We Build a Church

ANONYMOUS

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FIVE years ago I celebrated the completion of twenty years in the parish ministry by setting down my experience in a paper entitled “Parson’s Progress.” From it I quote: “My career has been typical, and throughout it I have had a moderate though not a spectacular success. Though my ministry has been well supported, I have never known the thrilling but soul-imperiling experience of having throngs attend it.”

Before this paper was published in the Atlantic Monthly of February, 1937, the experience had come to me. The commodious parish hall in which I had been preaching for several years, and which had been large enough for our congregations except on Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter, was now crowded every Sunday. The room behind it was thrown open to take care of the overflow, but was insufficient. We could provide six hundred “seeing and hearing” seats, but our congregations exceeded six hundred. Latecomers sat in classrooms where they could hear but not see, or went home — sometimes in high indignation. That we were now “turning away business Sunday after Sunday,” as our ushers expressed it, constituted the strongest possible argument for the completion of our edifice by the building of a sanctuary.

The situation was brought about by no sudden magic. It was due to the fact that the church has a good field, and that years of patient, painstaking cultivation had begun to produce a harvest. Its story is that of a typical church which grows up in a new residential area on the edge of a city, and of its struggle to obtain an adequate structure. Its brief quarter-century of history covers the period of World War I, the Big Boom, the Great Depression, and World War II.

Like many a church in a new community, it grew out of a Sunday school which the pioneer residents provided for their children and which met first in a tiny real-estate office. To this were presently added a preaching service, held in the afternoon in various homes with guest preachers from downtown churches, and a women’s guild featuring charity sewing and surgical bandages, missionary activities, cultural and social programs. Here was the nucleus of a church.

A commanding site was obtained at the intersection of three important streets. The church owes much to the farsighted men who, when the area was just beginning to develop, chose its superb location. In 1916 the church organized with eighty-five charter members, of whom thirty-five are still on its active roll. They have watched the little group of founding fathers grow into a mighty company of 1750 members. In that same year the first edifice was built, a oneroom frame structure which housed all its activities. In 1917, while being used as a headquarters for Red Cross sewing, this building was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Pictures of a tangled mass of sewing machines suggest a blitzkrieg. The only custodian the church has ever had braved the flames to rescue the pulpit. Though refinished, it shows the scars of the fire, and is the church’s only memento of its first home. Another frame building was soon built; and as the Sunday school grew, wings were put out in all directions until the edifice resembled an octopus.

In 1923-1924 the first unit of the permanent structure was built, at a cost of $250,000. Because the Sunday school and young people’s activities dominated the church life, the parish house was built first. Since it was believed that the sanctuary would quickly follow, the unit was left with an unsightly blank wall (where the sanctuary would one day be attached) and a tall stack protruding from the boiler room.

But the depression caught up with the church before this first unit was paid for. The church families were hard hit. Though its membership steadily increased, the church’s revenues declined: in 1933 they were less than half what they had been in 1930. Structural defects developed, necessitating heavy outlays for repairs. But by careful management the church not only operated within its income but gradually reduced its mortgage. It was not until the church’s twenty-first birthday, in 1937, that the mortgage was burned.

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This was the year the congregations began to overflow the parish hall. Now a little group began to meet to discuss the kind of church we needed and could afford to build.

We had before us the unhappy example of sister churches, which during the lush twenties had built cathedral-like structures and been overtaken by the depression with a huge burden of debt. Some manfully struggled to pay: it is no joke for a congregation to have to write $10,000 for interest into its annual budget. Others were obliged to default in whole or in part. Do not judge them too harshly. Remember that in the golden twenties anything looked possible. Banks which refused to make a church loan would have been severely criticized: what were banks for, if not to help in the upbuilding of a community and its institutional life? But with the depression, pledges made in good faith could not be paid. If pressure were brought to bear on those who made them, they would leave the church. The situation was a trying one for the banks which made the loans, the trustees of the indebted churches, and the pastors who — with the poor man’s horror of debt — worried about the mortgages.

