Fixing a roof is never easy. When your roof is more than 10,000 feet and part of a historic landmark, repairing it is an even bigger challenge.

So discovered construction and design experts in charge of the 30-month, $35 million project to restore the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Minn., who kicked off the effort last spring.

The massive copper roof at the cathedral--the fourth largest in the nation--is the same one that originally topped it 85 years ago. This explains (at least in part) why the St. Paul church community decided to rally together and create the "Remember, Restore, Rejoice" campaign. And rally they must because in addition to raising the money to fix the roof, the group plans plans to fund the cleaning of the entire stone exterior--more than 167,000 square feet--and repair much other damage throughout the building. To do it, they've employed notably high-tech measures in their otherwise old-world project. The group's website, www.cathedralsp.org, features not only a Web-cam but an ongoing streamed video documentary. This way, the audience is not limited to just church members, or even to the community of St. Paul as a whole. This group wants the whole country's attention. After all, the cathedral dates back to the city's earliest days, is on the National Register of Historic Buildings, and attracts 200,000 visitors each year.

Meanwhile, smaller churches like St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Phoenix are conducting similar campaigns. Members of this church circa-1955 church are spending big bucks to maintain and expand what they already have. At a price of nearly $2 million, the St. Bernadette project includes interior remodeling, construction of a new entryway and restrooms, and design and dedication of a new shrine, all of which will add a combined 14,700 square feet of new space.

"Considering the state of the original structure, we're extremely pleased with the results," says Brian Cassidy, president of CCBG Architects and project architect. "One of our greatest challenges on the project was providing members of the parish with a feeling of permanence. "

Herein lies what many architectural experts say motivates some church clients to renovate their old facilities--or in some cases, built brand-new ones that just look old.

"The intent is to incorporate the feeling and features of the traditional church into a modern, technologically-capable building," explains Ethan Anthony, president of HDB/Cram and Ferguson, a Boston-based architectural firm currently heading up several neo-gothic new build projects. One of Anthony's most recent endeavors is the new facility for Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas. Its design is based on the Gothic churches in the Norfolk area of England, where the sister parish of the church, Great St. Peter's, is located. The new parish will stay true to neo-Gothic form in all its details, including exterior walls and interior floors of Texas Limestone, a slate roof with copper accents, windows with cast stone frames and leaded glass, and stained oak paneling with rough plaster walls.

HDB also began work on two other neo-gothic construction projects last year: the Canterbury School in Greensboro, N.C., and the Cloister addition to All Saint's Church in Peterborough, N.H. According to Anthony, both projects required much custom designing--doors and windows especially--since catalogs generally don't supply large enough elements. At All Saint's, the search for appropriate granite, one that would blend seamlessly with the existing structure's stone, took more than a year.

So, what possesses some church leaders to forego the efficient, moneysaving technologies modern design and construction offer? According to Anthony, it's because faith and spirit still has its place. Trained in rationalist and scientific design, modern architects are taught to "look on faith with suspicion," he says. This approach becomes useless, however, when dealing with clients like his. "They want glass and shadows and color and all those things that make them pray. If everything is revealed and there's no ambiguity, their imagination has nowhere to go."

There are more than 450,000 houses of worship in the United States, a number that continues to grow almost as rapidly as the square footage of the buildings. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau recorded $7.96 billion spent on religious construction projects, up $500 million from 1999.

The rash of new and renovated structures has been fueled by changes in both religious and architectural practices. For architects and designers involved in church building, the task is to harmonize the changing face of American religion, the functional requirements of the church, and the enduring need for holy space in which to worship.

Successful designs of religious structures reflect the contemporary religious atmosphere. With more than 200 million active members in 1500+ religious organizations in America today, the country is growing increasingly pluralistic. However, nearly 165 million of these churchgoers belong to Christian organizations. As new interdenominational Christian movements rapidly grow and historical denominations confront changes in tradition, the construction and restoration of Christian churches has framed the critical issues facing architects and designers.

Catholics and Protestants in the 1960's engaged in a process of reevaluating traditional church practices and designs in light of the needs of a modern congregation. The revisions centered upon a new understanding of worship as an action of the community, not a private exercise, and extending an inclusive attitude to a culturally diverse population.

"The church needed to reconsider itself and reinterpret its tradition with respect to the cross-cultural population of the United States," says church historian J. Gordon Melton. People became more actively involved in services, congregations were drawn closer to a now centrally located altar table, and the longstanding rectangular form of the church gave way to more sightline-friendly fan and circular footprints.

Historically, church design was open to a limited scope of architects, namely believers in the faith for which they designed. However, reconsideration of church practices undertaken by the World Council of Churches and the Catholic summit at Vatican II shattered church building's core principles and traditional conceptions of the church architect. As Michigan architect Jack Brown notes, "the changes emerging out of Vatican II meant we all started out on an even playing field." Liturgical reforms opened the door for innovative and progressive approaches to church architecture by a wider pool of architects. The particular religious affiliation of the architect mattered less than the architect's ability to design functional structures that allowed room for congregations and church leaders to instill sanctity in the space themselves.

