Grace Brethren Church - Columbus - Ohio
By: Jennifer-Walker Journey

Grace Brethren Church is no stranger to bursts of growth. The church—which began in 1964 with about 30 people gathered in a home in Worthington, Ohio—now welcomes as many as 2,500 people for Sunday worship services on a campus that spreads over 90 acres in Columbus. Each step of the way, Grace has always strived to meet the ever-changing needs of its congregation.

During its storied history, Grace grew with new buildings, additions, and the acquisition of even more land. In time, the church branched out to provide schooling for children in grades elementary through high school. At one point, Grace Brethren Church and Worthington Christian Schools spanned three separate venues, creating quite a challenge for church leadership.

By its 40th anniversary, Grace Brethren had successfully planted 10 other churches in the metropolitan area and managed to pull both its worship services and schools together on its large campus in North Columbus. It became a hub for fellowship, used daily from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m.

"We have always had a philosophy of using our facilities seven days a week," said Bernie Simmons, Grace Brethren's children's pastor.

However, having the one campus serve as a worship center on Sundays and Wednesday nights and a school on weekdays started to present challenges.

"As our facilities and programs morphed through the years, we had to put kids in less than ideal locations," Simmons said.

For example, the gymnasium was the only space that could be used for children's breakout groups on Sundays. It had plenty of space, but it also had a lot of noise reverberation. After all, it was a gym, not a classroom.

"To counter that irritating sound problem, we purchased cloth-covered rolling partitions, limited the use of CD players that interfered with the adjacent group, and finally installed sound-absorbing baffles on the walls," he said.

Church leadership stepped back and did an assessment of the breadth of its building needs.

"We concluded that the Lord's assignment for our congregation was to realign our focus and give attention to reaching young families," Simmons said.

Tim Adams agreed. As director of the Worthington Christian Preschool & Kindergarten program at Grace, the face of the future was clearly standing before him. He realized the boom of young families rising up in the community. He understood that families in this day and age are not going to church as often or much at all. And, he knew that evangelism had to be a process and not an event. What the church was truly in need of was an Early Childhood Center.

"By providing a service (childcare) to meet the needs of these young families, we have the opportunity to build relationships with them and tell them about the Lord Jesus," Adams said.      

Jack Chapin, Grace's director of Service Ministries, heard the call. He contacted an old friend and former business partner Greg Eller, who, at that time, was with Lincoln Construction. Eller was no stranger to Grace Brethren. Years earlier, while at a previous job with SEM Partners, Inc. Architects, Eller and Chapin, who also was with SEM Partners at that time, designed the master plan for the church and schools. That plan included an Early Childhood Center.

"The most unique challenge and need was the interrelationship between the school and the church," Eller said. "The desire was to design a building that would both serve as a private school during the weekday and then be able to be used as a church on the evenings and weekends."

Eller designed the Early Childhood Center so that all classrooms and support spaces had storage areas that would separately accommodate materials and supplies for Sunday school and for the private school. The Sunday school storage areas had to be designed so that they were accessible from the corridors to prevent disturbance in the class on weekdays, during restocking. Two separate administrative control centers were needed – one for the school and one for the church. Eller carefully designed these centers so that they were oriented across from each other at the core gathering/play area, with the school administration at the main entrance door.

The plan included 23 age-appropriate classrooms for ages six weeks through kindergarten, as well as a dining room, serving kitchen, computer lab, teacher prep area, laundry, separate decentralized storage areas, separate administrative offices, teacher lounge, building storage, and restrooms at each classroom location.

"Day lighting was required for all classroom spaces, which dictated the need for internal courtyards. These courtyards also would serve as protected outdoor play areas for the nursery rooms," Eller said.

Much attention was paid to the both the indoor and outdoor play areas. Innovative play structures were placed in the center playroom.

"The incorporation of the original narthex structure at the heart of the Early Childhood Center as a high-ceiling indoor play area has attracted the hearts of the children, and their enthusiasm is obvious," Chapin said. "As volunteer workers helped to set up the classrooms prior to the opening, their children could always be found playing on the large structure, running and shouting joyfully in what has now been dubbed the WOW! Room. It's nice to know that, as a volunteer, there is an area provided where your children's interest is so riveted that one need not worry about them wandering off."

Security also was beefed up. Fencing was placed around playground areas and security cameras were added throughout, which link back to the administrative office.

Externally, the addition was designed with similar masonry materials to help it blend in with the existing building, while additional colors, masonry details, and canopies were added to help the new building display its own character.

Construction began June 1, 2007, and was completed just a year later, on June 20, 2008. The end result successfully addressed essential needs, says Pastor Simmons. The building's layout no longer forced the church to spread the children's rooms at remote parts of the building, which was time consuming for parents dropping off large families. Younger children are no longer isolated in separate buildings, which caused a security concern. They also are no longer in classrooms that at other times of the week are used by middle-school students or adults.

 "Teachers can now fulfill our philosophy of interactive teaching in the new classrooms where they can hear the children's responses, instead of the gymnasium reverberation," Simmons said. "Now our new facility is compatible with our goal: to have teachers who tell the children about Jesus and God's wonderful message. The kids hear, respond, and learn better. I like to think of God smiling when we are fulfilling the joy of His heart."

In a Nutshell

Church: Grace Brethren Church
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Project Goal: Build an Early Childhood Center to meet the needs of surrounding community
Size: 37,500 square feet
Cost: $5.1 million
Challenge: Finding a way to effectively share this childcare space in the church for both weekday classes and Sunday and Wednesday night services.
Solution: Incorporating specially designed storage rooms with separate access for both the school and the church so that activities would not be disrupted. And building separate entrances in close proximity to each other with stepped up security.