We were determined to profit by their plight. We decided that we wanted a good but not a grand church — not a miniature cathedral, but a parish church of simple lines and sound design. There are three elements to be considered in planning any building: size, quality, and cost. The builder can dictate any two of these, but not all three. Our two given factors were size and cost. We knew that we needed a nave with a seating capacity of 750, which could lie augmented by lowering the narthex screen and putting chairs in the narthex. We concluded that $250,000 was the most we could expect our people to give to a capital account within a reasonable time. Only the windows were to be outside this amount: we hoped that they would be given as memorials. The problem that we gave our architect was: How good a church can you build us, of such a size, at such a cost?

This is getting ahead of the story, for it was not until the fall of 1940 that an architect was chosen. We decided not to choose one until we had a substantial sum in hand, for we did not know how long it would be before we could build, nor how building conditions would change meanwhile. This was a handicap, for we had to ask for pledges from our people without being able to show them a picture or a plan or to tell them when we expected to build. It was because of this indefiniteness that the first $100,000 was the hardest to raise. In an ordinary financial campaign, the first third of the amount sought comes easily, for those charged with it naturally approach first the most generous and devoted members of their constituency; the last third comes hard and as the result of patient gleaning. In our building fund campaign, it was just the reverse: the raising of the first $100,000 was painful and slow. The second $100,000 was easier to obtain, the inertia having been overcome. The last $65,000 came in almost of its own accord.

In the spring of 1939 I preached a sermon, launching the enterprise. Without being able to be explicit, I outlined the building committee’s ideas of what our church should be, and dwelt on what it would mean to us and to our community: “A church edifice is a symbol: it speaks without words. It stands in a community for the presence of God. We daringly call it ‘the house of God’ — He too has a home in our community, built by loving hands and adoring hearts. A church building symbolizes man’s age-long hunger for something beside things. It recalls men to the principles which have made this nation great. For this reason a church should be recognizably distinct from every other kind of building. The structure itself should suggest eternal truths which the community cannot afford to forget.”

The sermon closed with the elevated words of John Ruskin: “Therefore when we build let us think we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them and that men will say as they look upon the labor and the wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our fathers did for us.’”

A few nights later the committee met and divided among them the names of those from whom the initial gilts were to be sought. Through the summer these were visited and some substantial contributions were obtained, though we found that — with memories of the depression still fresh — people were loath to make long-term pledges. Said one of our charter members: “I will give a thousand dollars this year. If I am alive next year, I’ll give another thousand. If I am still alive the year after, I’ll give another thousand. But in view of my age and the uncertainty of the times, I shall not hypothecate my future.”Curiously, people with modest incomes, such as teachers and office workers, were more willing to make three-year pledges than the well-to-do.

In the fall, a hundred of our men made a general solicitation of our membership. On the church’s twenty-third birthday in October, we were able to report that the first $100,000 had been raised. In 1940 the campaign was continued and the $150,000 mark was passed. On the church’s twenty-fifth birthday, in October, 1941 (construction being then in progress), the $200,000 mark was passed. I then told the congregation that I should not mention the building fund again until some Sunday when I should announce that it was complete. In January, 1942, while the building was still unfinished, I was able to make that announcement: the entire sum of $265,000 (which included $15,000 for the windows) had been given.

This is no small sum to raise for a capital account, and with the exception of a halfdozen gifts from friends outside the church, the entire amount was given by our members in addition to their usual offerings, aggregating $50,000 a year, for benevolence and church support. Our church has many substantial people, but no great wealth. We have many young families and people of slender means, who could give something to the ordinary budget but could not be expected to give to the building fund: we were careful not to embarrass them. Indeed, we put no pressure on anyone. Yet the response was far more general than we had been led to expect. Said my friend the archdeacon, who had been instrumental in building several churches, “In a building enterprise, 90 per cent of the money is given by 10 per cent of the people, and half the people do not give at all.” A professional fundraiser likewise told me that only half of those who gave to the church’s operating budget would be able or willing to give to a building fund.

