22-Church Buildings
CHAPTER XXII CHURCH BUILDINGS BUILDINGS ill adapted to the needs of a religious organization are responsible for much inefficiency in the church.
Sometimes this is the result of poverty. The congregation may not be able to afford a better house. But often it is due to ignorance on the part of the pastor, influential laymen, or the architect. The congregation may supply money in abundance, but those responsible for spending it may create a pile of brick and mortar that would serve as a railway station or a factory quite as well as a church. A church was built in Illinois some years ago whose total cost approximated $100, 000, and the acoustics were so bad when it was finished that the worshiping congregation beyond the first few rows of pews could not understand what the speaker was saying. That was a defect for which the architect was to blame. Within five years the only church in a community of a thousand people was built in Kansas at a cost of $30, 000. This organization is responsible for the religious education of three or four hundred young people and for the money which they provided at great sacrifice they got a building of four rooms a large and a small one above ground, and these were duplicated in the basement. Almost in the center of the large basement room, a huge hot air furnace was installed, reducing the serviceability of that room by at least fiftypercent. The responsibility for this fearful blunder must rest upon the pastor and the building committee, for the structure does not show that they had any proper knowledge of the work which a modern church should undertake. Another building committee in Iowa was persuaded that an architect’s fee of $200 would be a misappropriation of funds, and, with the assistance of a local contractor, drew their own plans, and spent 232 THE PASTORAL OFFICE
$12, 000 in erecting a building. When finished the church proved to be unsafe for a public assemblage. Poor ventilation, crude interior decoration, and inadequate heating facilities are other very common defects, which cannot be charged to poverty. All this is said to emphasize the fact that much is needed besides money to provide properly for the housing of a congregation. Just as some persons are better dressed on a small income than others who are not compelled to practice economy, so many congregations, because they were led by men of intelligence and insight, possess a more serviceable church building than others, and at a smaller cost.
We do not have space, even if we possessed the ability, to write a treatise on church architecture. A few considerations, however, may be emphasized as important for all who contemplate remodeling or building new churches.
I. Neither size nor cost necessarily determines worth in a church building, but fitness to serve the religious needs of the community. The three great activities of the church are worship, education, and service, and every church should be adapted to this threefold function. It is remarkable what excellent service can be rendered with limited equipment in the hands of an imaginative pastor. A single room seated with movable chairs placed in rows, is a place of worship. With these chairs rearranged in circles or semicircles and concealed from each other by portable screens, it is a schoolroom in which the church performs its educational task. Another arrangement of chairs and screens, and it becomes a social center promoting good will and fellowship. The chairs pushed back against the walls the room is a gymnasium in which basket-ball, volley-ball, and captain-ball are played by the young people. Arranged in rows again facing the platform, it is an “opera house” in which are held amateur theatricals, farmers’ institutes, and other neighborhood meetings. Of course, this is not at all ideal. But if it is the best the community can afford, it can be made very usable.
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2. As rapidly as increasing wealth permits the people to have better homes, they should have a better place of worship to comport with the new standard of living. In planning for the new church, let the demands of worship and education have the right of way over everything else. Do not build a larger main room than is needed for the ordinary occasions of worship. Probably some allowance should be made for growth, but to provide seating capacity for eight hundred when no more than two hundred usually come is a mistake. Remember too that the Protestant ideal requires intelligibility throughout the service. Acoustics should be such that a speaker may be heard easily in every part of the room. Ventilation is all-important. It should be possible to get a fresh supply of air into the room constantly without a draft blowing on any person in the congregation. The heating system should warm the room to sixty-five degrees in cold weather without an extravagant outlay for fuel. The interior decoration has much to do with creating atmosphere in a place of worship. The best taste in these matters declares in favor of simple lines and light colors, and against somber tones and mural decorations in the form of figures, or even verses of Scripture. The building should be as well adapted to modern ideals in religious education as worship. Warm, well-ventilated, cheery rooms, large enough to accommodate respectively the Beginners 5, Primary, and Junior Departments of the Sunday school, are needed. The other departments may assemble in a larger room for worship, but as nearly as possible each class should have its own room for study and instruction. Some of the rooms used by the elementary departments may well be furnished as parlors for social and fellowship meetings of other organizations in the church.
Rooms designed primarily for service, such as gamerooms, club-rooms, gymnasium, etc, should be included in the plan only after a careful and prolonged study of the relation of the church to the needs of the community. It 234 THE PASTORAL OFFICE is to be feared that such rooms sometimes have been built because they were supposed to be “up to date” rather than because they were sorely needed. This service entails an increased budget for special workers and maintenance of plant. Unless all this is clearly understood and provided for by the Finance Committee, it is much better to keep these out of consideration. Not a few congregations which possess this kind of equipment wish they were rid of it.
3. All of which leads to the following suggestions. a. No plans should be made for a building enterprise until the needs of the community have been studied carefully, and specific conclusions reached, in conference with lay leaders, concerning the exact nature of the service to be undertaken by the church. b. The financial resources of the church and its constituency should be estimated as accurately as possible and some decision reached as to the maximum amount that can be raised for this purpose. c. The committee should then consult with the architects who are specialists in planning church buildings. One may be competent to design an office building and possess no ability to draw plans for a church. The Board of Sunday Schools, the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, and the Committee on Conservation and Advance have organized cooperatively an excellent Bureau of Architecture, employing only those draughtsmen who are experts in designing buildings for public worship and religious education. This bureau will be pleased to submit several plans to any inquiring official board, at a small fraction of the usual architect’s fee, on being informed of the number o persons to be accommodated, the exact nature of the services to be rendered by the church, and the total cost which the congregation can afford. d. Great care should be taken in selecting a suitable building site. We do well to follow the example of the Roman Catholics in locating churches where they will be accessible to the majority and on conspicuous sites. The CHURCH BUILDINGS 235 unfortunate location of many churches makes it impossible for them to serve effectively.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY E. deS. Brunner, The New Country Church Building.
Herbert F. Evans, The Sunday School Building and Its Equipment.
P. E. Burroughs, Church and Sunday School Buildings.