My parents stopped going to church about the same time they quit driving after dark and going downstairs to the basement. It was about the same time Dad got earphones for the television so Mom could sew in peace without having to listen to John Madden shout explanations of NFL football plays.

My folks used to go to church every time the bell rang. When they became golden-agers, however, that became difficult. Potluck dinners served in the church basement were off limits because of the steep stairs. Children were too loud and the preacher too soft. The dim lighting of evening services made hymnal reading a trial and upped the chances of stumbling and falling. Eventually Mom and Dad just stayed home and watched church on television.

When I was a newly minted pastor's wife I was puzzled by what appeared to be an unexplainable correlation between long-time members' retirement from their jobs and their retirement from church involvement. Now that I am on the cusp of fitting into the "senior citizen" category, I have discovered at least one reason why retirees sometimes seem to diminish their ministry within the church: lack of accessibility to the sanctuary.

Grace Church is only halfway through its latest building project, but church leaders are already feeling confident that the planning and thinking they have invested is going to reap dividends like never before. This time around, years before the first bulldozer arrived at the work site, the church identified its primary ministry focus—serving the next generation—and aligned its design with that purpose.

Grace is a church that embraces the idea of creating worship and ministry space, rather than just more square footage. To accomplish this feat, a church must balance economics, aesthetics, and utility. Leaders need to be keenly aware of their community and what its people need in new facilities. But before uprooting a single blade of grass, a church needs to ask these baseline questions: What kind of church are we? What kind of church do we want to be?

After serving as an ordained minister for years, John Sammons started selling school furniture and church pews. He often said that somebody ought to build a good chair for churches, and he eventually decided to do it himself.

He designed and built the first model in his garage, and then showed it to his family.

"Do you think people will buy that?" he asked them.

They thought so. And they were right.

Sammons' first chair was among the first to pave the way for flexible seating—sometimes referred to as "stackable chairs"—in churches. More than 40 years later, Church Chair now distributes chairs throughout the United States and to nearly 50 countries. Several other manufacturers, including ChairTex, Irwin Seating Company, and Bertolini, also have established long track records with flexible seating, creating a bona fide niche category serving churches.

"We started building the first chairs in the garage, borrowed a little money, and before we knew it, we had a manufacturing industry," says Dean Sammons, John's son and the current president of Church Chair.

Editor's Note: This article is part two of "Avoiding Mixed Messages." In this article, author Lee Dean explores practical ways to align the look of your church facility with the mission and vision of your ministry.

After the preliminary questions are answered, it's time to get to work by concentrating on specific areas and characteristics of your building and grounds.

Create an inviting outward appearance. One of the ways MCC selected to tear down its imaginary walls was through the construction of a real wall. The structure is known as the Nehemiah Wall. But this wall isn't meant to conceal everything behind it. People walking by the church can peek in through cutouts and see a courtyard and fire pit designed to create an outdoor gathering space.

"A lot of people didn't get the wall at first. Now that they see the finished product, they love it," Cassetto says. "You can look through the wall and see life happening in the courtyard, at the fireplace, and with people sitting at tables."

Editor's Note: This article is part one of a two part feature titled, "Avoiding Mixed Messages." In this first article, author Lee Dean looks at how church facilities say something about a church's vision and mission. Is your church sending the right message?

When your church's people tell one story but the building conveys a contradictory message, the result is a construction feature not drawn on the original blueprints: walls that potentially keep visitors away.

"The idea that the environment is setting the stage, if not actually telling your story, is something we miss," says Mel McGowan, founder of Visioneering Studios, a California design firm for churches and ministries. "The idea that storytelling begins at the street is important."

The story your church tells to people who pass by continues when they step onto the property. At its best, the story comes from a vision, and the message is the same whether told by the church's people or by its facilities.

1. Keep it Relevant

When designing your children's area, you want something that's going to last longer than the last popular cartoon character. Keep it fresh for years to come with themes that are timeless and captivating to any child, such as nature or local landmarks. Or consider using materials that allow for changes in your displays with each new season or round of VBS.

2. Align with Your Church's DNA

For a children's ministry to be effective, the church as a whole needs to be in synch. First comes understanding your church and the DNA that makes them who they are. Then it's time to carry out that unique mission in your children's ministry, maybe even incorporating it into your theming.

3. Pay Attention to Detail

It's all in the little things. Explore new materials, such as acrylic panels that act as display cases, carpeting that comes to life as part of the theme, or surfaces that children can touch and interact with. And never underestimate lighting. By adjusting its position, type, or even color, something as simple as lighting can change the entire atmosphere of the room.

Read the rest of Lynn's article on Aspen Group Blog.

