A church design can be as good as a photo in illustrating what’s possible with your church building vision. Once again, we’re examining a church building situation using a schematic design to help illustrate how church leaders refocused their historic church property and created a design that meets their vision and needs for the future.
Historic Wayne Street Methodist Church, St. Marys, Ohio
Wayne Street Methodist was worshiping in a 100-year-old church building, but they were having problems. The building’s foundation was crumbling, cracks were appearing, and engineers determined that it would take almost half-a-million dollars to correct the problems and keep their historic church building standing. We met with the church leaders to talk about what they could do and about what other options might be available to them for that amount of money.
Looking at their property overall, we noted they had an empty field to one side of their main parking lot. We suggested creating a new worship center church design from scratch and re purposing their existing fellowship hall (pictured)to meet their needs, designing a modern, inviting church building space that incorporated portions of the existing building.
A Church Design for a Modern Church Vision
The new and remodeled sections of the Wayne Street church are shown in color on this 
schematic design. At the top, in purple, is the existing fellowship hall. As you can see in these photos, the older hall was in good shape and serviceable but not exactly welcoming. It was also bordered by a hallway that was used to move between the old worship space and the fellowship hall.
We converted both the hallway and the old fellowship hall into a new multi-ministry room that serves as a foyer in addition to its traditional function as a fellowship hall and dining space. This area is now brighter, warmer, and includes a café that makes good use of the existing kitchen facilities. New restrooms are accessible from the fellowship hall and are right outside the doors to the worship center.
A New Worship Center and Welcoming Church Building Entrance
In addition to transforming the fellowship hall into a more appealing and functional space, we built a new worship center free from structural concerns and a limiting, historic church design. As you can see in this image, we incorporated some of the stained-glass windows and other features of the former church building to maintain the church’s connection with its history.
Finally, we incorporated a new main entry point into the church design. This photo shows how seamlessly the entrance weaves together the new worship center to the left with the existing fellowship hall building on the right. The vestibule leads into either the fellowship gathering space or into the worship center itself.
Do you have an aging church building that no longer meets your modern church vision for ministry in your community? There may be more innovative church design possibilities than you can imagine. Contact us today to discuss how we might help transform your church design to meet your needs and sign up for our next i3 webinars to learn more about designing church buildings that work.