a responsibility to care about this stuff. And if we care about it, we have a responsibility to speak up and let our voice be heard.
Q: You said that architecture has thrown out all tradition in its quest for originality. What’s the right architectural balance between tradition and innovation?
I would express it this way: I’m not interested in doing the same building that somebody did 100 or 500 years ago, but I’m interested in learning from it and building on tradition.
What’s different about the modern movement is rather than building on tradition, they swept it all away and said, “Let’s start over.” That sounds appealing when you’re in a revolutionary mood, but there’s a lot of wisdom that goes out the window when you do that.
My interest is not in replicating the classic forms that are found in the 500-year-old pattern books but in learning from and being informed by them to design buildings that look like they’re part of a conversation where a building can be more contemporary than its peers but it still looks like it fits in with its peers.
One of the main critiques of modernism generally is that the buildings never look like they fit in. They look like they’re the one guy at the party wearing a bunny suit, and they don’t seem to be able to have a conversation with their peer buildings.
That’s something I’m sensitive about. I try to make buildings that look like they’re part of a community and not something that got dropped from a UFO.
Q: Your firm’s slogan is “a particular space for a particular time in a particular place.” You don’t sit in an office and design a generic building to drop down in a vacant lot.
Right. Part of my method is to immerse myself in a community where I’m going to be designing a building and figure out what makes it tick. What’s neat about it? What’s unique? What ethnic heritages do people bring to the table?
I try to understand and absorb all that before I design anything, so that the building looks like it’s part of the community and not just something brought in from outside. That immersion and understanding is an important part of the design process.
But other architects keep repeating themselves over and over again, regardless of what city they’re in. Their work seems to be very popular, and they’re highly celebrated architects. So I can’t say that my method is better; it’s just my method.
Q: What’s a well-designed church supposed to do?
A well-designed church is supposed to put people in a proper frame of mind to think about and experience and have an encounter with God. That’s a really heavy responsibility for the architect of a church.
So I -- not having any great confidence in my own abilities -- look around and ask, “How has that been done in the past?” And I see these amazing Gothic cathedrals and amazing Classical churches of antiquity, and wonderful Colonial churches in New England.
And I say to myself, “Well, those folks got it mostly right, so there’s probably a lot I could learn from them.”
So I try to let myself be taught by the people who have gone before rather than assuming that I know everything and can completely imagine from whole cloth what a worship-experience space ought to be like.
A House That Will Last Forever by Charles P. Henderson
Those who undertake the task of creating, maintaining, or living with buildings that people identify as "sacred" need to undertake their work with both caution and humility, cautions the executive director of CrossCurrents.Read more »
Unscheduled Topics
I was recently involved as a sponsor of a national conference on architecture held at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Planned in the early months of 2001, the meeting was to focus on “sustainable architecture.” Between the planning and the execution of the event, however, two jumbo jets plowed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center a few miles away, changing everything. Suddenly our conference was not just about how buildings, including church buildings, can be energy-efficient, but how our constructed environments define, for ourselves and for others, who we are as a people. We learned, for example, why the twin towers became such a tempting target for Osama bin Laden, and why Saddam Hussein has invested so much of his resources in building palaces and mosques. Clearly, an in-depth discussion of the topic of sacred space leads to painful discoveries. How did it happen, for example, that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has become the focal point of one of the world’s gravest and most intractable conflicts? Far more often than we realize, our places of worship become settings for conflict and war, both culture wars and armed conflicts.
The cathedral in which we met is, of course, one of the outstanding examples of Gothic Revival architecture anywhere. It is also, with its massive volume and height, one of the world’s great examples of architecture that is not sustainable. Indeed, the unfinished south tower of the cathedral is still sheathed in rusted scaffolding which has been condemned by city building inspectors, a stark reminder of the abandoned building project of the 1970s, undertaken with such visionary reach and optimism by then Dean James Parks Morton. Today the leaders of the cathedral struggle to find resources to remove the scaffolding, and to devise a plan that uses the land and buildings of the cathedral close (precincts) to generate enough revenue to keep their wonderful house of worship standing. One great challenge facing our churches today is how to maintain buildings that have outlived the economic, social, and political realities that made them possible in the first place.
