From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 16 2002 - 09:43:39 EDT
August 16, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Calvin Seminars in Christian
Scholarship program will sponsor a workshop September 3-5, 2002 on "The
Testimony of Place: Building Churches and Neighborhoods."
The event will be held at Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church (514 Eastern
SE) in Grand Rapids.
The conference participants will look at the old models for churches, when most
of the parishioners lived nearby and walked to the Sunday service. And they'll
look at today's typical church, located off a major road and surrounded by huge
parking lots, which attracts mobile parishioners from an entire region on the
basis of specialized programming and pastor personality.
The conference will challenge with such questions as: is there a realistic
alternative to modeling church buildings on the regional shopping mall, do older
churches with limited parking have a future in America's car-dominated culture,
can churches once again become part of coherent neighborhoods, what effect do
transit, parking requirements and zoning regulations have on new church
construction and can new church construction be coordinated with the development
of new neighborhoods.
This conference is designed for building committees of churches considering new
construction, re-location, or building additions; for pastors and interested
laypeople; and for city planners, architects and developers concerned about the
civic place of sacred space.
Presenters include: Jonathan Bradford, executive director of the Inner City
Christian Federation; architect Kim DeStigter; Victor Dover, a principal in a
South Miami firm and named by Architecture magazine as being "among the
country's best architects and urban designers"; Savannah College of Art and
Design professor David Gobel; Calvin philosophy professor Lee Hardy; developer
Jim Reminga; town planning consultant Summer Rutherford; and Eastern Avenue CRC
church administrator Fred Sterenberg.
Contact 616-957-8558 or see http://www.calvin.edu/fss/testimony.htm
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