The Church

In come the pews!

The last time you saw it.

The church continues to grow in detail.  I finally started putting in some of the things like pews carpet.  I wanted the church to be focused on the altar, so arranging the pews was a bit of a difficulty with the unique shape of the church.

Yesterday's post showed more of the detail of the baptismal font, and in today's you can see where it belongs, and understand how it would influence the way you viewed entering the church.

I really like the effect of the stained glass cross at the front, because it has the seasons of the church worked into the detail. The cross has been a project of mine for about six years now, and I hope to one day build it in real life.

Happy Epiphany

Sunday we celebrate the baptism of our Lord by John the Baptist in the Jordan.  Because of Lutheran's sacramental view of baptism, I feel it is important that we put emphasis on the physical elements that we use, just as we do with our theology.  It bugs me when at a Lutheran Church the baptismal font has to be pulled out of a closet, because this treatment it does not seem to resonate with our emphasis on baptism.


In the church that I have been designing, I have been attempting to create a space with a lot of symbolism, in an attempt to get people to think more about the sacrament.  To be fair, I kind of went overboard with designing it, but I like what I have so far.

The baptismal font is in an octagonal pit at the entrance to the church.   The reason for the location and the bridge is to show that it is only through baptism that we are able to enter into God's presence.  The 8 sides curve in to give the feel of being inside a boat to remind us that God saved 8 people through the flood.  In the stairs are cascading fountains. The stairs descending into the pit are painted red to represent the blood of Jesus,and  the stairs ascending are white to represent being made pure in the waters of baptism.

There is more symbolism and art to be worked into it, I just figured this was good for today.

Church Design

Exterior View

This is the church that I've been working on for a while.  One thing that should be pointed out is that I've gone back to the drawing board a couple of times reworking the same ideas in a new way.  The shape was initially inspired by my home congregation, Evangelists' Lutheran Church, in Kingsbury, TX.  The main part of the church is over 100 yrs old.  It was expanded in early 2000's to add the arms and now looks like a cross from above.

View without the Roof

I've been trying to expand the idea so that it would be an entire church property in one building, while containing the cross floor plan.  This includes the Sanctuary, Parish Hall, some class rooms, and space for the Pastor's office behind the Altar area.

There have been a couple of iterations so far to try and make a usable space.  Initially I wanted to have the circle a part of the sanctuary and make the entire thing one giant room.  But this started to create some interesting issues with how to make an altar area that didn't look like a giant stage.  Then I thought I would try and have all directions of the cross involved, but I realized I'd have sight issues if I pushed the altar too far back.  Things continue to change as I try to work in more aspects of a proper church.