The Bible has a lot to say about how a modern church should be designed. Solomon’s Temple was not just a house for God to dwell in, it was also meant to be a tool to help preach and spread the Gospel in the present.
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This article is the most comprehensive study of King Solomon’s Temple I have ever written. If you believe John 1:3, then you know who really designed Solomon’s Temple. King David only penned the details of the new temple. King David told his son Solomon that it was the hand of God that guided his hand. What was so important for God to design the temple rather than letting a man design in with whatever came into his thought?
This article gives a stronger case for what the “Inspired Word of God” means.
Winning people to Christ is not a game or something given to chance. We need all the tools possible to have an impact on this world. Jesus is Lord, and if your church is dedicated to God, Jesus is Lord over your church building too.
Is the performance of your worship space a priority? Is the message always crystal clear in every seating position, and over 60% of the congregation is singing all the time? If you say no to either or both questions, and you want your church to sound right for speech and music, the biggest obstacle is often the acoustics. The second is money. The third is aesthetics.
Fix the room! How? Follow what the Bible says, and you will not be disappointed. After all, it is God’s plan, not man’s idea. Do you think that the results will be less than perfect if you follow His plan completely? Isn’t the Bible the Living Bible? Since when did the Bible stop teaching us new things about science? Check out Solomon’s Temple, and the answers are there. They always have been. It’s just taken a while to join the dots.
But it costs too much! Oh, you mean the cost of a few floor monitors or a couple of wireless microphones considered too much? That is often the cost of the Bible’s way of fixing the acoustics or about $3.50USD per seat for a 300 seat church. (Not including the price for the knowledge of knowing what to do.) Replacing a mixer costs about $15.00-21.00 per seat. Replacing pews for chairs cost about $75.00 per seat. Buying 10 Shure SM58 mics with cables and mic stands – costs about $1,500.00. Fixing the acoustics of a church is cheaper than you think.
If the look of any acoustical treatment is a concern, ask yourself this. Are you there to worship God or the building? Fixing the acoustics is like saying you are more interested in hearing what God has to say through your minister. Putting up with acoustical problems, poor quality congregational singing, and accepting a sound system with limited performance is like saying the building is more important than the message and having fellowship with other believers.
It all comes down to priorities. The primary purpose of any building that is a dedicated House of God is the preaching of the Gospel. A place where the Gospel message can be spoken without distortion or interface. That includes making the room behave as God would want us to have it. The second priority is the breaking of bread and drinking of wine in remembrance of what Jesus did for all of us. The worship space has to support this event as often as each church chooses to remember. The next priority is congregational singing. There isn’t any other experience that can replace the joy and excitement of a room where more than 75% of the audience is singing. Songs that tell stories of Jesus, his atonement of our sins, and of people who follow Jesus are powerful in bringing people together. It takes the same quality of acoustics to hear clear speech as well as great congregational singing. These are the things that matter when you are a part of the Kingdom of God.
While I do have a business about church acoustics and sound, there is no possible way for one person or one company to fix all of the churches out there that need help. By making this public, it means that no one can patent it and force churches to pay a license fee. It means that no one can control it and inflate the cost of fixing existing and new churches. Churches should use the Bible’s methods with confidence, to apply in faith what God teaches, even without expert help. When churches take such a leap of faith, in most cases, the results are outstanding.
This information is being shared because I care more about winning people for Christ through better sound than creating a business empire. By revealing what the Bible teaches, by showing that science backs it up, that it is affordable for every church to have excellent acoustics, this is all part of the Great Commission. If more people with a passion and skills like mine, were to apply what the Bible teaches about sound, we could make a difference. Mat-7:15. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. (KJV) If you have the chance, read the rest of what Jesus said in Mathews 7:15-20. Don’t trust me. Trust the Bible.
A myth can’t fix a church. The Word of God Can! Both Physically – including the acoustics of a church, and Spiritually. Share this if you believe that it is true.