Church growth is a spiritual blessing, but it can also be a spatial curse. The desire to design and build a new church that will address every space need you can afford is very powerful. But before you abandon your existing building in favor of a brand new one, consider some of the ideas here to get more from what you've already got.

Church leaders have an incredible opportunity to go "high definition" (HD) in their church designs because ministry space now operates on two dimensions: the physical and the virtual. While we are most familiar with physical space (i.e. buildings), Ray Kurzweil is convinced that by 2030, nanobot technology will make it possible for anyone to enter any virtual reality and not know the difference between real and virtual. You will no longer visit a website; you will "enter a full-immersion virtual-reality environment". The details of his compelling case are beyond the scope of this article, but they have profound implications when it comes to designing HD ministry space.

Expanding your church facility is no longer just about buildings. Any church that has an interactive, media-rich website knows that incredible ministry is taking place beyond their bricks and mortar facility. As Ray Kurzweil suggests, this space will increasingly become more accessible, interactive and influential.

In addition, many growing churches continue to build new buildings, even as their virtual presence grows. They are finding that it is not a zero-sum situation, as many in the world of commerce have discovered. The internet was not the demise of walk-in store traffic. And so it is with church ministry.

The sanctuary is for worship, the classrooms for Sunday school, the fellowship hall for potlucks, and the gym for recreation. This is how architects have traditionally designed church buildings.

Well, times—and churches—are changing. Most new church buildings now include some flexible space: fellowship halls with movable walls that divide the space into classrooms, or adjoining classrooms with walls that fold back to make bigger rooms. Still, few churches come close to getting maximum use of their facilities because much of their space is designed for single use.

Ray Bowman, church architect and facilities consultant from Larkspur, Colorado, estimates that 90 percent of the churches that contacted him over the past 40 years for building plans didn't need to build. "They had a better alternative, which almost always involved converting single-use space to multiple-use space," Bowman says.

Even if churches must build, designing new space for multiple use may help them get by with at least half as much square footage as conventional construction. So, whether you're remodeling a structure or building a new one, design it so it can be used all week long for a variety of uses.

We tend to think of a church sign as a simple means of identification—it tells our community who we are and when we meet.

But a church sign can do so much more than identify. An effectively used sign allows the congregation to minister from the roadside with challenging or uplifting messages. A sign also announces important events that your community will be interested in. It is an excellent outreach tool.

While many churches are served well with a non-changeable sign that provides the basic information of church name and worship schedule, an entirely new realm of possibilities opens up with the use of changeable-letter signs. Why? When drivers see a new message each week, or even every day, they must conclude that there's life in that church, that at least one person there cares enough to put a new message on the sign. To the passerby, it is a sign of life within the church!

Key Steps in Selecting a Sign
1.Check with local zoning authorities. This step is crucial. Signs are often restricted by height, overall size, placement, and illumination. Additional restrictions could apply to led message center signs. And don't assume that you can replace an existing sign with a new one in the same location. Know your restrictions before you start shopping.

2. Decide what you want your sign to do for you. Do you want simple identification, or do you want to share messages? If you want to share messages, you'll need to choose between changeable letters or an electronic led message center.

3. Next, choose a sign company to work with. Look for a company that has experienced professionals available to answer questions and assist in the sign selection process. They will ask you questions and use their expertise to narrow the selection. There are literally hundreds of different signs to choose from. A good sign company will help you decide which sign is best for you. Ultimately, though, the choice is yours.

You may be proud of the historic building you worship in. But what that ancient facade may be saying to passersby is that your congregation is too old to have a great youth group.

Likewise, your congregation may be meeting in a shopping mall to improve access to the community. But the location may suggest to some people that your congregation is too unconventional for their tastes.

The point is, the exterior of your church can influence a community's perception of what is inside—not always in the way you intend. That's an important issue, according to Davis Byrd, director of church architecture for the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. "Inevitably, the question is whether it communicates the message accurately or not," Byrd says.

Architectural Signals
A church's exterior can signal a congregation's denominational affiliation. "Stained-glass windows, icons, crosses, and cathedral elements suggest liturgical denominations," says Jerry Maxfield, business administrator of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia. Maxfield, who has a degree in architecture, notes that while the buildings of liturgical and nonliturgical churches both serve the purpose of worship, nonliturgical church exteriors exhibit a "more marketplace approach."

Buildings can send mixed messages. For example, a church built like a stone fortress can suggest a place of security and shelter from the world. "It is a solid, stable place in a time of flux, suggesting the church will be there for a long time," Byrd says. However, the rock-like front can also communicate that the church isn't very receptive to visitors, he says.

In fast-growing metro areas, some churches meet in strip malls. The location is good, and the rent is reasonable. The meeting place suggests that the congregation consists of unpretentious people with limited means and a deep conviction to meet people where they are. However, the storefront can also communicate that what this church offers is of no greater value than anything else in the shopping center. In one stop, you can get your hair cut, buy groceries, and get religion.