A Rich Liturgical Atmosphere
Of course, Gothic architecture is, for many, the very epitome of the sacred, with its towering columns, vaulted ceilings, statuary, and the stained-glass windows that give visible expression to the narratives of the Christian faith. Moreover, those responsible for leading worship at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine make maximum use of this magnificent space. The rich liturgical service with song and chant, the incense rising through shafts of light that seem to descend from heavenly heights, the ornate vestments of priests and choir, the way in which Scripture is presented and read, the reverberation of the pipe organ—all bring to this space a sense of mystery, recalling Rudolf Otto’s phrase, the “mysterium tremendum.”
And what a wonderfully diverse group gathers at the cathedral for the Eucharist each Sunday. The congregation is as diverse as the neighborhood surrounding it, located at an intersection of populations that include large numbers of Hispanics and African Americans, Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Jews, rich and poor. The gathering of people around the table of the Lord has the look and feel of a microcosm of the entire human family. This human mosaic is all very much to the point, for one of the elements that make a place sacred is that people experience it as a unifying focal point, the axis mundi, around which the world itself seems to turn.
The Tradition of the Meeting House
Of course, it doesn’t take a Gothic cathedral to function in this way. As a Presbyterian, I appreciate equally an architecture that springs from a different root altogether. In 18th-century America, especially in New England, worship often took place in a “meeting house,” usually a rectangular, barnlike structure with gabled roof, plain wood floor, clear-glass windows, and pulpit and pews painted white. A single steeple signified that this building was indeed a place of prayer. These meeting houses were often located at the nexus of the sacred and the secular, serving as both a gathering place for the community during the week and a worship center on the Sabbath. But their architectural idiom was one of stark simplicity, devoid of statuary, visual images, tapestry, or other signs of opulence. The visual focal point in these sanctuaries was the pulpit, up front and center, high enough to be seen by everyone. From such places, God’s Word would be preached, and the good news would radiate around the world, as once again the sanctuary became, for those gathered within, the axis mundi around which everything turned.
Those New England meeting houses are an essential part of the American landscape—both the physical terrain that can be photographed by a camera aboard a satellite and the scenes of memory and imagination that are central to the self-identity of millions of Americans. Indeed, these objects of the constructed environment play an important part even in the spiritual lives of people who do not belong to any church, as more than a few church leaders have learned from the public outcry that erupts when plans for altering the outward appearance of such buildings are proposed. Likewise, church leaders often encounter passionate resistance to proposed alterations of a beloved sanctuary, even when practical considerations make a compelling case for change. The strong feelings that people associate with their physical surroundings tell us something crucial about sacred space. Those who work with the design, renovation, or restoration of sacred space are very much involved in the shaping of the spiritual life of a people.
Experiencing the Holy Elsewhere
Neither a cathedral nor even a visually powerful New England meeting house is needed as a setting for one’s experience of the holy. In certain special, private places in our own lives we have a heightened sense of the presence of God. It can be a favorite bench in the park, a soft place in the grass under the shadow of a tree, or a knoll on the hillside overlooking a valley. In such places one feels close to one’s deepest self, to the outside world, and to the God who holds it all together. These are the places we simply discover; other sacred spaces we construct so that the numinous may be a more regular part of daily life.
An icon hangs on the wall above a dresser in the bedroom where I begin each day in prayer, and a yoga ma
t is lovingly unrolled on an Afghani prayer rug before a time of centering and contemplation. Any real discussion of sacred space involves the interplay between our most private spiritual practice and our public acts of devotion and prayer. Those who design, renovate, or make use of places of corporate worship need to be in tune with the sense of the sacred that worshipers bring to the sanctuary with them, as well as events in the wider culture that shape people’s perception of what constitutes the sacred.
