According to architect Mel McGowan, the Samaritan woman at the well would never have made her way to the 'holiest of holies' with all the hoops she would have been forced to jump through. That's why Jesus came to her. In the same way, churches are looking at creative ways to bring Christ back into the city square rather than forcing seekers to overcome unnecessary obstacles to find faith. Watch Mel's video for a quick look at the revolution of sacred space that's occurring.

This decade-old neo--Gothic Anglican megachurch is layered with stone walls, a thick tower that hoists a cross, and half-oval windows in the shape universally known as "church window." While its original building plan called for theater seating—the sanctuary seats about 3,000—the church instead opted for pews.

"When we built it, there was a lot of movement towards the warehouse look, with black ceilings," says Dana Blackwood, Church of the Apostles' director of facilities. "The church leadership understood that that look was going to fade. People wanted to have a sense of tradition, something that looked like a church."

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In the late 1990s, a property developer began designing Highpoint Community in Romeoville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His plans consisted of apartments and single-family housing oriented around a central village green featuring a community center. And in that community center he envisioned an anchoring presence that is seldom considered by commercial and residential real estate developers: a church.

Does your church facility encourage people to slow down, build trust, and explore what God is doing in their hearts? At the September 15th Cornerstone ALIGNMENT4 Conference in Chicago, Mel McGowan will help you answer these questions with his session on "Creating Connecting Space."

At the Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fayetteville, the pastor is trying to sell the building from under his congregation.

"Our motive should not be to fill these seats, but to empty these seats," the Rev. Frank Mercer decided last year.

Amen, said the congregation, which is $150,000 away from paying off $1.4 million worth of land and buildings. Read more.

Challenge Question: If you become a church of bricks and mortar, will you cease to be a church of flesh and blood?

The closing scene from "Field of Dreams" inspires us to believe our grandest dreams. The small town farmer obeyed the voice that said, "If you build it…they will come." Ignoring conventional wisdom he converted valuable farming acreage into a baseball field—following the instruction of the whispering voice. And the movie ends with cars arriving from all over that would cover the cost of building the baseball field—and they lived happily ever after.