Our result was somewhat better. The church is supported by 800 pledges, many of which are family pledges or joint pledges of husband and wife. We received 646 gifts to the building fund. Thirty-three were for five hundred dollars; ten were between five hundred and a thousand dollars; fifty-seven were for a thousand dollars or more. These hundred gifts totaled over $150,000. Beside these, we had one gift of $3000 for the façade window, and twelve of $1000 tor the side windows — all of which were given as memorials, save one group of side windows, which was given by the children of the church with their birthday pennies. We had 307 gifts of less than a hundred dollars, 86 of a hundred dollars, 153 of more than a hundred but less than five hundred. These 546 gifts — many of them representing genuine sacrifice — totaled less than $100,000. The entire sum was raised without any expense except postage. The money-raising aspect of building a church may seem prosaic. To me, who was in the thick of it, acknowledging every gift with a personal note of thanks, it was thrilling to see this outpouring of generosity which, beginning as a trickle, ended as a flood.

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Meanwhile, in the fall of 1940 we chose a local architect who, though not a specialist in church architecture, had built several notable churches. In addition to our stipulation as to cost and seating capacity, his problem was complicated by the necessity of joining the church to the parish house and by drastic restrictions on two sides: the building had to be kept sixty feet back from the sidewalk line and could not jut over on to the next lot, which the church owned but which was zoned for a dwelling. The problem was solved by designing a nave wider, shorter, and lower than the typical Gothic nave, which is characteristically narrow, long, and high. This modification, however, lends itself admirably to our type of worship, ours being one of a group of communions which stem from the Puritan tradition and — for good or ill — emphasize preaching rather than liturgy.

Our nave is fifty-five feet wide — wider than those of many Old World cathedrals. Columns, arches, and ambulatories have their charm but are a hazard from the point of view of acoustics: echoes and “dead spots” are almost inevitable. Our nave has none. Its acoustics are perfect, both for music and speaking. From every one of the 750 seats, the worshiper can see and hear perfectly.

This width and freedom from obstruction were made possible by the six welded steel frames which form the skeleton of the nave. A purist may hold up his hands in horror at the idea of using steel frames to support a Gothic church. Why? The reason the cathedral builders did not use steel was that they did not have it to use. They would have been glad to make their naves wider, had they been able. Their cunning use of arch and buttress is admirable, but steel frames would have been an answer to their prayer: they would have seen in them a far simpler and sturdier means of supporting a wide roof. There are other modern building materials of which they would gladly have availed themselves, such as reinforced concrete and hollow tile, not to mention modern heating, lighting, and ventilating systems. Ours is the traditional type of English village church: its precedents are at Stratford on Avon and Stoke Poges. Yet it is also a good example of what the archinnovator, Frank Lloyd Wright, calls “functionalism,” for it is perfectly adapted to the needs of our congregation and the requirements of our type of worship.

In building the church, we used the principle of coöperation rather than that of competition. In our membership was a reputable contractor. To him we gave the general contract. He quoted us a top price of $185,000. Any saving was to be equally divided between him and the church. He gave us excellent workmanship and kept within the specified amount; but building on a rising market, both in labor and material, he was unable to effect a saving.

The last item was the landscaping. There were three horticulturists in our membership. Our chairman invited them to his office and said, “Gentlemen, we have had no competition on this project. Are you willing to draw straws for the landscaping?” To the winner he said, “Here is what we need. We have five thousand dollars in the budget for it. Do the best you can.”

Outside the general contract were also the organ; the windows, decoration, and fighting; and the pulpit, lectern, altar, and chancel furniture.

To our local organ builder we said, “We have allowed $25,000 for the organ. Do the best you can.” He and our gifted organist collaborated on the specifications; together they worked for ten months, first in the factory, then during the installation, to produce their ideal organ. The result is a superb instrument, worthy of the glorious musical tradition of the Christian Church. Some old organs are as sweet-toned as modern organs, but mechanically they are not to be compared with them. Direct electric contact action puts the resources of his instrument at the disposal of the organist with a fullness of which César Franck and the great Bach never dreamed.

