Worship Centers Ponder Best Spirtual Seating

The Grand Rapids Press ^ | 9/28/02 | Juanita Westaby

[Wrigley]

Well, the Pepsi drinker clinched it.

[Wrigley]

Diet Coke

Heretic. :-)

[Wrigley]

LOL

[drstevej]

[RnMomof7]

Well, the Pepsi drinker clinched it.

It's a no Brainer:>)

[Wrigley]

I remember having that in glass 16oz returnable bottles at my grandparents home. Brings back great memories.

[Wrigley]

LOL

[drstevej]

http://geocities.com/smjmvj/smjhobby.htm

[Wrigley]

Wow.

[computerjunkie]

I was going to say I would let you get away with that since we were in the News/Activism forum and not the Religion forum. However, I just realized we ARE in the Religion forum. But since you were referring to my taste in soft drinks and not religion, I guess it's OK.

(That "Megachurches" thread needs to be moved to this forum. I'm getting confused and having trouble keeping up!)

[Wrigley]

LOL. Good thing I put the :-) after.

Its been a while since a religion post has stayed in the News forum. Don't say anything.

[Elsie]

Well, about 3 years ago we expanded our church facility and the shape and construction of the original sanctuary made that difficult.

Old sanctuary = 56' x 36' with 6 wooden arches 8' apart. They rise to a height of 16' above floor.
11 pews on a side 8-9 in a pew. room for about 176-180
average ~ 110
Hardwood floors under pews, rug in aisles and on platform.
Sunday school rooms and utilities in basement.


We added to the rear another 20' depth; picked up two more SS rooms under that. Built a large foyer and gained a large teen room under it. Enlarged the bathrooms and added a new pastors office as well.

We opted for chairs in the new portion due to prices. And it is carpeted as well. You have more of a sense of 'personal space' with the chairs and you WON'T get crowed there when we have a large turnout.

The new portion has a lower ceiling as we choose trusses (price ;^) to make the roofline the same outside the building. The ceiling in back is about 12' high at the peak. We were able to buy the same style ceiling lights as we had in the old portion, they are merely shorter to give the same sense of scale to them as they are lower. We also use lower wattage bulbs in them to scale the brightness as well.

It did tend to put the new seats further from the preacher, but there was just no other way to add on the old structure without it looking REALLY stupid! (We made up for this a bit by enlarging the platform forward 7' just before last Easter. We had to remove the front pews, but since none hardly ever sat there, it didn't cause any ripple effect. The #2 pew people have now become #1's and they didn't have to move at all!!)

We also RAISED the platform one more step up and were able to gain storage space UNDER it that had been wasted space before. A large 3' x 8' x 16" drawer now can be pulled out to put excess sound equipment and infrequently used items. The communion supplies are behind another access panel.

For Christmas and Easter cantatas, we had been using some portable risers to stand upon, but these required hauling them out of the garage each time they were needed. They were heavy, awkward and took up space in the garage.

We designed 4 large carpeted boxes to replace them. When not used, they sit flat on the floor and the tops are even with the rest of the platform surface. When it's choir time again, we merely lift the boxes up and place either a 7"(front) or a 14"(rear) spacer under them and VIOLA! we got steps to stand on! (we've gotten lazy and already someone has mentioned a highpower garage door opener would be nice!!)

[PFKEY]

Your worship center has a gym?

What on earth or in heaven is a gym doing in a church?