A Place of Shelter and Supply
Several of these questions, themes, and observations were crystallized for me one night more than a year ago when I led an interfaith worship service in St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan. St. Paul’s is Manhattan’s oldest public building (completed in 1766), as well as its remaining colonial-era church. It is a prime example of Georgian Revival architecture, a brownstone beauty surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, with Broadway and Fulton Street on the east and a historic graveyard on the west. Beyond the graveyard lies—the void.
It seemed a miracle to many that on the morning of September 11, 2001, this wonderful house of worship escaped serious damage, even as the entire neighborhood descended into chaos. The miracle was not simply its survival, but also the resilience with which the staff and volunteers of Trinity Church Wall Street (Episcopal), which owns and runs St. Paul’s Chapel, responded. Almost immediately the church was transformed into a relief center. A kitchen was set up. Meals were served. Supplies for relief workers were collected and distributed. The nave became a place of supply and shelter—food, medical care, massage, music, therapy, pastoral counseling. St. Paul’s was at the center of it all, the axis of a mortally wounded world. People began to put up signs on the fence outside the church and on the walls inside—pleas seeking their lost loved ones. Also placed lovingly were flowers, paintings made by little children mourning a loss, hand-lettered posters, and articles of clothing. Every foot of the fence and every available surface of the church interior was transformed into a living memorial. A sacred space indeed!
It was a cold Wednesday evening in January. Our service was designed as a sacred trek, beginning in the nave with music and singing, and in the chancel with the reading of sacred scriptures of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim origins. With each reading, the congregation moved to a new location, walking in procession first down the center aisle of the church to the altar and then to the front porch overlooking the intersection of Broadway and Fulton Streets, where police were still out in force, and where floodlights, a crush of relief equipment, and the vapor from steaming underground pipes filled the air, lending a sense of mystery to the entire neighborhood. For the final segment of our service we moved in procession up the long ramp toward the viewing platform overlooking the void. The pile of rubble was growing smaller each day; but as the wreckage was removed, the magnitude of what was lost seemed more real than ever. We stood shivering in the cold and the silence, contemplating it all. And then the Buddhist monks began a chant, punctuated with the ringing of a bell. We found ourselves caught up in a prayer for peace written by Martin Luther King in another time of war. And the words of our prayers flowed with a sense of urgency and passion that seemed to rise, like the psalm of Jonah, from the belly of the beast itself.
Ruins as a Place of Prayer for All
Today a contentious public debate and an intense planning process are underway with the aim of transforming that void into a memorial. Among the requirements laid out by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for the redesign of the World Trade Center site are the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed on September 11, and the “recognition of the historic role of St. Paul’s Chapel.” The set of principles the development firm has stipulated for the memorial itself includes respecting the “sacred quality of the space” and encouraging “reflection and contemplation.” Seldom has a state had such an opportunity to engage in the construction of a space that could function as a place of “prayer for all people.” Even before construction has begun, the ruins of the twin towers have become a world prayer center.
Note, however, that religious leaders are not prominent in the planning, design, or construction of the memorial or its surrounding neighborhood. At a time when “spirituality” is seen as a replacement for denominational religion, the realm of the sacred clearly extends beyond the walls of any church, synagogue, or mosque. The entire question of what makes space sacred is being addressed increasingly in the wider circles of secular culture, as well as in the private lives of individuals. Therefore, as this example clearly illustrates, the most important thing to understand about how any sanctuary or other building that people identify as sacred actually functions is how what happens within relates to the world without.
Doors and Windows
Speaking figuratively, the most important parts of any worship space are the doors and the windows. Remembering how the doors of St. Paul’s Chapel were swung open to allow entry and exit to all those emergency rescue and recovery workers, we are reminded that those responsible for the construction, renovation, and use of sacred space need to attend to the traffic flow. How does the activity taking place inside the sanctuary relate to the activity taking place outside on the streets of the city or in the wider secular culture? Equally important are the windows, which not only allow the light of God to shine through, but also provide a view of the world and a sense of perspective on it.
