Being in the church sound and acoustics business for over 33 years, you get around enough to see firsthand if the church community is growing or shrinking. After all, when all of your income comes from providing a service exclusive to the church community, you would want to know if your services will become obsolete or not.
The question stands, is the church community growing or shrinking? The short answer is – – – – the church community is growing and church attendance is growing. Churches for the last 100 years have been growing on average about 10 to 14% every year. That is the good news. Unfortunately, that 10% growth annually is not the same as 10% of the population.
It seems that sometime around the mid 1970s the population started to grow in North America (and the rest of the world for that matter,) at a fast rate than what the church was growing. In order for the church to grow at the same rate as the rest of the world, the church would have had to grow up to 25% annually. So while the number of Christians in relationship to the total population is declining, the church continues to keep growing.
What also makes it harder to keep track of church growth is the number of breakaway churches that leave the umbrella of the denominations where church growth is not often recorded to any national data base. In my work, I get to see both denominational churches and independent churches. At the end of the day, it seems that there isn’t much differences between them.
Many people who were part of denominational churches often leave to get away from the institutional, the bureaucracy, the rules, the regulations and static growth burdened by years of complacency. The problems I am hearing from people who have been going to these larger “growing independent churches” is that after a while, they complain about the same institutional, bureaucracy, rules, regulations and push for more growth burdened by years of complacency. The difference is that they are inside the same bureaucracy that they left years ago and often don’t realize that they are now the cause of why people are leaving the independent churches are starting unsupported breakaway churches. Who is keeping track of those numbers?
Then there are the non-registered home churches that are out there. There are thousands of them that average about 12 people each. Who knows how many of these groups are there but, at the end of the day, overall statistics pegs church growth at 10 to 14%. That is good news. Will the “church” ever be more that 10% of the population again? Most likely not.
Acoustics decides the Aesthetics of a church. If the acoustics are bad, the aesthetics looks one way. When the acoustics are good, the aesthetics looks another way. Did you know that the average person without training can virtually tell what the aesthetics looks like in a church by how it sounds? Did you also know that churches with good acoustics when first built often have better aesthetics that lasts the lifetime of the worship space?
Do you have an echo problem? We have a fix for that!
Do you have a reverberation problem? We have a fix for that too!
Are you struggling with your sound system? We have a fix for that as well!
Having problems with your rectangle shaped church? We have a solution for that!
Having problems with you round church? We have a fix for that!
Having problems with you octagon church? We know how to fix those too!
Having problems with your fan-shaped, oval-shaped or square church? We have custom solutions just for you!
Are you not happy with your commercial warehouse, storefront or converted mall space church? We know how to fix that!
Have you already fixed your acoustics 9 times before and your still not happy?
We can fix any church that is absent of any acoustical planning and treatment.
We can also diagnose and fix any church that has the wrong acoustical treatment to get it back on track.
We have never been to a church that we couldn’t fix but we have had churches that were not ready to make the needed changes to get what they desperately wanted. Oh, did you know that acoustics has always been the deciding factor in the aesthetics in a house of worship whether the acoustics are good or bad. God taught us that beginning with Solomon’s Temple. (1 kings 6:29 (NIV)On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. (Please read my article about Solomon’s Temple https://www.jdbsound.com/art/art570.html))
Churches are not temples but they are dedicated as worship centers and houses of learning. For worship and learning, you need tools. One of those tools is acoustics. You need a system of managing the air between the teacher and listener for the best worship and learning experience. While a sound system is also a tool it cannot manage the air. It relies on acoustics for it to work. The better the acoustics, the more effective a sound system is. Without the right acoustics, what are you really hearing or understanding?
It has been brought to my attention by a number of church members about who gets to decide the final aesthetics of worship space interiors. Church members of some newly built churches which are less than one year old were pointing out to me that in the end, we acoustical designers get to ultimately decide the final aesthetics of a church – not the architect, no matter how much effort an Architect puts into the aesthetics of a worship space. If this sounds familiar then check out my post in 2012 where I made a similar post. This discussion comes up often.
It seems that when acoustics are included in the design stage of a worship space, the Architect has the last say on the rooms aesthetics – assuming the acoustical plans are not compromised later on. When acoustics are left out of the design phase of planning a new church, it is people like me that get the final say in the room aesthetics. Whether it is while the building is being built or anytime later – even 200 years later, it is people such as myself that often make the final aesthetic changes that will last the life time of a church building.
The good news is, is that when we are included in the design phase of a new church, often our acoustical designs blend into the architecture and it is often not seen or at least not seen as an acoustical add-on. In fact, often our acoustical designs come off as the Architects design of the worship space and at times to the untrained person it looks like we had done nothing. Where friction often comes up, is when after the design of the church has been completed and the church board has given the green light, that is when someone raises the issue of acoustics. Often there are major acoustical issues as what is taught in Architectural schools is about concert hall acoustics, school auditorium acoustics and lecture room acoustics.
Church acoustics is totally different and I don’t know of any place were “church acoustics” is taught. This is often why bringing someone like me after a finished design is presented to a church where butting heads starts. When there are glaring mistakes being made and we point them out, it often means major design changes which often cost money to change at this phase. Once past the design phase, churches are rarely ready to pay for design changes that often means delaying the project which increases costs higher. As a result acoustics is usually left until the church is finished. But wait! A church is not finished until the acoustics are done.
As stated before, it is people like me who get to decide the aesthetics of a church when acoustical design is left out. This goes for new churches, storefront churches, churches moving into commercial buildings or are using commercial building designs and churches doing renovations. If you are an architect, include us at the beginning of the design process and the aesthetics will be all about you. Leave us out of the design process and no matter how beautiful a space you thought you designed, it will be people like me who get to decide it’s final finish and sometimes, what we do is not very flattering but when it sounds great, the less than pleasing acoustical treatment starts to look good.
Joseph De Buglio
PS: Don’t call us if you want someone to just rubber stamp your worship space designs.
These are the most popular comment congregational members say after the first worship service with their new acoustics. “Love the way the new sound system works. I can hear everything now!” or “Did we get a new sound system? I actually understood the music and the ministers message.” or “What did they do to the sound system? The people are singing, the music sounds great and I can remember what the minister preached about. Guess I’m going to have to come more often.”
The influence of the sound system in churches is so powerful that even when you do fix the room, people often judge the room by the sound system’s performance rather than how the room sings or how the room projects people’s voice or how the sound is getting off the stage rather than overloading the stage. Acoustical changes is way more powerful than what any change a sound system can do but when a sound system falls short, it must be the technology and somewhere someone has a gadget to fix that if you can afford it. Did you know that most acoustical fixes cost less than the speaker system most churches own?
Just another article on the ever increasing sound levels in church. Is it good or bad for the church community? When a congregation can singing at 105dB, are they damaging their hearing even though they are singing acapella? Click here and find out!
Here is a You Tube Video by Acoustic Geometry that explain another aspect of our system of sound management in churches. John Calder is very good at explaining things in front of a camera. Sure, what he explains is about studio and home theatre but the same benefits apply to churches in a big way. Acoustic Geometry has no association to JdB Sound Acoustics. Joseph De Buglio
Is your sound system making the right impression? Are the acoustics of your church allowing your sound system to make that great first, second and third impression at your church?
Once again the subject of getting more performance out of the next sound system upgrade keeps coming up. When a church is constantly seeking to get more performance out of a sound system at every upgrade and not be enjoying the best sound possible then it’s time to fix the room instead of putting it off and investing into more equipment. This is the message your sound system is broadcasting. Are you listening or are you waiting for the next technology breakthrough for that sliver of improvement?
Welcome to the world of Church Acoustics 