From Basketball to Hymnals--On a Budget

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The SouthLake Church & Academy formally dedicated its new facility at a Sept. 9 worship service, although the giggles of children and smell of erasers have filled classrooms since August.

The building is more than a high school during the week and a church on Sunday. SouthLake is a faith-based community facility for education, worship and membership interaction.

This all-in-one concept was the challenge Stephens, Aylward & Associates (SAA) accepted when they were selected as the architect for the project. According to the firm, the goal was to create a special community facility in which neither the educators nor religious leaders or staff would feel as if their space was an afterthought.

Church and school enrollment grew faster than its resources, so the project was burdened with a heavy focus on cost. SAA's goal was to create a facility that would cost about $90 per square foot in a market in which traditional approaches were producing buildings for about $125 per square foot.

Besides budget constraints, the design posed other challenges.

The multipurpose room--with its floating maple floors, two basketball courts, adequate clear height to accommodate volleyball, and full locker rooms--clearly serves as a gym during the week. However, the space is transformed on Sunday for services and other special events, says Glen Stephens, SAA President and partner in charge of the company's Carolina operations.

Lighting in the multipurpose room posed a real challenge, as the room required traditional floodlights for sporting events, as well as softer, flexible lighting for religious ceremonies. SAA used a fluorescent lighting fixture system with multiple bulbs in each head, allowing for three different settings.

Due to tight budgets and daily-use nature of the facility, energy efficiency was crucial. SouthLake experienced significant heating and cooling problems in its original building, so leaders sought an energy-efficient, state-of-the-art air conditioning and heating system that incorporated heat recovery and staged, multi-unit equipment.

SAA recognized the necessity that the building envelope to have a true thermal performance with minimum infiltration of both air and water vapor. The solution was a THERMOMASS concrete sandwich wall system as part of the tilt-up panels, creating a continuous thermal envelope from the footings, up the walls, over the roof and down the walls to the other footings.

The facility would be home to a community, so an inviting architectural concept was necessary, but designers still worked with a strict budget. SAA also wanted an exterior compatible with the traditional architecture of the surrounding neighborhood and the existing buildings on campus. They accomplished the architectural objectives with unique stone patterns in the rustication, using small strips and adhesive products.

Stephens cites the durability, flexibility and long life-cycle costs of insulated tilt-up wall panels as the tools that enabled the firm to meet the scheduling, budget, durability, flexibility and security desired for SouthLake.

Development Fund Makes $30 Million in Loans Available

By Lesley Crosson

NEW YORK (UMNS) -- The United Methodist Development Fund (UMDF) is making $30 million available for loans to United Methodist churches and church-related institutions seeking financing to construct new buildings or improve existing ones.

The 40-year-old fund is a ministry of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

During the past six months, UMDF has received large infusions of money for investments from individuals and church agencies, including the General Council on Finance and Administration, according to Fund President Bishop Jonathan Keaton. This enabled the fund's board of directors to end a six-month moratorium on loans.

"We have a reservoir of United Methodists who continue to be concerned about church growth--not just in their own neighborhoods but throughout the denomination," Keaton says. "These same people are also attracted to the fund by the great interest rates."

The investments, which pay interest every six months, form the pool of money used to finance loans for renovation, construction and property purchase. The interest rate for new loans is 8.5% for a 15-year term.

For loan information or applications, contact the Board of Global Ministries' Office of Loan Administration at (212) 870-3865.

Government Commission Halts Church Parking Expansion Plan

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (EP) -- The California Coastal Commission is delaying a Santa Cruz church's request to expand its parking lot.

The commission says the expansion of the Shrine of St. Joseph would endanger wintering areas for the monarch butterfly. Monks who run the church say the real problem is the nearby community's "anti-religious sentiments."

The church's location was fairly isolated when it was founded in 1931, but residential neighborhoods have since grown up nearby. A vocal group of residents convinced the city council to establish "no parking" zones near the church, making access more difficult. The city also prohibits parents from dropping children off at a main entrance to the nearby parochial school, although that entrance had been in continuous use since 1961.

The planned parking lot expansion was proposed in 1998, but opponents have raised repeated objections. An initial complaint that the expansion would disrupt red-tailed hawks proved baseless. A complaint that peregrine falcons would be disturbed was also dismissed due to a complete lack of falcons. The city council also overruled the butterfly complaint, but agreed to limit the expansion to provide only 17 additional spaces.

The Sierra Club then appealed to the Coastal Commission, a quasi-judicial body whose constitutional status has been questioned by a California superior court. Though the commission was advised that it lacked authority in the matter, it ordered a new study of the plan's impact on butterfly habitat anyway. (Two earlier studies found that there was no impact--a conclusion supported by the commission's own biologist.)