Here is a collection of 445 photos of 46 churches that completed most or all of their sound system and acoustical plan. My job is to design a solution that will solve all or almost all sound problems in one step. For most churches, this means getting the most accomplished in one step as most churches can’t afford to keep chasing sound problems without truthful help. The road back to great sound in the church is in the Bible, and that is what these churches did.
All of the installations of the acoustical systems and the sound systems were completed by church members or local contractors when those churches were able to afford professional installers. The final appearances are what those churches selected. I work closely with all churches for alternative aesthetics regardless of any budget limitations. When a church has to choose between aesthetics vs. performance of the 400 plus churches that have just simple painted cardboard tubes on the walls, those churches spoke with what they installed.
These churches demonstrated that they care more about hearing the Gospel than having a sanctuary that looks good. There is a high spiritual cost for poor acoustics and sound system designs. Poor sound does get in the way of people hearing the Word, and for some, it can deny people from understanding the Gospel message of salvation, and that is a cost no church can afford.
For professional, no compromise help, we can provide the highest level of expert assistance that will fulfill the Great Commission as Jesus taught. Having the skills of the world helps but God’s plan for churches demands His way of doing Church Sound. Without that knowledge, the worlds way of doing church sound always comes up short in meeting the standard that God demands of us.
Click the photo above or the link below to see what other churches have done to have great sound for speech, congregational singing and total worship in general.
What would you prefer? A church were you can have the best worship experience or a church that looks amazing?
The organist of this church pulled every stop, pushed the peddles all the way down and the he had trouble hearing the organ just 20 feet away. At the back of the church at the sound booth, the organ was barely audible. I used a SPL meter, put it about 3 feet over my head at the back of the church and the congregational singing peaked at 105dB several time during a familiar hymn. There was no one behind us. There have been other times at other church where I designed or upgraded their acoustics were the congregation is singing acapella and they were peaking at 106dB. The good news is, singing like that doesn’t hurt your hearing.
The goal of any worship space and the church sound system is not about loudness, gain before feedback, intelligibility, special sound effects for the organ or choir, having the most talented performers in the worship team, how many wireless mics, number of channels the mixer has or the name brand of equipment you have. The goal of a church worship space and the sound system is to be a safe place where the Gospel can be presented clearly and with little to no blemishes. Where every person within the worship space can hear and understand the Gospel as clearly as when having a conversation with someone only 4 feet away and sharing the Gospel. Anything less than that goal means that the spoken word can be corrupted in the journey between the minister’s mouth and ears of all those who are listening. The Gospel needs to be broadcasted and understood as clearly as reading God’s written words.
If your church has hot spots, dead spots, good sound in these seats and poor sound in those seats, then the Gospel is not being presented equally to everyone. If your sound system has technical problems during worship often, then it is a distraction, and it can make the difference of understanding something important.
The chart below shows tangible results when your worship and sound system are tested. There should be three tests.
The first is with a test speaker. It is a point source speaker that is small enough to mimic a person’s voice.
The next test is feeding a signal directly into the sound system and test those results. This test is just about the playback quality of your sound system.
The third test is to use the test speaker 30 inches from an open microphone such as a pulpit or any microphone on a stand and test the combined results of the worship space’s acoustics direct interaction of the sound system and open mics. You can also do a second version of this test and place the test speaker 4 inches from a microphone where the microphone is 45 degrees off axis.
If all three tests are not in the Yellow section, the results will let you know if it is your sound system, the acoustics or all of the above. This is also a better indication predicting if upgrading your sound system will improve the results you are looking for. This is also a strong indicator that your worship space needs some kind of an acoustical management system
You can get your church tested. It doesn’t cost much, and the results can save a life or many lives, depending on your point of view. As an independent consulting company, we offer church testing and results with no obligation to use our services in the future.