Given the importance of the doors and windows, it is ironic to note that more and more churches are being built or renovated to include a new kind of window—the “electronic window” of the digital age. Rather than a cross hanging on a wall behind the altar, it is now common to see a projection screen, and in the place of stained-glass windows, a row of computer monitors. Indeed, many of the megachurch auditoriums that have been built in recent years in North America have replaced the traditional elements of church architecture with equipment designed for use in secular auditoriums or performance space. As Douglas Hoffman noted in an article on megachurch design in Architecture Week, the Willow Creek Community Church (in South Barrington, Illinois, near Chicago), is “characterized by a distinct absence of Christian symbolism and, coupled with the adjacent food court, takes on the appearance of a suburban mall. The building is intentionally non-church-like because the ministry is to reach those who have rejected or never accepted traditional denominational church ministry.” Likewise, Paul Goldberger mused in his New York Times review of the Willow Creek sanctuary: the building is “friendly and accessible, determined to banish the sense of mystery and otherworldliness that has long been at the very heart of the architecture of Christianity.”
Similarly, in a recent press release on the opening of another such sanctuary, a bulleted list highlighted the new church’s outstanding features, such as its impressive seating capacity. This sentence nearly leaped off the page: “In our new building there are no Bibles and no hymnals, but there are several large projection screens and 20 computer monitors visible from all locations.” This is a church designed from the ground up quite self-consciously as a phenomenon of the digital age.
Because the changes in the nature of our communications media are happening so rapidly, and because they are transforming so profoundly the way we learn and the ways in which we relate to one another, it is clear that those responsible for pastoral
leadership must be aware of both the promise and the perils of the new technologies.
More Than a ‘House of Cedar’
From the very beginning, the people of God have been well advised to approach with caution the task of setting aside in time and space a place where one might encounter the Maker of heaven and earth. Note the warning given by Nathan, the prophet, when King David proposed building a sanctuary in the center of his new capital, Jerusalem. In fact, Nathan opposed the construction of the temple in rather harsh terms, using both satire and humor to attack the notion that it is even possible to build such a thing as “a house of God.” And his reason is worth noting. Since the Lord had been with the people in the past, “wherever they went,” it would not be necessary or advisable to build a mere “house of cedar.” Rather it would be far preferable to let go of those ambitious plans for building a temple and instead allow God to build a “house . . . that will last forever” (2 Sam. 7:5ff). What Nathan had in mind was not a building at all, but rather a living, breathing community of faith that Christians later identified as the body of Christ.
In the past, Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike have seldom been able to heed the warning of the prophet but, like King Solomon, have pressed ahead with their building plans. Given all that we have seen of the good, the bad, and the ugly in sanctuary construction since that time, it is clear that those who undertake the task of creating, maintaining, or living with buildings that people identify as “sacred” need to undertake their work with both caution and humility. And then they must go ahead with a clear understanding that “unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1). Leaking Gutters and Sacred Spaces: Practical Tips for Facility Repair by Brent Bill and Nancy DeMott
Sacred space issues -- whether they be leaking gutters or major renovations -- can seem daunting, but these thirteen lessons can make the work a bit simpler.
Read more »
First Baptist Church of Cumberland, Indiana, had a gutter and roof problem. At least that’s what the trustees thought. They knew they had storm damage, and during the past few winters they had noticed that ice was backing up. This may have had something to do with the various ages of the roofs and gutters. Over the years, new wings had been added to First Baptist’s building—not unlike the additions to many churches dotting the metropolitan Indianapolis landscape.
So the Rev. Kevin Rose, associate pastor, called the Indianapolis Center for Congregations,1 looking for someone who could do church guttering and roofing work. Since its inception almost seven years ago, the center has fielded thousands of requests from congregations in its nine-county service area as part of its mission of helping Indianapolis-area congregations find solutions to their practical problems. We who work at the center do that by connecting churches with excellent resources, both local and national.