Welcoming atmospheres and broad-based proselytization had tangible effects on congregation sizes and church forms. A new ecumenical Christian spirit spurned the dramatic rise of large, interdenominational Christian organizations. Premised on core statements of faith that still leave wide berth for individual interpretations of doctrine, many of these new churches experienced rapid membership growth to almost inconceivable sizes, forcing church leaders to multiply services and seek new spaces that better accommodate their worship and ministerial needs.

"We used to meet in a gymnasium, but we ended up with three services every Sunday," says Pastor Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church in Columbus, Ohio. "We knew we needed to build a structure that could hold all of us at once." Fairfield Christian's new facility is 140,000 square feet and stays open 18 hours a day to serve its 3,000 members.

As evident at Fairfield Christian, design and use exemplify the new conception of the church as more than just a place for worship. "The church now plays a vital role in ministering to the spiritual, physical and social needs of their members as well as the community at large," explains lead architect Ray Robinson of American Church Builders. Following typically American trends of one-stop shopping centers, the contemporary church often incorporates cafes, gymnasiums, computer centers and even rock-climbing walls and bowling alleys. These facilities are designed to increase religion's prominence in the activities of everyday life and develop a sense of community among congregations that can number well over 20,000.

As Pastor Art Hunt of Lighthouse Christian Center in Puyallup, WA affirms, "The place where God is certainly is sacred, but we see the building as a tool to accomplish our mission."

The focus on functionality illustrated by nondenominational mega-churches reflects economic concerns as much as an absence of traditional iconography and church design precedents. While not constrained by a denominational ideology, these largely independent churches also do not receive financial support from sources outside their own congregation. Their design interests prominently lie in the practical considerations of space, as opposed to cultivating a historical religious atmosphere.

According to Robinson acknowledges, the most common design form seems to be the adaptation of blending function over form in direct proportion to a church's budget. The economic advantages of Modernist architectural design and advanced building materials are understandably appealing.

Many architects and design consultants are cautious about this declaration of 'church as tool.' Their trepidation is based on a desire to not lose sight of the principal function of churches as a holy and sacred spaces in which to worship God.

"The most important part of a church complex is the sanctuary, the House of God," says Duncan Stroik, practicing architect and associate professor at the Notre Dame School of Architecture. Professor Stroik says he believes the Modernist approach to church architecture has sacrificed the sacred elements of traditional forms. He advocates a return to the richly ornamented pre-Modernist architecture to connect the congregation with the origins of their worship. If the focus of the church's design centers on the social and recreational aspects of a community at the expense of the religious, it risks becoming "just a country club," he says.

As such, the most effective church designs integrate a sense of the sacred and holy with highly practical design. Richard Vosko, a Catholic Priest and liturgical design consultant, sees the changes in religious practice enhanced by progressive architectural styles. "Innovative professionals have taken up the challenge and have moved into the cutting edge of religious architecture by respecting time-honored examples of worship spaces but rendering new ones in a more courageous fashion," maintains Vosko. Modernism and the reactions to Modernism have given rise to a variegated vocabulary of designs more appropriate to the needs of contemporary worship.

The designer of a successful church has an interdisciplinary perspective, understanding the faith traditions and history of the congregation, the universal elements of spiritual designs, and the developments in contemporary architectural styles. Father Vosko asserts that "the process of design is what marries liturgy and architecture, and the inevitable changes that occur in both." With this broad perspective, the designer serves as a creative and knowledgeable resource assisting a congregation to determine how a church design addresses both their practical needs and becomes a resonator of their personality. Vosko adds, "The church is a metaphor for the stories of the congregation, it is not just a container for people or religious artifacts."

The involvement of the congregation and the religious leaders is critical to the process of church design. Joe Miller, founder of the website Church Construction Connection, observes that "this kinship brings a better result; the church is more attuned with what the church needs." As more and more religious organizations address the spiritual, emotional and social needs of their congregations, the church has become a seven-day-a-week facility. Congregants develop an intimate relationship with the structure, using its range of services and ultimately imbuing the sacred and religious spirit into its spaces.

Full-service architectural processes, such as design/build firms and liturgical design consultants, are appealing to congregations. The consistency of attention and opportunity for their voices to be heard at various stages of the process by the same person or firm helps create more personalized design solutions.

The design of the American church is a statement of contemporary religious and practical life. Churches reflect the interests and personalities of the people who design them, the liturgical concerns of the church leaders, the practical and spiritual concerns of the congregation, and the stylistic concerns of the designer.

Any architect can throw up a box for meetings, but as Pastor Johnson says, "building to code is not necessarily building to ministry." The art of church design invites creativity and understanding to help people develop a space that serves their communities and acknowledges it as an act of God.