Church Landscapes, Part 5

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Step 1 is always: Have A Plan. A plan can be casual or thorough, but knowing where you’re headed is the best way to get there. Developing a plan can raise procedural, philosophical, and pragmatic issues.

Sometimes, HOW you make a plan is more important than what ends up in the plan.

And "how" often means "who". 

At the risk of suggesting another committee, most churches are well-advised to bring a few people together to collaborate on the plan, rather than leaning on just one or two dedicated members who might (or might not) be experts.  

That lesson comes from hard experience in my first years in the public sector:

Include Stakeholders. Involving lots of people in developing a plan or making a big decision will take a while, but you will only have to do it once, and then you can act on it. Making a big decision by yourself, in a vacuum, means rehashing it over and over again with all of those same people until you get frustrated and drop it.

Plus, the people you include will become the cheerleaders for implementing the new plan. They will become excited about the opportunities, and they not want the new plan to languish or fail. 

A few of the questions that you might want to consider:

• How does our theology guide our thoughts about our landscape? 
• What is our mission? How might our landscape serve that mission? 
• What value do we give to God’s Creation simply because it is His handiwork and reveals His glory? Is that reflected in our landscape? 
• Is the church just a place to meet, or is it hallowed ground? How do we view the sanctification of the church building and its grounds? How does that play out in how we develop and manage the church building and grounds? 
• What do the conditions and looks of the church building and grounds say to our local community and to passersby: “We don’t care”, or “This is a special part of God’s Creation”, or “Welcome! You will feel at home here”, or something else? 

Then there are the nuts and bolts.

• Is the church used only on Sunday mornings, or is it used all week? 
• Does the church have a school or pre-school? 
• Do the church and its grounds seem welcoming or exclusionary to newcomers and to the local community? 
• Do we invite outsiders to use the playground? What will that mean to our liability coverage? 
• How do we guide people into the building? Is it easy to find the front entrance and get to it? 
• Do we have problems that need solutions, like erosion, or flooding, or ugly mechanical equipment? 
• Do we need particular types of spaces for our events and activities? 
• What is all this stuff going to cost?
• Will the long-term management overwork our volunteers? 
• Do we have, or need, a larger master plan? As the church grows, where can we add on more building space and more parking? What else will we need then in the landscape? 

So Step 1a is ideally a process of extracting these issues and digesting them into a shared understanding and a VISION for the church's building and grounds. 

Maybe you already have that shared vision. Or maybe you only think you do. Most churches in the 21st Century are more diverse than ever. Members' backgrounds vary and have a variety of experiences and traditions. 

My own history illustrates that point, having been in 8 churches in 4 cities, with only 2 in the same denomination. People of faith today are not "brand loyal" to one type of church, so the congregation contains people with different ways of seeing things, both theologically and 

With a shared vision, Step 1b is developing a plan for fitting your vision to your site. 

Some of this will be common sense: some uses and spaces require certain traits that the site either does or does not have. You can't put a softball diamond on a steep slope. You can't park 500 cars in one acre (the absolute max is ~160). And so on. Plus, you probably won't want the "nuclear option" of knocking everything down and starting over. 

Some of this takes more than common sense. What do zoning and site development codes require or prohibit? What are the accessibility requirements? How do first-time guests navigate from the road to the front door? How can we solve the runoff and erosion problem that runs mud into the basement door whenever it rains? 

Pulling all these things together into a coherent, workable plan takes an understanding of many things, and that's what professional training as a landscape architect is all about. 

Understood: that's a lot to think about, digest, organize, and work through, and most churches don't have professionals who are skilled in working through the issues, working objectively with the stakeholders, moving through the process, and developing a new plan that will actually work. And even if your church has someone who can do all that, does that person have the flexibility to do it in a timely way? 

That's one reason that Halcyon Planning & Design exists: I love God, and I love His Church. One part of my mission is to help His servants - you - live out your mission in the Great Commission. My professional role in this is to think through these issues related to a church's building and grounds, and find ways to help match your vision and your mission to your site.

So let's talk. I will be happy to meet with you to help scope things out. And these days, "meet" can be on site, by phone, by video call, or whatever you need it to be. 

And if you just want to pick my brain about some small challenges or ideas, that's fine. I'm here to help. 

How do a church's plantings fit into the bigger picture of God's creative work?