good book

Yesterday I finished work on a new book about the design philosophy and recent projects of Visioneering Studios. Mel McGowan, Visioneering’s president, wrote much of the copy and I helped with some rewrites and edits.

Although the project took a chunk of my brain for most of last month, it was fun and rewarding to be involved. Mel and his team are great people with huge hearts for connecting people to Jesus through “architectural evangelism.” The book profiles 15 churches and parachurches, shares their story, and includes photos of their Visioneered facilities. Five short essays about design, church as a “third place,” and the role of environmental choices in architecture round it out.

Here’s a short excerpt:
Are bigger buildings worth the potential pitfalls of community opposition, split congregations, pastoral departures, and sacrificial giving campaigns? Most evangelical pastors still say yes, assuming that “if we build it, they will come.” But according to Barna Research, between 1993 and 2000 the dollars spent on church construction increased by 100%. During the same timeframe the US population increased by 40%, while US church attendance decreased by 40%. A statistician would call that a directly inverse correlation, while a businessman would call it an unacceptable ROI.

America is increasingly becoming a postmodern, post-Christian nation, and church architects who drop fiberglass steeples in front of converted Wal-Marts are part of the problem. Without rethinking biblical definitions of authentic church and community, they continue to endorse the same generic solutions across the country. However, generic is irrelevant—and not always cheaper. Instead of throwing more money at less effective buildings reaching fewer people, churches can stage a design intervention by considering their culture, their unique identity, and their purpose.

The book will debut at the Q conference in NYC next month. Sigh. Yet again I want to attend Q. At least this year some of my words will.

(For more about Visioneering, read the Christian Standard  story here.