Building issues are among the top requests. Center staff members have handled more than 75 congregational cases related to building concerns in the past six years. These include questions on selection of architects, facility expansion, accessibility issues, and stained-glass window restoration. Many other cases that come to the center are indirectly related to sacred space issues—such as capital fund drives for new or expanded buildings, strategic planning, worship, and relocation issues. In addition, the center, through its innovative Resource Grants Program,2 has awarded more than $70,000 to 16 area congregations for building-related resources and projects.
Looking at the Big Picture
As the center’s resource director, Nancy DeMott took First Baptist’s case. After talking with Kevin Rose, Nancy gave him the names of some guttering firms recommended by other Indianapolis-area congregations. The Indianapolis Center for Congregations frequently relies on the experience of area congregations in compiling a list of best resources for other congregations. That’s part of the center’s work—serving as a sort of “consumers’ report” for congregations.
Equipped with these references, the church’s trustees met. Afterward Kevin called Nancy and reported that the trustees, after discussing the guttering problem, had decided that they needed to find a general contractor who could give them some overall help with maintenance. They wisely realized that they needed someone who could help them with a “building big picture,” rather than a firm that could do only a bit of guttering and roofing.
Nancy asked the associate pastor if the trustees might want to consider doing a facility assessment. Center staff members have learned that various types of facility assessments can be made—something that most congregations don’t realize. Types of assessments include Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Assessment (an evaluation of a building for compliance with that 1990 federal law), energy efficiency studies (see the box on page 13 for more information), historical renovation assessment for older buildings, and analysis of a church’s space needs. Nancy recommended for First Baptist an assessment in which a consultant comes in and identifies what immediate repairs are needed and develops an ongoing plan for repair and maintenance. Specifically, she recommended using a local nonprofit group that calls on the expertise of experienced retired and semiretired executives and professionals who work for low or no fees.
First Baptist went with that recommendation, and a retired architect from that organization was assigned to work with the congregation. He surveyed the facility and helped the trustees find three high-quality facility assessors that did the kind of work needed. The trustees then selected an inspection firm to analyze their facility thoroughly, to create a priority list of immediate repairs, and to develop a multi-year preventive maintenance plan. The consultant was also present during the assessment to “ask the right questions.”
As the project progressed, the inspection turned up major building problems. They were all related to shoddy work done when the church added classroom space 10 years earlier. To completely repair the water damage and prevent future damage, some of that work would have to be redone.
By then, the folk at First Baptist were fairly frustrated. What had seemed a simple problem had grown into a full-scale investment of time and money. But to its credit, the congregation did not back away from the problems that had been identified. Empowered by having reliable information on the nature of the problem and positive solutions to it (what sort of work needed to be done and who could do it), the trustees moved from frustration to action. They hired the appropriate contractors to repair their facility and did it right. In the end, they were well satisfied—and their gutters no longer leaked.
What First Baptist Learned
Looking back at the process, members of First Baptist Church of Cumberland reflected, identified, and shared with the center the following five essentials they learned—steps that can help your congregation maintain and repair your facilities.
1. Get an inspector. First Church members learned that when their “new” classroom space and narthex were built more than 10 years ago, they should have hired a professional inspection company before signing off on any work. This practice is extremely important for church building committees or trustees who oversee such projects. Limited expertise or knowledge on the part of well-meaning volunteer committee members often creates a situation in which unscrupulous contractors and shoddy work can be overlooked. A high-quality professional inspector will quickly catch improper procedures and poor workmanship. An independent inspector should be involved throughout any building process. “The cost of hiring an inspection company is worth every penny,” said Kevin Rose.
2. Do it right the first time. They learned that temporary fixes and shortcuts only postpone and often multiply the expense of repair. While a short-term fix may be less expensive, it is always better to make repairs thoroughly and correctly the first time. If the job is done right, a five-year period of fixing gutters doesn’t end up concealing that make-do fixes were driving water up under the roof, ruining decking and plaster beneath.
