New edition for congregations planning to build or renew their church facilities. Now includes elements, which have become prominent in recent times including the use of visuals, electronic instruments, and the need for flexible space to accommodate the various configurations and multiple uses to which church space is put.

Provides an overview of Protestant worship and examines the origins, development, and present characteristics of nine different Protestant traditions

In the 1880s, socio-economic and technological changes in the United States contributed to the rejection of Christian architectural traditions and the development of the radically new auditorium church. Jeanne Kilde links this shift in evangelical Protestant architecture to changes in worship style and religious mission.

Each year a billion dollars is spent on church buildings in the United States. Yet there is no authoritative book available to guide building committees, ministers, and others responsible for new churches in the theological implications of their work. Dr. White explores the theological and historical considerations relevant to building for Protestant worship. Surprisingly, these are often ignored by building committees, usually with disastrous results. His approach is highly original, especially in his theological treatment of worship; yet his book is also a operative in the largest sense, in that it relates theology to practice. Professor White begins with a critical analysis of contemporary concepts of Protestant worship and then defines the liturgical factors in church design. Following this, there are four chapters giving an historical account of various experiments from the third century to the present. This section indicates the tremendous variety of possibilities open to the church builder, many of which have been ignored too long. A final chapter deals with emotive factors - all vitally relevant to the architect: choir, liturgical art, and style. The opportunity to design a new church building occurs only once or twice in each generation of church members. It is all the more important that it be done carefully since the building will continue to affect the life of the congregation for many years. Until fundamental questions as to what the Church is and what the Church does in worship are raised, a congregation is not prepared to build. This book will help churches find the answers. The 155-item bibliography should be of value to many since a recent extensive bibliography on Protestant church architecture does not exist. This book also contains 60 diagrams of experiments in plan garnered from nearly 2000 years of history.

Jeanne Halgren Kilde's survey of church architecture is unlike any other. Her main concern is not the buildings themselves, but rather the dynamic character of Christianity and how church buildings shape and influence the religion. Kilde argues that a primary function of church buildings is to represent and reify three different types of power: divine power, or ideas about God; personal empowerment as manifested in the individual's perceived relationship to the divine; and social power, meaning the relationships between groups such as clergy and laity. Each type intersects with notions of Christian creed, cult, and code, and is represented spatially and materially in church buildings. Kilde explores these categories chronologically, from the early church to the twentieth century. She considers the form, organization, and use of worship rooms; the location of churches; and the interaction between churches and the wider culture. Church buildings have been integral to Christianity, and Kilde's important study sheds new light on the way they impact all aspects of the religion. Neither mere witnesses to transformations of religious thought or nor simple backgrounds for religious practice, church buildings are, in Kilde's view, dynamic participants in religious change and goldmines of information on Christianity itself.

How Catholic churches are being sapped of their spiritual vitality and what you can do about it The problem with new-style churches isn't just that they're ugly they actually distort the Faith and lead Catholics away from Catholicism. So argues Michel S. Rose in these eye-opening pages, which banish forever the notion that lovers of traditional-style churches are motivated simply by taste or nostalgia. In terms that non-architects can understand (and modern architects can't dismiss!), Rose shows that far more is at stake: modern churches actually violate the three natural laws of church architecture and lead Catholics to worship, quite simply, a false god.

There have been many histories of Christian art and architecturebut none written be a theologian such as Kevin Seasoltz. Following a chapter on culture as the context for theology, liturgy, and art, Seasoltz surveys developments from the early church up through the conventional artistic styles and periods. Comprehensive, illuminating, ecumenical.