Bigger is not necessarily better

Some common ideas keep bubbling to the surface as the Task Force members reflect on our existing facilities and the things that are important to our congregation. One notion that keeps popping up is that, no matter what our final recommendation is, we may not need a bigger facility.

Depending on how you measure it, we have somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 square feet of space in our building. That's a quarter of an acre for us rural folk. A lot of space to be under a roof.

So why do we feel so crowded sometimes? Why do we need two services to accommodate the size of our congregation?

Even though we're a very busy church, not all of that space is occupied at any particular time. Take the sanctuary for instance. Apart from Sunday morning services, wedding, funerals, and the like, that space is empty most of the time. It's an issue that many churches have had to deal with. The sanctuary – often the largest room in a church – is the room that is used for the fewest hours in the week.

Other areas of the church are used more frequently. The halls and meeting rooms are used for Bible Study, Committee meetings, Senior’s Meal Program, Explorers, Families Connecting, Beavers, Scouts, Ventures, Seniors Exercise, Food Bank, and more. But still, because of the layout of our building, most of the building is empty most of the time.

The group appears to be coming to the conclusion that, no matter what we do, our facility has to be more flexible – easier to reconfigure so that we can make better use of the space available. But not necessarily bigger. The big question is, "How we do that?"

Well, we will get a step closer to the answer to that question at our meeting this Monday. Michael Boreskie of the United Church of Canada's Architectural Resource Group will be meeting with the Task Force. Michael has a vast experience in church architecture, and his philosophy is to create spaces that suit a congregation's character.

We'll talk to Michael about the things that are important to the congregation, and then give him a tour of the church building. I'm hopeful that by the end of the meeting on Monday, the Task Force will have a much clearer idea of what options we might have available if the congregation chooses to stay at our present site, and what options we should consider if we want to build new.

And if you're wondering how I managed to convince the group to meet two weeks in a row, I promised them that I would bake a batch of cookies for them. I'm off to do that now.

Till next time.