3. Get a facility maintenance report. The congregation learned that getting a full facility maintenance report gives a committee the big picture. This point is important because it relates to the temporary-fix temptation cited above. Building problems are often interconnected. A full report helps a group avoid focusing on one small problem and spending money to repair it, only to discover a year later that a previously unidentified but related problem must be corrected before the initial problem can be properly dealt with. Without a comprehensive report, costs can quickly spiral out of control, and repairs will fail to produce a unified solution.
4. Refer to your inspection report when hiring contractors. The congregation found that obtaining an outside inspection report gives a common focus to a property ministry team, as well as a list of needs to check off when interviewing potential contractors. One contractor often has a different idea from another on how to repair the presented problems. Methods used to gather information about your needs and goals vary from contractor to contractor. Contractors may also take different views as to the primary issues, concerns, and challenges presented by your church’s project. With such a report in hand, your committee can more easily determine which suggested solutions meet the inspector’s description of needed repairs and help prospective contractors stick to the task
s you believe need to be done.
5. Be patient with the process. First Church learned that it takes time to move through the interviewing, inspection, and reporting process. Those congregation members who just want to “get things fixed” need to be reminded of the benefits of the process, and not just the fix. Yes, it can seem as though nothing is happening—especially when the roof is obviously falling down. But patience and process are keys to arriving at a successful solution to any sacred space issue.
First Baptist Church learned valuable lessons. And while experience may be the best teacher, one congregation may find it more prudent (and less frustrating) to learn from another church’s experience than to discover the pitfalls on its own. What First Baptist found from its experience may well save you time, money, and frustration as you encounter similar building-related issues.
Guidance on Building Issues
You can learn from the Center’s experience, too. We’ve learned (and are constantly relearning) in our work with local congregations that simple building questions (fixing the gutter or repairing windows) often don’t have simple, straightforward solutions. In many cases, while immediate building problems are being repaired, deeper problems are discovered. Congregations need to be aware of this possibility and to be prepared to invest the time, energy, and frustration to address the emerging deeper problems.
We offer the following guidance to help you as you begin addressing any building issue—whether it be gutter repair or redesign of interior space or major additions or renovations. The answers will help you as you work with an outside consultant or contractor. You may find, though, that not all the questions apply to your situation or that some of them are answerable only as your project progresses.
1. Describe the problem. Begin by carefully describing your church’s problem. It’s not enough to say (especially to a contractor), “We have a gutter problem.” Be as specific as you can. Is the problem that the gutters are falling down? Leaking? Leaf-laden? Not draining?
2. Decide how to solve the problem. After you’ve defined the problem, ask what you think needs to happen to solve it. Is it something members can do themselves, or is outside help called for? If so, what kind of outside help? In First Baptist’s case, the retired consultant helped trustees differentiate between the need for a project manager or for a general contractor, and to determine which was best for their situation. Both approaches can work. First Baptist, following the consultant’s recommendation, went with a proven contractor with his own crew.
3. Determine your time investment. Carefully consider how much time and energy the congregation is willing to invest in fixing this problem. This calculation has a lot to do with preparing the congregation for how much time it will take truly to solve the problem. Remember, many people will want to “just get it fixed.” You need to have clear answers to 1 and 2 on this list to help them realize that it won’t be fixed tomorrow—unless, of course, it will (as in the case of a youth group member’s crushing a basketball into a building gutter, which needed only to be replaced).
4. Ask financial questions. Ask two money questions: “How much can we realistically afford to spend?” and “How much can we afford not to spend?” To understand the second question, remember that the quicker fix may be less expensive in the short run but more costly in the long term. A simple gutter patching may solve the leakage problem—but not the problem of ice building up under the roof. When dealing with finances and buildings, you may have to look at special arrangements—going outside the regular budget, drawing from congregational endowments, borrowing from a bank or church-extension service, or embarking on a special fund drive. When you know what you can spend, communicate that clearly to the contractor—and stick to it! And realize, too, that unless you’ve had a thorough inspection of the problem, you may not have a realistic idea of the actual cost.