There are three key parts to what happens in church worship. There is the spoken word, there is collaborative/congregational singing, and there is performance singing. For a worship space to support these three events where speech is first, then congregational singing and performance singing, you need a specific design and dimensions to support these functions well. High-quality speech should not come at the expense of the music. Music should not come at the cost of speech. There is a balance, and part of that balance is to have enough ceiling height to support both speech and music in a contained space.
Unfortunately, churches these days are building lower and lower ceilings in their worship spaces. A person can assume that when so many churches have experienced only poor quality acoustics, many wonder what is the point of building a taller worship space.
When a church builds a low ceiling, it limits congregational singing and it makes you more dependent on technology, but guess what! The same things that limit congregational singing are what also limits the performance of the technology we affectionately call the sound systems. So, instead of getting 100% out of your high-quality, expensive sound system, you’re getting only 40 to 60% of the sound systems’ true performance abilities. It is actually cheaper to build higher than the added cost of un-needed audio technology to make up the difference. The chart below should clear the air as to the minimum height your next church should be. If you can afford to build higher, do it. Also, a taller worship space does not mean being stuck with longer reverb times. A higher ceiling means natural room reverberation can be adjustable and is tune-able. With a taller ceiling, you can change the frequency response of the whole room without needing a sound system or equalizer.
Church height is important for a worship space. One of the biggest parts of worship is singing. Congregational singing to be specific. When singing as a group, several elements are required for a good and healthy worship experience. There is chorusing, harmony, sound volume, or loudness of the singing and being able to hear yourself as well as the people around you. When all of these elements are in balance, the worship experience is like no other. The majority of people get a lot of satisfaction from the singing experience during worshiping in rooms that have ceiling heights that match the size of the seating capacity of the worship space. The above chart is the minimum of interior ceiling heights. If you want to build higher, you can as the singing experience gets even better.
High ceilings allow for better sound system performance with less expensive sound equipment. (A lot of pro audio contractors, installers, and equipment manufacturers don’t like hearing this.) Higher ceiling permits better gain before feedback and it becomes easier to isolate drums and floor monitors. The performance of the sound system is much better too when that is coupled with a good quality acoustical management system.
There are economic advantages too. The higher the ceiling, the cheaper it is to heat and cool when using a vertical displacement HVAC type system which is specifically designed for large gathering spaces for people. Such systems cost less to install, they use smaller HVAC components and cost about 30 to 40% less to operate annually. In addition, the cooling systems last 2 to 3 times longer before needing to be replaced. In a way, building higher cost less both in cost and in operation over time.
Another thing to consider. If building new, don’t build a flat ceiling that is parallel to the floor. (and it doesn’t count if you put in a sloping floor.) Many churches that are moving into commercial buildings are learning the hard way that flat ceilings limit the quality of live musical performances and congregational singing. Sure, there are acoustical panels that can slightly improve the room for amplified sound, but the cost doesn’t justify the returns. There is little that can help congregational singing even if you have the height. Vertical standing waves are harder to manage than horizontal standing waves. If you know what you are doing, horizontal standing waves can be controlled to create an outstanding room. It is part of the formula for that perfect worship space. Funny though, most concert musicians that perform in a church that I have fixed, they often make comments like, “I wish our concert hall sounded and performed as well.” That is almost like saying, “concert halls make for lousy worship space but worship spaces can perform better than a concert hall.”
Finally, there is the Biblical standard for church sound. For a 160 seat church as detailed in the Bible, the Biblical standard is the width of the room is to be 50% of the length and the height of the room should be 75% of the length. However, we now know that for anything over 45 feet high and less than 2000 seating, the extra height is not needed. It is the length to width ratio of 2:1 is key and a constant height of 45 feet or 13.7 meters. For those who don’t want long rooms, because of sound systems, we can use a length of width ratio of 2:1.7 or a room that is 100 x 70, and you must always use the room lengthways or you destroy congregational singing and speech.
