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May 2012

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Amazing Grace

A stellar combination of design and technology brings participatory worship to a new level at Grace Community Church

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“Connectedness and intimacy is what it's all about. The room is designed like a giant hug." —Kevin Callahan, studio founder, Callahan Studios Soul Space, Scottsdale, AZ  

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Julie Homans, production director, Grace Kids Company & Student Ministries; Daryl Cripe, senior director, production; Brad Doran, director, audio and lighting systems; Leo Stewart, production coordinator; Kris Rinas, director, video systems; Jeannine Fortier, administrative assistant; Erin Meyer, production director, south auditorium. Not shown: Brian Raves, production coordinator, north auditorium.  

Sitting on 55 acres just outside Indianapolis is a 200,000-square-foot facility that’s a combination of old and new construction. The original building, rumored to look dark and visually uninspiring, was once a prominent feature. “The body language was just wrong,” says architect Kevin Callahan, founder of Callahan Studios Soul Space in Scottsdale, Ariz., and the guy who was passed up for the job of designing Grace Community Church back in the late 1990s. “Yet, they grew,” Callahan adds.

Then, years later in 2001, when Grace wanted to renovate its senior high worship space, Callahan found the opportunity to share his design insights with Senior Pastor David Rodriguez. “During that whole [design and building] process before, he was troubled,” Callahan describes of Rodriquez. It was here that Callahan found an “in,” describing Rodriquez and the Grace team as willing to go to incredible lengths to create an internal worship environment of connectedness and intimacy, largely achieved through technology and its integration into the very fabric of the facility’s design.

To say that Grace Community Church is sizable is an understatement. The facility includes 13 auditorium spaces—fully A/V/L-equipped and networked. The 13 auditoriums can be grouped into three categories: multi-purpose worship auditoriums that include a 400-seat North Auditorium that’s configured for in-the-round and end-stage setups; a Central Auditorium seating 1,100 that’s a typical box-shaped room; and a South Auditorium that opened just this past August—a 1,650-seat venue that Daryl Cripe, Grace’s senior director of production, calls a “radical departure” from the church’s North and Central auditoriums.

“Some key words really drove the design of this unique [South Auditorium] room. Intimate. Natural. A desire to reduce the designation and feel of ‘the stage’ vs. ‘the seats.’ Warm. Engaging. Worshipful. [With a] full complement of A/V technology, but the technology must not dominate the room…. [And] flexibility. The ability to actually go into an ‘in the round’ configuration natively to the room design. And the ability for full natural light and full blackout,” Cripe describes.

The other 10 auditoriums fall under the category of multi-purpose worship auditoriums and include, in a quick recap, eight identical 200-seat Kids Worship Auditoriums and two identical 500-seat Student Ministries rooms. And in the years to come, Cripe reports that Grace may yet include another 500-seat worship auditorium.

But for now, staff at Grace Community Church, its design and A/V/L creators, and members of the church world at large, are taking notice of the newly opened South Auditorium—a true divergence from typical church auditorium design. And why? “Connectedness and intimacy is what it’s all about,” says Callahan. “The room is designed like a giant hug.”

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Carol Badaracco Padgett is editor of Worship Facilities Magazine. She can be reached at cpadgett@worshipfacilities.com.   .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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