Church leaders may recognize the need to focus on church safety when designing the public areas of a new church building. But being able to imagine how that might work can be hard. That’s why we are sharing a specific church design schematic that can help you to see and understand how church safety can fit seamlessly into the public areas of your church building.
An Example of Safety in Church Design
This church design drawing shows the entrance and public-facing areas of one of our recent projects. The entrance to the building is at the top of this closeup from their overall church design. You can see there are multiple doors and plenty of glass, both for transparency about what’s happening inside the rooms, and easy viewing from both exterior and interior. It’s easy for guests to see that there are already other people in the building, which can help them feel safer as they walk in.
Another very helpful safety element is the location of the restrooms. When guests walk in, the doors to those restrooms are straight ahead of them and easily visible. This will feel safer for guests than having to walk around a corner or down a hallway into another part of the building. Finally, the doors to the worship center (which is directly below the bottom of this portion of the church design) are right next to the restrooms, again making it easy for guests to figure out where they need to go.
Visibility of Welcome Counter and Church Safety Team and Office
You can also see in the schematic that we’ve placed the information and welcome center directly in front of those restroom and worship center doors. This also directs guests’ eyes toward these important elements in your church design, while also providing a subtle hint that there are people keeping watch as well as answering questions. People stationed at this welcome center also can easily see down both side corridors, which lead to the restricted children’s area. This makes it easy to keep an eye on anyone who might be going where they don’t belong.
The security office is also strategically located to support church safety concerns. It’s located on the right, just below the bookstore and next to the nursery. The big window on the side of the office faces the foyer, so security team members can see everything from the entrance doors and foyer area to the worship center doors, welcome center, and children’s area corridors. They can even see out into the parking lot from that vantage point.
Limiting Access to Other Areas of Your Church Building
Finally, these various church safety aspects quietly but clearly make it more difficult for anyone to move beyond the public areas of this church building without being seen by welcome center and security team members. This goes a long way to discourage unwanted security events in your church building.
Notice how all of these elements help to do two things. First, they make it clear to guests and attendees that church safety matters. The presence of security team members is easy to see, especially if they are identified with a lanyard or name badge. Second, the security team doesn’t detract from the overall welcoming feel of the open foyer, with its café, bookstore, seating areas, and well-thought-out church design.
To learn more about well-designed church building options, register for our upcoming free i3 webinars, which we offer to help make it easier to see and understand all the important elements of your new church building.