By Tammy Nischan
Craig Grammer, lead minister at Fern Creek Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., is excited about upcoming renovations to their facilities that will repurpose 100 percent of their office space to ministry space for children. Grammer said their kids’ ministry is booming and needs the area.
When the church learned new construction would cost $300 to $350 per square foot, they prayed about how to best steward their resources. They realized the offices were sitting empty on the day they had the greatest need for space (Sunday). Grammer said, “COVID taught us we could still do ministry without dedicated office space.”
Fern Creek’s staff members will be offered one “remote day” a week in which they can work from home or a coffee shop-type setting, and on the other days they will choose a space within the church building that doubles as ministry space, such as a classroom or the church atrium. Renovations will begin around September. Church staff are excited to model for their congregation a belief that there is no “dedicated space” within their building; rather, “All space is God’s space.”
WHAT CHURCHES ACROSS THE COUNTRY ARE DOING
Are other churches eliminating offices to create more space for church programming? I spoke with church leaders and church construction experts and discovered that other congregations across the country are, indeed, renovating office space to create more opportunities for church programming and/or open areas for their congregations to mingle before and after services. However, the overarching sentiment is clear. Churches still desire office space. Most ministers who responded to my questionnaire shared that even if they have temporarily done away with office space, their end goal is to build new offices in a future construction plan.
Many ministers continue to see individual office space as necessary for both sermon preparation and for conducting counseling and confidential meetings.
Ernie Perry, connections minister with Tates Creek Christian Church in Lexington, Ky., said he believes the culture and size of a church have a lot to do with how office space is structured. Perry, a minister for more than four decades, says he needs uninterrupted privacy to plan, think, study, write, and to meet with folks who need to share private matters. But he recognizes the younger generation of church leaders, particularly those in large churches, have more organizational and task-oriented responsibilities that are more natural fits for coffee shop-style atmospheres.
Walker Gaulding, senior minister with Rappahannock Church of Christ, Warsaw, Va., since 1987, said staff members at his church work in a variety of settings.
“Two work in private offices, two work in cubicles, one camps out in the tech booth area, and one works mobile in their children’s ministry area,” Gaulding said.
The possibility of revamping office space for other purposes—including creating generic spaces where staff can unpack backpacks and “go to work” like in a coffee shop—has been discussed. But, as with Ernie Perry, Gaulding said he needs a quiet, private space to call his own to accomplish his daily goals.
Student ministries pastor Luke Diamond said he can see how churches, especially ones in urban areas with limited space and little opportunity for expansion, could find it necessary to eliminate offices. Allowing staff to work either from coffee shops or home might be a good option, said the recent Christian college graduate who serves with Northlake Community Church in Bellingham, Wash. As someone who prepares weekly lessons for youth and occasionally preaches in the church’s main services, however, he sees value in pastors having a dedicated quiet place for study.
Chris Brandow, lead minister with Community Christian Church in McCoy, Va., said staff at his church often work from home, even though office space is available in their building.
Various pastors, in fact, said they discovered how productive they can be working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. And it can also be cost-effective.
Roger Crego, discipleship pastor with Centerburg (Ohio) Church of Christ, described a recent renovation to their facility that saw adult worship space converted into “children/elementary space,” and which moved four offices from the main level to a lower level, replaced by additional meeting space and an expanded nursery. Offices were maintained, but they are mainly confined to the lower level, and “ministry has been enhanced for our kids.”
He shared that it was very important to pray for and find a ministry-oriented designer and to stay in constant communication during every aspect of the renovation.
In Indianola, Iowa, Jon Duey shared, “Our congregation recently moved our entire office space to the other side of the building so that we could open up our lobby for Sunday-morning traffic, connections, and space for small events.” Leadership at Indianola Community Church decided to make these changes because their lobby was a congregational bottleneck; it provided little to no space for members to walk around and visit.
Church staff initially found the renovation challenging since they were temporarily without offices and simultaneously removed from the “flow” of Sunday morning. Still, Duey, ICC’s lead pastor, said he believes opening this space accomplished its goals of providing members a place to linger and visit with one another, while also creating a new place to meet for events during the week. Duey said it is very important to know why you’re making structural changes and to always build with the future in mind.
Fairdale Christian Church, Louisville, Ky., had a similar goal in mind when they eliminated five offices to make more space for a lobby and café, said Brandon Hatfield, lead minister.
“As the church grew, we noticed we were very short on space for people to congregate before and after services,” Hatfield said. “We wanted . . . to provide a more welcoming atmosphere for people to get to know each other, grab a soda or a cup of coffee, and check their kids in to our children’s ministry areas. We believe what happens in the lobby is crucial to building relationships, and we wanted to make sure to provide space for this to take place.”
This has enabled staff to be more available when needs arise, Hatfield said, as well as “encouraging teamwork to assist one another by bouncing ideas [off one another], providing insight, offering encouragement, and sometimes just being physically able to help with projects that need to be tackled instead of hiding in an office with the door closed.”