5. Determine your time frame. Consider another time issue. How soon would you like the problem to be addressed? “Yesterday” is not the right answer. The problem, most likely, did not develop overnight. And the solution won’t be found quickly either. Still, you need to think carefully about a time frame that will work for your congregation—considering both the problem and your church calendar. Ask yourselves, “Are there rigid time constraints?”—especially in relation to congregational events and holidays. As you negotiate with prospective firms, ask them how busy they are and how interested they are in your congregation’s project. Discuss whether they think they can meet your proposed schedule. Then get them to put the dates in any contract you sign. You’ll need to communicate all of this information to the contractor or firm you’re working with.
6. Clarify roles. Decide early on who will represent the church as the primary contact with those involved in designing and building your project. If too many cooks can spoil the soup, too many church members offering too many ideas or proposed changes to the contractor can botch a building project. At the very least, such advice can slow the job considerably. At most, it can lead to cost overruns, confusion, and dissatisfaction with the final job. Likewise, settle up front who from the firm will work directly with your congregation.
Dealing with Vendors
Finally, ask, “What are we looking for in a vendor?” If you’re like many church building volunteers, you may have no idea how to answer that question. From our own experience with congregations, contractors, and sacred space issues, we offer the following two suggestions for thinking through this question.
1. Find out whether the vendor has ever worked with a congregation. Ask what percentage of the firm’s practice involves projects with congregations. Those of us who are involved with congregations know that they are very different from most other organizations. They have peculiar characteristics and a culture unlike that of other groups. To us, but maybe not to a contractor, there are obvious ways of dealing with business—committees, boards, sessions, and so on, depending on the congregational polity. Then certain finance issues are often common to many congregations—like years of underbudgeting for routine maintenance or renovation, dwindling operating income, or unrealistic expectations of how much professional renovations (versus volunteer efforts) really cost. Finally, the emotional and spiritual investment of the congregants may be high. Some of them may have served on committees that made previous building decisions. Ask prospective vendors for a list of past church clients and the names of contact people they worked with at those congregations. As you consider your budget issues, check the firm’s track record with cost estimating (and confirm it with the other congregations it has worked with). Ask for samples of actual construction costs versus budget costs for recent projects. You’ll also want to find out whether the firm has completed projects such as yours for other congregations.
2. Make sure that any vendors carry the proper limits of liability and other insurance. If a project-related accident occurs, you want to ensure that the congregation isn’t liable. Likewise, if the job is botched, you want to know that you have recourse. You hope you’ll never need to use the insurance—but it’s important for your peace of mind. Also contributing to peace of mind during the project is knowing that the vendors have all the proper licenses (such as an architect’s license) and permits for your locality. Ask for copies of all these documents.
Sacred space issues—whether they
be leaking gutters or major renovations— can seem daunting. Putting to good use the lessons learned by First Baptist Church of Cumberland, Indiana, and the Indianapolis Center for Congregations can ease some of your concerns, leading to the completion of a project that is both satisfactory and satisfying.
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NOTES
1. The Indianapolis Center for Congregations, Inc., established in 1997, was founded to help strengthen congregations in the central Indiana metropolitan area. The center is affiliated with the Alban Institute, a research, publishing, education, and consulting organization based in Bethesda, Maryland, which provides resources for congregations nationwide. The Center is a gift to the greater Indianapolis area from Lilly Endowment Inc.
2. The Center’s Resource Grants Program is designed to help provide congregations with the financial ability to find and use the best resources available for addressing their challenges and opportunities. Grants can be used for resources ranging from print and digital media to consulting services, educational programs, and workshops. These matching grants are awarded in amounts up to $15,000, and cover half of the cost of a project or resource.
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