Assumptions about church facilities are changing. The young are looking for sacred space. Others believe the church should spend more on the poor and less on multi-media theatrical buildings. And the multi-site movement is decentralizing church programming. What does all of this mean for how we plan our facilities? Ed Bahler and Bill Couchenour from the Cornerstone Knowledge Network have decades of experience as church architects. They have also been helping churches think more clearly about vision and facilities in our rapidly changing culture. Leadership's managing editor, Skye Jethani, will be interviewing Bahler and Couchenour about what church leaders should do before they decide to build or renovate their facilites. And you will have the opportunity to ask questions as well.

Sign up for this live webinar event featuring Ed Bahler and Bill Couchenour with Skye Jethani of Leadership journal, on November 17th, 11 a.m. (CDT).

Will Mancini moved from the trenches of church leadership and founded Auxano, a church consulting group that takes a unique approach of helping churches find their vision frame before proceeding with typical consulting services. To that end, Will calls himself a "clarity evangelist."

Will spoke about how a church can discern its unique calling at the 2009 Cornerstone Knowledge Network conference in Charlotte. Here's what he had to say:

Kevin Ford is the Chief Visionary Officer and Managing Partner of TAG Consulting, a management consulting firm specializing in strategy, leadership and ministry development. TAG's client list includes Merrill Lynch, the Federal Aviation Association and the Salvation Army. While Kevin loves consulting with companies and ministries of all sizes, his passion is to help leaders of the local church.

In his workshop at the 2009 Cornerstone Knowledge Network Conference in Charlotte, Kevin presented on the topic of "Leading Through Change." Here are some of the highlights:

The primary task of leadership is to distinguish between what needs to be preserved and what needs to change. Work on what to preserve before tackling what needs to change.

How do you take your church through the process of change? First, determine what you need to preserve.

Growing churches can be stopped by the stress of deciding what to do next. Fortunately, there is a clear way to overcome these growing pains.

Christ Church is a rapidly growing denominational congregation in a suburban area of a midwestern city. The church has been around for 160 years and is on the National Register of Historic Places. People love the church's history, but they are more excited about their future of reaching the unchurched people in their community. Church members unanimously agreed that a building was needed to accommodate growth, not only in worship, but also in education and ministry activities. In fact, the church already had some money in the bank for a building program.

When church leaders envision their next building project, many are selecting interior and exterior styles that may deter the very people they're trying to reach—the unchurched—from visiting.

According to the Church Facilities Expansion Study, a joint research project in 2009 between the Cornerstone Knowledge Network (CKN) and Christianity Today International, church leaders consistently chose building designs that are the opposite of what the unchurched said they preferred in a prior study, Sacred Space, conducted by CKN and Lifeway Research in 2008.

In the Church Facilities Expansion Study, most churches that are planning to build within the next 18 months say they will go with a more modern look for their exterior, sanctuary, and foyer designs. However, Sacred Space respondents, all of whom are unchurched and do not currently attend a church, said they prefer churches with a gothic-like design.

Should churches base their building plans on what the unchurched say they want? Not necessarily. According to Jim Couchenour, director of ministry services for Cogun, Inc, a design/build firm for churches and a co-founder of CKN, a balanced perspective is needed.

Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research and adviser to BuildingForMinistry.com and BuildingChurchLeaders.com, released new research on pastors, which will be published soon in our sister publication, Leadership.

Kevin Miller, executive vice president of Christianity Today International, blogged about the new research on OutofUr, which Stetzer shared for the first time at the 2009 Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. Among many other findings, Miller highlighted one statistic that may provide a clue to why the number of young adults attending churches is rapidly declining:

Miller writes: "Among Lifeway's respondents, 67 percent say they 'strongly agree' and 26 'somewhat agree' to 'I am intentionally investing in leaders who will emerge over the next 10 years.' However, those percentages drop (to 52 percent and 26 percent) for 'The church does a good job fostering and developing new leaders.' Maybe this explains why so many pastors agreed (38 percent strongly, 37 percent somewhat) that 'Our church struggles to reach young adults.'"

What are some ways your church fosters and develops new leaders?

Read the rest of Kevin Miller's highlights on Lifeway's Research here.

Each year our sister publication, Your Church magazine, publishes an annual Church Buyer's Guide. Check out the free, electronic PDF of our "Facility" section from the 2010 Church Buyer's Guide here.

You can see a digital version of the entire 2010 Church Buyer's Guide too!

Ashley Revell, a 32-year-old man from London, knows what it means to live for the moment at great risk of sacrificing the future. In April 2004 he approached a roulette wheel in Las Vegas with one chip in his hand. Previously that year Ashley had sold everything he possessed (including his underwear, according to the report). On a whim, he decided to "double or nothing" his entire life. The event was recorded by British television for a one-time reality show. The spinning ball in the roulette wheel would double his $135,300 if it fell on red. If the ball skipped into a black slot, Ashley would walk away with literally nothing. Even the rented tux would have to be returned.