We gave considerable thought to the question, where should the organ and choir be placed? The tendency of late, even among non-liturgical churches, has been to place the choir in the chancel. This has obvious advantages for a liturgical service and for churches using a processional and recessional, which we do not. We finally decided to place the organ and choir in the rear balcony. This makes the music impersonal, free from the sometimes distracting appearance and idiosyncrasies of the singers. It subordinates the music to the worship and saves the singers from the temptation to “concertize.” In a chancel, the choir is divided; it is impossible so to place the console that the organist can see them all; if he wishes to direct with his hand (as he is especially likely to do on a cappella numbers), the movement of his hand is visible to the congregation. In a rear balcony, the choir is together, grouped closely about the console, and the organist can direct with his hand without being seen. Moreover, in the music in which the people participate, the choir supports them, singing with them instead of at them. Finally, in the spacious rear balcony there was far more room for the organ than in the chancel. Most organs housed in the chancel end are so crowded that the maintenance man needs to be an acrobat to get into the organ chamber; and many are divided, placed in chambers on either side, to the detriment of the ensemble effect.

We invited a well-known decorator to meet with us. We said to him, “In order to make it worth your while and to ensure a harmonious interior, we want you to do our nave and chancel decoration, our lighting fixtures, our windows. We hope to have the windows given as memorials. Please tell us what kind of windows we should have and how much we should pay for them.” He answered, “You do not need extremely expensive windows. In your climate with its dull winter days, the primary purpose of a window is to admit light. If you have a wide border of translucent mat, your windows will cost less than if they were solid color, and your church will be lighter and more cheerful.” It was sound advice.

There are six bays on either side of the church, each bay having three windows. The decorator suggested that each bay be treated as a unit, the middle window in each portraying a central theme, the windows on either side subsidiary themes. On this basis he asked me to submit to him themes for the thirty-six side windows. Having in mind their teaching value, I promptly decided on a series portraying the main aspects of the life and work of Jesus.

Of the first group, the Nativity was naturally the central theme, with the Annunciation and the Magi on either hand. The central window of the second group depicts Jesus as the Carpenter of Nazareth. To men in an industrial center like ours, the day’s work, by which they get their daily bread and make their contribution to the world’s life, means much. I am sure that his craft meant much to Jesus, and I wished to have him shown working at it. The side windows in this group represent two illustrations, used by Jesus in his teaching, which he drew from his work as a carpenter: The House Built on the Rock and The Easy (the Greek word means “well-fitted”) Yoke.

Another group represents three characteristic phases of Jesus as a teacher: central window, Teaching the Multitude (The Sermon on the Mount); to its right, Teaching an Inner Circle (the disciples); to its left, Teaching an Individual (the woman of Samaria). Another depicts three parables, the parable being Jesus’ most characteristic teaching form: the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan. Another represents Jesus as a doer of mighty works: central window, Feeding the Multitude; to its right, Stilling the Storm; to its left, Restoring Sight to a Man Born Blind.

When the Gospel writers come to the last week of Jesus’ life, their pace slackens. Hitherto they have been episodic; now they go into careful detail. Following their example, four of our bays are devoted to Jesus’ last week: the Palm Sunday group, with the Triumphal Entry in the middle, Jesus Weeping over the City on one side, and the Anointing at the Home in Bethany on the other; the last night of his life — the Last Supper in the middle, with Washing the Disciples’ Feet and In Gethsemane on either side; the Good Friday group — the Crucifixion in the middle, In Pilate’s Judgment Hall and Carrying the Cross to Calvary on either hand; and the Easter group with the Resurrection in the middle, Peter and John Running to the Tomb at one side, and at the other, the most moving of all the post-resurrection incidents, The Walk to Emmaus.

I go into this detail to indicate the care with which the themes were selected. It was equaled by the fine imagination and artistry with which the windows were wrought. To make them, the decorator chose a famous Dutch artist who had escaped from Holland just before the Nazi invasion. This was his first big commission in America. It meant much to him. It was an unusual opportunity because, all the windows having been given, he could do the whole thirty-six at once. (Usually churches have to put in some temporary windows; and stained glass windows never show to best advantage till they are all in.) In his treatment of some of the themes, he was unconventional to the point of being daring. Yet his delineations are based on his own careful study of the Gospel text. There is no lack of reverence and no monotony. Jesus is depicted not as a wan ascetic, as in many medieval windows, but as a masculine and forceful personality. The artist has imparted a living quality to his portraiture in greater degree than I have ever seen in many years’ study of stained glass.

