Sanctuary remodeled into a youth space at Westerville Christian Church
We talk a lot on this blog about remodeling your church to serve the needs of the community. At the end of the day, you want your church to do all the good it can for your congregation and community by making it as inviting as possible for as many as possible, both young and old. This can seem overwhelming at times. Often to reach this goal, it’s best to focus on the needs of smaller groups within your community.
Open God’s Youthful Door
Here’s an idea for serving younger people that we discuss in our free i3 webinars. Churches today face a formidable challenge when it comes to keeping youth engaged, especially once they graduate from High School. Youth-oriented spaces are a great way to solve this challenge and really open your church to the community, not just for young people, but their parents, family and friends, too. Keeping the attention of High School and College age youth can be costly but when your church provides a low or no-cost option for age-appropriate activities, you won’t just be running a community hub; you’ll be a community hero. And when you leave your door open, people decide to stay for awhile.
Here’s a great example of how a youth space can revitalize a church: Westerville Christian Church. They remodeled their original sanctuary into a young adult/youth space. This renovated space is now used for a variety of functions including weekly small group get togethers.
But Westerville Christian Church avoids doing one thing. They don’t use the youth space as a place to preach to the youth or parents who use it for “non-threatening” events. Of course, flyers and notices about the church’s regular services are always easily found by anyone. This way Westerville shows their community the warmth and goodness of the church, which is really the first step to forging relationships between the community and the Lord.
Start the Lord’s Work with our Free Webinar
Whether you want to remodel your sanctuary or other area in your church, into a youth-oriented space, be sure to put the needs and wants of your community’s youth first. Then learn more by signing up for one of our i3 webinars. They are completely free, and packed with information that will have you inspired and brimming with ideas on how to remodel your church to do the best work it can.