Kirk Rolph, senior minister with New Hope Christian Church in Maysville, Ky., said they also have had discussion about eliminating two of their three offices to open the entry area of their new building, but there has not been much discussion about new offices for the current staff.
At Sarasota (Fla.) Christian Church, the congregation chose to convert their existing offices into a larger kitchen area for church events, and the church renovated an old unused space for new staff offices, said worship minister Ray Jester. These changes also resulted in more classrooms, made it easier to set up food for church events, created a better location for Communion preparation, and provided a place for the entire staff to work in the same area of the building.
Tollesboro (Ky.) Christian Church chose to eliminate one unused office in their building to create a room for mothers with infants to participate in their services while having privacy to care for the needs of their babies, said preaching and teaching minister Rex McKinniss. He said it has helped new moms in the congregation feel valued.
Similarly, North Terrace Church of Christ in Zanesville, Ohio, has a larger room two part-time staff share; previously, this room served as an additional nursery. Executive minister Larry Marshall said the church is very open to repurposing this larger space again if growth necessitates it. NTCC has considered renovations involving the move of office space but has not yet felt it necessary to do so.
BIG-PICTURE VIEWPOINTS
Jeff Conatser, construction manager for all new church builds for Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., said he has not seen a huge shift in design or philosophy regarding office space within church facilities. However, he has seen a move toward more open-concept workspaces versus individual rooms for each staff member.
Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., recently made a shift to the open-concept office style in which various ministry teams share large open spaces, enabling them to easily collaborate on projects.
Joel Seymour, regional leader with Vineyard USA, said he has not noticed a trend in churches eliminating office space from their facilities, but he has noticed that more churches are renting out space throughout the week to various entities, such as: homeschool co-ops, catering companies, nonprofit organizations, industrial park businesses, and preschools. One church, he said, converted a giant indoor tennis club into their church building and kept three or four courts to rent out and run as a tennis club. On the flip side of this, Madison Reynen, students pastor with The Lakes Church, Fruitport, Mich., said their church—which operates from within a Christian school—rents the school’s gymnasium, and their contract also includes four offices in the building (two of them makeshift).
IS THIS A TREND?
Many church leaders are intentional about creating a space that works best for their congregation’s needs. As churches grow, they often must decide if they will build new structures or repurpose square footage within their current buildings. These decisions are mostly based on individual church needs and property options. And, for some, changes have included a more collaborative office space or a deemphasis on office space . . . but these are not yet “trends.”
Still, “The traditional ‘church office space’ may not be as important as we once believed,” said Fairdale Christian Church’s Brandon Hatfield. “Ministry staff would do well to learn to be adaptive, and willing to sacrifice for the sake of kingdom growth.”
Tammy Nischan serves as a licensed marriage and family therapist in the state of Kentucky and is author of Facing Dawn: A Morning Devotional for the Brokenhearted and co-author of the children’s book Twenty Bible Verses Every Child Should Know.
“Church staff are excited to model for their congregation a belief that there is no ‘dedicated space’ within their building; rather, ‘All space is God’s space.’”
The article was nicely written. BUT — Aren’t there far more important issues than thinking we have come across a new need to discuss — office space use — SERIOUSLY?
This is very helpful. Our church building presents inherent limits of physical space (landlocked in what is a very strategic location otherwise), and our office space is often unused during the week and on Sundays as staff do their work where it is most appropriate. We could gain an additional space for Sundays with some thoughtful rethinking.
Our megachurch has constantly moved staff around and sometimes renovated spaces according to needs. And I’ve seen staff work all over the building. Sometimes they don’t want to work in their office because they don’t have a window. At one point, the whole youth and children’s staff were in an open concept office so they could communicate with one another more easily. Personally, I would find that very distracting. Yes, the tech team, of which my 21 yr old has now been hired to be part of, has a physical office, but hardly ever uses it. But ministers that do small groups or counseling typically have individual classrooms because they are usually having private meetings. We even have to walk through the office admin for the preacher’s office to even get to the main preacher so he can be undisturbed during sermon prep day and other study time. It’s all about whatever is needed and when. And having a facilities manager helps with that. Or a facilities team helping with the stewardship of the building. Oh and yes, lots of staff, especially the younger ones, work remotely part of the week.
What a blessing it is to have options and to live in a country where we can even have the monetary wealth to do that!
Of course “All space is God’s space”! He is, after all, “one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible,” as Christians have been confessing since the Fourth Century in the Nicene Creed. He made it all; it all belongs to Him. But when Moses built the Tabernacle and Solomon built the First Temple, they did not seem to believe that there should be no “dedicated space” within the structures they built. Both included a space within their respective structure that could only be entered one day per year by only one person. That space was the Holy of Holies, and the High Priest was the only person authorized to enter it on that one special day of the year. From a utilitarian perspective, I suppose that would be considered a colossal waste of space, but God seemed to think it important that just as He is holy and set apart, there should also be sacred space, set apart from common, ordinary usage and dedicated to Him. Perhaps greater consideration should be given toward recovering a sense of sacred space when we worship.