Beside the side windows, there is a large façade window, which we wished to be the church’s crowning glory. The decorator asked for a “big” theme. I suggested the fifth-century hymn, “To Deum Laudamus,” most famous of all non-Biblical hymns. The colors of this window are sumptuous. The conception is bold and original. It represents the Trinity, the four evangelists, the angelic host, the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs. When the artist, a devout Roman Catholic, came to the line, “The holy church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee,” he said, “I am at a loss what to do. If it were a Catholic church, I should show the Pope and the College of Cardinals, but that would not do for you.” The chairman of our trustees made the brilliant suggestion that he represent our own church as a typical worshiping congregation. Accordingly, at the base of the window we see the façade of the new church with a group of people of all ages before it, as they were gathered the day the cornerstone was laid. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are in uniforms. The organist is seated at his console, his white-robed choir about him. In the center is the pastor (somewhat idealized!), his hands upraised in benediction o’er his flock. It may seem almost sacrilegious to include ourselves in the same window with the Trinity; but it signifies that this typical twentieth-century American congregation is part of the historic movement which embraces the apostles, prophets, martyrs, and Jesus Christ himself. We are joined with them in a continuing faith.

The pulpit, lectern, communion table, and chancel cross were wrought by a local woodcarver with a loving care and a craftsmanship worthy of the late Anton Lang of Oberammergau. The background of the chancel cross is a dossal of exquisite texture and rich color. The richness of the chancel is in contrast with the austerity of the nave.

To the architect, the general contractor, and the various craftsmen we said, “We’re putting ourselves in your hands: do the best you can for what we can afford to pay.” To a man they responded to our confidence — went far beyond the bare requirements of the situation, as though to prove how wellgrounded our confidence was. Competition may be the life of trade, but in building a church coöperation brings a finer result.

The same spirit spread through our congregation, which includes many strongminded people. I feared lest the sharp differences of opinion as to when and how we ought to build, plus the necessity of raising a large sum in a comparatively short time, might have a divisive effect. Instead, the building enterprise unified our people as never before.

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On Palm Sunday — exactly a year after the first contract was signed — we worshiped in the new sanctuary for the first time. There was no fanfare. We simply worshiped as though we were continuing something that had been going on for a long time. (For nineteen hundred years Christian worship has persisted. If you regard the church as the outgrowth of the synagogue, then the chain of prayer is longer still.) The Palm Sunday hymns and anthems were sung. The sermon continued a Lenten series on The Words from the Cross. But to the 1265 people who succeeded in crowding into the church, it was a rare and exalting hour, the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream, the end of a congregation’s quarter-century of endeavor to provide a structure worthy of the devotion of its members and the culture of its community.

There is romance in building a bridge, a factory, a department store, a school, anything which develops a community and helps humanity on. But the romance of building a church is greater still. Not many months ago, there was a tract of bare ground with a blank wall at one end of it. The stone was still in the quarries. The wood was standing timber. The glass was in neat piles of tiny panes in the cubbyholes of a faraway shop. The tin, copper, and brass of the organ pipes had not yet been so shaped that they could sing. Now these various fabrics have been fashioned into a shrine beneath whose high and hospitable roof men engage in the highest act of which men are capable, communion with the infinite and eternal Creator Spirit to whom our spirits are akin.

Already its walls are bathed in the atmosphere of prayer and praise. To it through the years young men and women will come to plight their marriage vows. To it little children will be brought to be dedicated to God in the beautiful rite of baptism. To it our dear dead will be borne for the tender offices of faith and hope and love. From its pulpit the good news of a gracious God will be proclaimed. From its altar will be distributed the sacred symbols of God’s grace, validated by a love of which the Cross is the measure and the sign. We who built it dare to hope that our children and children’s children will gather in it long after we are gone, to pledge their allegiance to the ancient loyalties which alone can transform this beautiful but shadowed world into a family of God, wherein men know and feel themselves brethren because of their common origin and destiny in Him.