The new study has no deadline for completion. The Rev. Philip Massetti has grown weary of the delays. "The environmental concerns raised by our opponents are unfounded, as the scientists--who have studied their claims--have repeatedly reaffirmed," Massetti told WorldNet Daily. "I believe that the anti-religious sentiments and biases of a small but very vocal group of local activists is driving this entire process."

The church is contemplating a lawsuit alleging that their constitutional right to free exercise of religion is being infringed. The monks may also sue under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which requires cities to demonstrate a compelling state interest for any substantial burden they place upon any church's use of its property.

"I believe this case is about religious freedom and the ability of our congregation to use our Shrine property for religious purposes," Massetti added.

Keller's First United Methodist Thrives Despite Many Moves

By Veronica Alaniz

DALLAS, Texas -- Harold Jarvis, 81, remembers learning as a young boy the duties of church usher from his father, a charter member of Keller's first and oldest United Methodist congregation.

When First United Methodist Church of Keller outgrew its tiny white wooden building and built a larger brick structure in 1973, he was there to serve as usher during the first service in the new facility.

Twenty years later when that growth led them to leave their original site in Old Town and build yet another new sanctuary, Mr. Jarvis was there again to serve as inaugural usher.

Now as the nearly 600-member congregation prepares to celebrate its 105th anniversary and the completion of its fourth house of worship, Jarvis will again participate in a key event in the church's history.

"It's really going to be something," he says of the upcoming milestone, which will take place during the Christmas Eve service. "Not many can say they were there to experience firsthand the church's growth."

The church's history dates back to 1897, when area worshippers of different denominations joined together to build the Union Church. In 1913, the C.T. Whitley family donated land on Pecan Street for a Methodist church. By the mid-1980s, the congregation faced moving further north to find enough land on which to continue their church ministry.

"Some were sad about the move, but it was necessary," says 50-year member Jim Gean, who donated land for the church's new location on Johnson Road. "If we'd stayed, it would have dwindled away. It's the young ones now who keep it alive."

The first structure to be built on the new land was the Spiritual Life Center, a multipurpose building that serves as preschool during the week and a sanctuary on Sundays.

"It's not real conducive for worship, but we built it knowing that," explains the Rev. Gary Lindley, who took over leadership in 1997.

Last year, construction began on a $3 million facility that will accommodate 700. A second construction phase will include a youth facility.

Reprinted with permission of The Dallas Morning News

A Brooklyn Hospital Provides Refuge, Comfort for Cancer Patients

By Kelli M. Donley

BROOKLYN, New York -- The Lutheran Medical Center, near Sunset Park in Brooklyn, now features a new option for patients--another hospital within the same building.

Calvary Hospital has expanded its care and created a new 25-bed center for patients acutely ill with cancer within the pre-existing Lutheran hospital.

Calvary Hospital officials, who currently run a 200-bed medical center in the Bronx, have branched out with a new idea about integrative healthcare administration. They took a 14,000-square foot section of the currently operating Lutheran Medical Center and renovated the space during a 14-month construction phase.

The result is a center that provides comprehensive care for gravely ill cancer patients in a serene and spiritual environment.

Hospital president and CEO Frank Calamari says the new center is unique for several reasons.

"It's an in-patient hospital within a hospital, and this model doesn't exist in New York State. And secondly, we deliver acute palliative care...in a service area that's very needy," Calamari says. "We're in the borough of Brooklyn, which is huge. Almost three million people live there."

Most of the center's 25 rooms are private. The facility also features an atrium, a terrace and worship areas for each major religion. Both Calvary hospitals are non-profit and operated under the auspices of the Catholic diocese. Calamari says this fact also makes their relationship with the Lutheran center special.

"The pastoral program is integral to the care of these patients and their families," he explains. "The spiritual aspects of their care and the process they're going through have to be linked through the spiritual elements. We have multi-religious faculty and a pastoral care department that can handle not only Roman Catholics, but patients from every major religion."

The center, which opened Oct.18 and already has a list of patients waiting to be admitted, cost an estimated $5 million to build. More than $3 million has been raised to date through fundraising.

Calamari adds that while the hospital-within- a-hospital setting isn't the norm, he is confident it will be successful.

"I wouldn't call it an experiment. I am sure that it is going to work and we are probably going to open a second or third within the next couple of years," he says. "We may go to Jersey or to the Long Island area."

For more information about the Calvary Hospital system, log onto www.calvaryhospital.org.