The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, MI has a helpful article for church planters and leaders seeking to design effective worship space, with quotes from Sojourn Worship Arts Pastor Mike Cosper. Mike talks about the way we designed the space used for worship at our building, The 930, which we renovated and moved into a little over a year ago.
For the first several years of Sojourn’s history, we rented space for our Sunday gatherings. We are very grateful for the churches that helped us by providing space, but of course owning your own space means you can tailor it to the specific needs of your congregation and the mission and vision that God has given you as a community of worshippers. Therefore, the design of worship space is something that churches should pray about, think about, talk about and search the scriptures about.Â
While the Bible doesn’t give blueprints for how we are to build church buildings (and indeed, in its infancy, the church was able to meet in homes) we can still get a feel for how we might best use space for congregational worship and mutual edification by remembering what the scriptures tell us to do when we come together (such as taking communion and singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs).
We hope you find the article informative.
Also, Pastor Mike will be at the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship later this week as part of their 2008 Symposium on Worship. If you plan on attending and should happen to run into him at a seminar or other event, feel free to introduce yourself.
