Church design and construction has become a multibillion-dollar industry. While it used to be big news that a local church had broken ground on a new facility, today it is difficult to drive through a city without seeing multiple church building projects under construction.

While each church’s ministry is unique and therefore demands a unique design to fit their growing ministry needs, there are some trends that are being seen in much of the church design and construction today. While there are still many churches designing and constructing traditional buildings, more and more church designers are beginning to see a trend toward buildings designed to connect with people.

As one pastor recently stated, “I want a building that will reach out and grab people right off of the street!”

Certainly one trend that began more than 20 years ago and continues to be prevalent today is the multipurpose approach to church facilities. The term “multipurpose,” however, has taken on new meaning. Not too many years ago, “multipurpose building” nearly always meant a building that could act as a fellowship hall and/or gymnasium.

Today, multipurpose has come to take on a whole array of other meanings. For instance, many churches are beginning to see the foyer/narthex areas of their facilities as ministry space, as well as gathering space. It has become fairly common for churches to add coffee bars in their foyer/narthex area. These large foyer/narthex areas have become increasingly important to the “fellowship” ministries of many churches.

In previous generations, it was not uncommon for Sunday afternoon to be a time for friends and family to gather in private homes to visit. I can remember, as a child, that Sunday afternoon often meant a trip to a relative or friend’s home for a few hours of casual conversation as Mom and Dad caught up on the latest happenings while children played. Today, society has become much more fragmented, and visiting in homes is much less common. There is still, however, an innate need to “connect” with others, and church has become an important place for building these kinds of relationships.

One way in which this has impacted church design is these large foyer/narthex meeting areas. Foyers used to be little more than an entryway with a place to hang your coat. Today, many if not most foyer/narthex areas are designed as places to meet and greet friends before and after services. As previously stated, it has become increasingly more common for churches to include coffee bars in these areas, complete with café tables and chairs, couches, wingback chairs and even fireplaces. These areas have become the perfect place to sit around and “catch up on the latest happenings while children play.” This brings us to another trend in church design.

Because the church has become much more important in meeting the social needs of those who attend, children’s areas have also become much more sophisticated in their design. It used to be that the only determining factor between an adult Sunday School room and a children’s Sunday School room was the size of the furnishings. Children’s rooms had little tables and chairs. If the church was progressive in their children’s ministries, they might have brightly colored walls and animated drawings on the walls depicting Bible characters. If the church was cutting edge, they might even have a mural painted on the wall.

Today we find children’s areas that are constructed to depict Noah’s Ark, old western street scenes, Bible towns and just about anything else one can imagine.

Recently, when talking with a pastor about the new design of his children’s department, he stated, “I want it to look like we baptized Nickelodeon.”

This kind of emphasis on children’s ministries has caused an increase in the amount of space allocated for these areas. It used to be acceptable for a designer to allow 20 to 25 square feet per student when considering a children’s wing, and this number is still appropriate if the church is designing for classroom space only. If, however, they are wishing to “baptize Nickelodeon,” they will need to consider at least 35 to 40 square feet per student and perhaps even more, depending on the kinds of equipment the ministry plans on using. I recently spoke with a church in Oklahoma that is planning a new children’s facility that will include an indoor playground complete with swings, slides and a huge McDonalds Land habitrail.

It’s not just the small children’s areas that are changing. Church Youth centers are also becoming more sophisticated in design. Many churches are including large multipurpose youth areas that include cutting-edge video games, rock climbing walls, large projection screens, stages with the latest in sound and light equipment, café bars and a multitude of other amenities to draw teens and college students to church. Just as in areas designated for younger children, the decorating of youth areas has become much more specialized, and the special effects used in these areas are cutting edge. 

Cutting-edge technology isn’t just for kids. Many churches today are building worship centers that rival stage production theaters. Sophisticated sound and lighting are becoming commonplace in most churches today. Audio/Visual packages can run well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a medium-sized worship facility. A few years ago, a church using PowerPoint presentations on a pull-down screen in their worship service was considered cutting edge. Today, most churches of any size are using large screen technologies that until recently could only be seen in large sports arenas. PowerPoint presentations of music, as well as video introductions to sermons, are becoming commonplace in many churches across the country.

Technology is changing so quickly that many church builders are having a difficult time keeping up. I spoke with one pastor who related an instance from his last building program. He had requested that coax cable be included in the wiring of their new building. At the time, it would have made his new education building “state of the art.” By the time the building was completed, however, fiber optics had already been introduced as the latest technology.  Today, with wireless technologies, the possibilities are limitless.

Certainly, in consideration of the items addressed above, one quickly realizes that the overall trend in church design and construction today is one of increased quality. As has always been the case, most churches today continue to be concerned with the cost of building projects. While churches continue to desire beautiful as well as functional facilities, they also demand good quality and do all they can to squeeze every dollar they can out of their new facilities.

It will be interesting to see the long-term effect the recent increase of building material costs will have on church design and construction. As most people are aware, the cost of construction has increased significantly over the past year. In some areas of the country, the cost of construction has increased by 25 percent or more.

A majority of this increase has been attributed to rising prices of building materials. This has helped attribute to one of the most interesting trends in church design and construction. There has been a significant increase in the number of churches that have purchased big box retail centers as apposed to building new. Needless to say, the conversion of a big box retail store can be very cost effective. This doesn’t mean that there is any small amount of renovation work to do in order to convert a former Wal-Mart into a full church facility.

There are, however, some major areas for saving. For instance, in most cases, there is little or no site work involved in the conversion of existing retail space. Likewise, the parking is already available, and, while there might be some major renovation to get the worship area suitable for large congregations, it is a fairly simple process to build walls and provide office and administration space. But as is the case when trying to measure trends, we will have to wait the test of time to see if this is in fact a trend or just a blip on the screen.

Mike Hankins is the chief executive officer of Myler Church Building Systems, www.myler.com.