We discussed in our last blog post that many churches feel the tug at their pocketbooks when they begin thinking about church remodeling or design projects. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With The McKnight Group’s Advantage building design, you can have a cost-effective building that’s both high quality and capable of providing space for a variety of your ministry’s needs.
Open It Up
In this post, we’ll focus on your foyer or Welcome Center. The foyer was traditionally just a small entry way in churches. It was a place for people to take off their coats, shake out their umbrellas, grab a bulletin or program, and then continue into the worship space.
Now, however, the Welcome Center has become an integral part of the church community’s life. As we share in one of our free i3 webinars, statistics show that people need to make 12 new friends in the first 6 months of coming to a church. If they don’t, about 80% of them will, sooner or later, stop attending. New guests make those friends in places where they can easily interact with each other, and one great place to do that is the Welcome Center. In our Advantage building plan, this area is expanded from the traditional church entry to between one-half and one-third the size of the Advantage worship space (that we talked about in our last post), making a large, welcoming fellowship area for your community to welcome each other and visitors easily.
Rev It Up
But like your worship space, your Welcome Center needs to be multi-functional. For example, you’ll want a place for everyone to grab a cup of coffee or tea, and maybe something to eat. This area can also function as a store. The Welcome Center will be more welcoming if you set up some groups of comfortable, lounge-type furniture in a few strategic locations—and those areas can also function as small group meeting spaces.
The Welcome Center is also the room you want the public to see, so windows are important. Think about it as a storefront; when people pass by and look through your storefront windows, you want them to be attracted to enter. Some pleasing, commercial grade carpet and an attractive color scheme for the walls will do the trick. With light pouring in from outside, it will also be bright and cheery on the inside—and you won’t need to turn on many lights on sunny days, either!
Fill It Up
In addition to being a welcoming area and impromptu meeting space for small groups, you can fill this space with tables and chairs for smaller banquet events, or use it for the reception that might follow a wedding or other celebration in the worship space. You could also set up teaching opportunities in this gathering area, even when basketball games are in full swing in the multi-function worship space.
The great thing about multi-function spaces such as the Welcome Center and worship space is that they provide a variety of options with less expense. You’re only paying to build and maintain one building with two large rooms. With the Advantage building design on your side, the cost savings continues long after you’ve built the building!
For more on the cost-effective possibilities for your Welcome Center space and to learn more about our Advantage building, join us for our free i3 webinars.