If your congregation isn't getting as many visitors as you'd like, perhaps you ought to take a closer look at your church. Are you meeting in an old A-frame building or in another gimmicky design leftover from the 1950s? "It might be communicating a message that is antithetical to what your church really is," says Brewster Ward, an architect in Waynesville, North Carolina.

Ask a person where they most experience God's presence, and typically you'll get one of two answers. Some will say they feel closest to God when they are in nature. Others experience him best in a church or cathedral—a space that has been specifically constructed to elevate one's thoughts toward God.

The reality is that throughout history, from the Garden of Eden to the City of Heaven, God has used real places—three-dimensional environments, both natural and man-made—to help people find him, experience his presence, and recognize their place in his story.

The Vacation Bible School team was tearing down the set from a great week of ministry and high-octane fun. The church had been transformed into Jerusalem during New Testament times, complete with an entrance to the temple courts. A set constructor innocently asked, "Where can we store this to use sometime in the future?"

"I don't know. All the storage rooms are already full."

The adrenaline rush stopped dead. "Do you mean we have to just throw all this away?"

Like most people's houses, churches rarely have enough storage space. While it's true that churches should build adequate storage space into their overall design plans, spending limited funds on closets may not be the best use of financial resources.

Walk the streets of Disney World, and visitors are transported into a magical world of creativity and inspiration. Mel McGowan, a former Disney Imagineer and now president of Visioneering Studios, a national church architecture firm, brings this same expectation for creativity and inspiration to ministry facilities.

Growing churches can be stopped by the stress of deciding what to do next. Fortunately, there is a clear way to overcome these growing pains.

Christ Church is a rapidly growing denominational congregation in a suburban area of a midwestern city. The church has been around for 160 years and is on the National Register of Historic Places. People love the church's history, but they are more excited about their future of reaching the unchurched people in their community. Church members unanimously agreed that a building was needed to accommodate growth, not only in worship, but also in education and ministry activities. In fact, the church already had some money in the bank for a building program.

When church leaders envision their next building project, many are selecting interior and exterior styles that may deter the very people they're trying to reach—the unchurched—from visiting.

According to the Church Facilities Expansion Study, a joint research project in 2009 between the Cornerstone Knowledge Network (CKN) and Christianity Today International, church leaders consistently chose building designs that are the opposite of what the unchurched said they preferred in a prior study, Sacred Space, conducted by CKN and Lifeway Research in 2008.

In the Church Facilities Expansion Study, most churches that are planning to build within the next 18 months say they will go with a more modern look for their exterior, sanctuary, and foyer designs. However, Sacred Space respondents, all of whom are unchurched and do not currently attend a church, said they prefer churches with a gothic-like design.

Should churches base their building plans on what the unchurched say they want? Not necessarily. According to Jim Couchenour, director of ministry services for Cogun, Inc, a design/build firm for churches and a co-founder of CKN, a balanced perspective is needed.

Hold up there, Progress.

Change may be the wave of the future, but parishioners like the old-fashioned way when it comes to churches: Stained glass, pews, bells and organs still have their place in modern worship.

When they can afford it, congregations that are building new churches usually opt to move beloved fixtures from the previous building. And when they can't, they save what can be preserved and then let modern trends take over, said Paul Smedberg of C.D. Smith Construction in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Smedberg served as project manager on new facilities for Holy Family Catholic Community and St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran, while C.D. Smith has worked on numerous church projects over the years.

For eight years, we lived next door to a family whose youngest daughter had significant physical disabilities. Alison's parents worked tirelessly to raise awareness in our town and schools to the mobility challenges she would face the rest of her life. For Alison to integrate fully into the community, she would need to be able to get around town.

The Protestant Reformation that followed the invention of the Gutenberg press in the 16th century ushered in an architectural revolution. To move the church into a print culture, in which people could read instead of simply absorbing what others told them, required massive changes in spaces that would be used for worship and teaching.

Today we are undergoing another kind of spiritual awakening as the church undergoes a postmodern Reformation from print to screen. That revolution can'y happen without altering the physical space of the church. What might postmodern church architecture look like?

Here are my 10 Commandments of Architecture for the Postmodern Church:

If you pick up a Bible, you don't have to look any further than Genesis 6:14-22 to learn about God's approach to Master Planning. It was only through God's tremendous vision and skillful planning that Noah was able to successfully complete the task of building an ark large enough to save mankind. While this was certainly a God-sized task, the principles are the same today. Through Noah, the Lord was able to assess the problem, take stock of materials on hand, and carefully put together a blueprint for the construction of a three-story boat, capable of housing all of the species of the world.