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Questions & Answers about Building at Covenant Fellowship
Covered Walkways and Pavilions What About Our Exiting Buildings?
Jesus said that the greatest of all God’s commandments is that we love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then he said that the second greatest commandment was that we love our neighbors as ourselves. Years ago, Covenant Fellowship was born out of a desire of a few families to do just that. It was their dream that God would make Covenant Fellowship into a church that would express its love for God, for others, and for this community in tangible ways – and that it would be a true Christian community, shared by believers of all ages. It’s been over 26 years, but God has blessed that desire and the faithfulness of the church to Him and to His purposes. When a church is what it’s supposed to be, growth, both spiritual and numerical, is the natural result. And as our church family has grown, so has our need for space. Though it’s what we’ve always prayed for, growth always brings with it new challenges -- challenges to which we must now respond.
Though the process before us will doubtless be referred to by many simply as “the building”, it’s really not about buildings. The purpose of the church has never been and will never be to build buildings. Instead, our purpose is to love God, to love others, and to serve our community. And if we’re going to continue to be faithful to God and to His purposes for us, we’ve got to be willing to grow and to make room for those that He will continue to bring our way, and for the ministries that assist us in reaching them and helping them to grow in their faith and become fully devoted followers of Christ. So, yes, there will be a building, and construction, but the facilities are simply tools to enable us for the ministry that God has for Covenant in the future.
In the recent past, we’ve undertaken some more minor projects to repair hurricane damage, to improve the appearance of our property, and to give us better transitional spaces like our new pavilion. And since our education facility was completed in 1998, we’ve attempted to accommodate growth by knocking out interior walls and adding a second service. While those projects were needed to address critical space limitations, this project will go beyond the meeting of immediate needs. With the time, energy, and money involved in the process of building a facility of any kind today, it’s short sighted (not to mention far more costly in the long-run) to build a facility that would merely meet our “current” needs. Additionally, by the time that we moved into such a building, our “current” needs would have changed, and we’d have a new, but inadequate building.
Beyond that, our goal is to allow the church’s vision for future ministry to shape the design of the building. For that reason, we’ve done a lot of thinking and praying and talking about the kind of ministry that God’s given us a desire to do, and those are the things that have shaped the nature and design of the facilities. It is our hope and our plan that this project will give the church the space and the facilities to carry out our mission and to reach out to our community with even greater effectiveness than we are able to now. We have listened to our own people, giving particular weight to those involved in ministry leadership, we have toured a number of facilities, sought council from other church leaders and facility designers, and we have discussed at length and in great detail the design of the facility that we are now bringing before you.
As we’ve thought through all kinds of options on numerous aspects of the building, from its size, to the different environments that we’ve included, we’ve kept in mind more than the number of square feet needed to pack a certain number of people in. We’ve agreed that our challenge is not simply to design a building that will enable us to grow, but to design a building that will enable us to grow in a way that preserves and even enhances some of the character traits that make Covenant a different kind of church. Covenant has always been a very relational church, and as we’ve grown, we’ve tried to maintain a high priority on relationships.
It’s one thing to say that we want to be a friendly church, but if that’s going to remain true, we’ve got to design the facilities in a way that encourages people to “hang out” and create an environment that’s not only warm and welcoming, but which makes room for relationships to develop naturally within the context of the larger ministry. And though the classrooms, fellowship areas, and worship auditorium are large enough to allow us to continue to grow, we’ve not made them as large as we could have. For example, the new auditorium will seat 500 worshippers, which is just about double our current capacity. And though we’ve included space for a future balcony that would seat another 200, there’s no plan to build a larger auditorium when that one fills up. In fact, we plan not to. We will continue with two services, and if needed, we may one day add more services, but we won’t be building a larger auditorium. For one thing, we’re committed to maintaining that “small church feel” to whatever extent we can, and as difficult as it will be with 500+ people in a room, it’s just not even a possibility with 1,000+ people.
Additionally, we think that there comes a point where a church can become so focused on enlarging its facilities that it can be perceived to focused on building its own kingdom, rather than God’s kingdom. That said, it’s our hope that at that point in the ministry, when there are enough resources to enlarge our facilities, we’ll put those resources to use in ministry outside of the church. That may mean helping to start new works, giving more to missions, or meeting more needs in our community.
Covered Walkways and Pavilions
One of the things that we’ll be doing to tie the building in to our existing facilities will be a covered walkway connecting this building to our existing one with a walkway that will cut through our current Gathering Area in line with the main walkway that connects the two existing buildings. In addition to a ten foot wide covered walkway that will span the south (front) and east side of the building, we’ll also have another covered portico for dropping people off, and a smaller pavilion with outdoor seating outside of the café. Just as we’ve found with our existing pavilion, it will be one more place for people to gather and get to know one another.
The Fellowship Foyer will be the first thing that our visitors see when they step into “the church”. It will be big enough to allow people to have access to the main auditorium as well as a visitor’s welcome area, an information booth, nursery facilities, and spacious rest rooms. You may also notice that in addition to one classroom, the Fellowship Foyer also includes a “Bookstore”. The bookstore would be a not-for-profit “store” that we would use to help provide Christian resources like Bibles, Bible study guides, books, and other resources to church members for far less than they could get them anywhere else. It will allow us to make available Bible study resources that we provide to members, while at the same time making resources available to them that they might otherwise never know about. In addition to being large enough to avoid feeling cramped, the Fellowship Foyer will be designed to welcome people to our “home”, with seating areas scattered about to allow people to relax before services and to encourage them to visit afterwards. It’s a simple way for us to say, “We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll stick around and let us get to know you.”
The auditorium will be only about as deep as our present one, but it will be twice as wide. That wide lay-out will allow us to seat twice the number of people as we currently do (approximately 500 on the floor) without anyone feeling like they’re “way in the back”. The floor will be slightly sloped to accommodate fixed, theatre style seating. The sloped floor will help everyone see just a little better, and it will also allow our stage to be at the floor level with the rest of the building, which will allow effortless wheel chair access. By using the fixed, theatre-style seating in the auditorium, we’ll eliminate the need for weekly set up of chairs and the space required to store them. Additionally, because they fold up when not in use, they make it much easier to move in and out of a row, and much easier to clean under than other kinds of fixed seating. You should also know that we’ll be using theatre seating without armrests, which makes it more comfortable for larger people and eliminates the conflict over who gets the armrest.
The stage will be large enough for our music ministry and choir to continue to grow, and while it’s not as large as many production stages, we’d prefer to build it with temporary stage sections additions if needed, rather than taking up valuable floor space which would be used infrequently. The stage would also have two side screens designed to enable everyone to see song lyrics and message notes clearly. In the back of the auditorium are two “Cry Rooms”, one for nursing mothers and their babies, and one for parents with children who aren’t able to sit in the service without being a distraction. The Cry Rooms will have large windows and speakers so that parents can still feel a part of the service. In the back of the auditorium, between the rear exit doors, will be a “Prayer Room” (a quiet place for people to go after services to talk and pray with decision counselors). The Prayer Room would also serve as a bridal area during weddings, or a staging area in the back of the auditorium for special services.
The nursery space is designed with one central drop-off/pick up area, which makes it a “one stop” experience for parents with more than one child, and ensures that no child can be picked up without the knowledge of the nursery coordinator. The Nursery Suite is central to the entrance and worship area to make it easy for parents with little ones to get their children taken care of, and so that they’ll have the comfort of knowing that their children are right around the corner from them. The Nursery Suite has separate rooms for infants, walking babies, older toddlers, and the little tikes (younger pre-schoolers), and Pre-K children. The rooms are spacious enough to allow for indoor play areas as well as learning areas. Each room also has direct access to a rest room.
While we’ll still have some limited office space in our current building, most of the staff offices will be moved into the new building.
As suggested by the “dual name”, this space will be used for recreation as well as fellowship. It will be attached to a large kitchen space, which will be equipped to adequately handle large groups and church-wide fellowships. The “gym” will be the site for Wednesday night Church Family Dinners and Church-wide fellowships, as well as special events and wedding receptions. It will also serve as a recreation space for youth, children, and adults. It will house a high school sized basketball court and volleyball court, and it will allow us to extend our outreach into the community by offering programs for children, youth, singles, and others.
The Café will be a casual indoor gathering area outside of the gymnasium to allow people to sit and visit over a cup of coffee or a soft drink. It will also give us a “set” place to serve snacks to kids and youth when the gym is open, without having to set up and tear down tables and chairs in the gym. The café will also create another one of those “environments” for welcoming visitors and helping them feel at home.
The main building will have a number of classrooms, designed to allow good sized classes to meet and grow. Our current plan has six new adult classrooms on the first floor, which will allow for large groups as well as smaller ones. There is also space on the second floor for another six class rooms that can be finished at a later date when needed.
Though the first floor alone will give us a tremendous amount of space in comparison to what we now have, we’re planning on two-storying a portion of the main building. Depending on our financial situation when we get to that point, much, if not all of the second-story space would remain unfinished until more space is needed, at which time rooms can be framed and finished. That will allow us the ability to expand in the future with very little additional cost or time requirements.
What About Our Existing Buildings?
Our existing buildings still have a lot of life in them, and we have no plans to let any building go unused. While the new facility will house our space for young children (birth through pre-K), our current building will be the headquarters for our elementary aged kids (Kindergarten through fifth grade). While parents with little ones want their kids close by, the elementary aged kids are going to school all week, so a little walk shouldn’t be a problem for them. The auditorium will be used for their large assembly activities, and the existing classrooms will be used as Sunday School/small group space for the kids. And while the kids will have primary use of the existing auditorium, we plan to keep it neutral in terms of décor so that it can still be used for “smaller” weddings, funerals, and special events that would be dwarfed by the larger auditorium. Our current education building would become a youth facility. It’s the farthest building from the main facility, so it makes sense that the oldest kids who require less help in getting from place to place can make the walk. While the smaller classrooms in that building aren’t adequate for younger children who need room to roam, they’ll work well for small, breakout rooms for youth. They’ll use the large room for large group time and then split up into their smaller groups.
We don’t have all the answers, and nothing’s in concrete, but we have put a whole lot of thought and prayer into the process, and we’re excited about what that process has yielded to this point, and about the ministry that will go on in the future. We ask that you’d join us in prayer as we continue to prepare ourselves for the journey ahead. We seek God’s wisdom and guidance, and pray that He’d lead each of us to be a part of the process, as we, His church, seek to find our role in His work here at Covenant Fellowship.
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This page was last updated on Thu Sep 18, 2008.