God gave us the laws of physics for a reason. When we obey God, we reap the benefits. When we ignore God’s teaching, we will have our reward here on earth. The sanctuary of a church is a battlefield where the hearts, minds, and souls of people can be added or subtracted people from the Kingdom of God. The acoustics of a church plays an important part in either adding or subtracting people. The change is slow and often not noticed, but when you visit hundreds of churches that have their worship spaces upgraded to the standards of the Bible as best as possible, there has always been an increase years later, ( unless there have been leadership or church split issues.)
*Note* In most countries that have freedom of religion laws, the worship space portion of a church building has no roof heights limits regardless of local city building height restrictions.
**Note** The data is based on 1200 churches from around the world.
I know I’ve had my head buried in the sand successfully getting people to come to church on Sundays. Better acoustics and better sound does indeed equal more people coming to Sunday worship but what ever happened to the mid-week meetings where people can study the bible and have open discussions? Where do people go if they want something more than just Spiritual Milk and Pablum as what is mostly taught on Sunday mornings? What do you do if you want to add some spiritual meat into your diet?
In recent years I have started looking at church bulletins, their web sites and have spoken to many church pastors. Since I travel so much, it has been hard for me to get out to my own church but I do get to speak to other fellow Christians all the time. Couldn’t help noticing that the most common thing missing from many churches is the mid-week meetings for adults. Cell groups were popular for a while but they seem to be disappearing as well.
When the question about mid-week meeting was put to some pastors they gave some of the strangest answers ever. In their replies they say things like, “You’re supposed to feed yourself” or “you can’t control those in the midweek meetings as it seems they all have secret agenda’s.” or “I don’t have time to lead it.” or “people are too burned out for mid-week meeting with all of their other non-church activities” and so on.
Then I started asking ordinary church members if they would go to a mid-week bible study. Most said yes and some liked the idea of a later evening study time between 8pm and 10pm rather than programs starting at 6:30 or 7pm. Late enough for one of the parents to slip out after putting the kids to sleep and not so late to get up early the next morning. Where it would be a social time as well as a study time, where a light snack and something to drink would be included. Where it could be in a person’s home or in a room other than the worship space unless the worship space is the only room large enough to gather in.
Has social media, which I don’t use much, replace the need for human interaction? Am I being old fashioned about how churches were growing 30, 40 years ago? Is it just me or has the church given up on the basics in how to draw people back to church? Do you quit bible studies just because only one or two people show up? Are we so caught up with technology that if we don’t get rewards every 8 seconds, it’s not worth doing? Has our attention span as Christians been reduce to something less than the attention space of a Gold Fish?
A while ago, there was a weekly bible study started by a minister’s Son. It was for both men and women and it was not initially organized by the church. The well planned and prepared bible studies were very successful. The church then sanctioned the study and it went on for years. Suddenly it was cancelled. The reason wasn’t really clear but there were suggestions like, half the people were from other churches, they were growing inwards and not outwards. A few people said that the program was self-sustaining but it was not generating any income for the operations of the church. Seriously! The church was more concerned about profit!
After the first few years the bible study grew to a few hundred people. Then the bible study stopped growing but it stayed strong for a number of years. No one was certain if the growth peaked because the room they were meeting in was not large enough for more people, or because there wasn’t any more room for parking or because no one was sharing what they learned. There was about a 15 to 25% annual turnover of people. That makes for a very successful program considering some churches have an annual turnover of 50 to 60% for Sunday morning services which suggests there is a lot of spiritual milk being served and little to no spiritual meat being offered any other time through the week to keep people there. This bible study had both milk and meat delivered in the right order as described in the bible.
As it so often happens, this very successful program gets cancelled and another program with good intentions tries to replace it. The new program fails and now, three years later the church is desperately trying to reboot the Bible study because since it was stopped, overall church attendance and tithing during the Sunday worship services dropped 50%. Who knew that a bible study program not supported by the church was in fact helping the church indirectly in a huge way. This church seats over 1000 people. Just because you can’t see or understand how a successful mid-week bible program works or a weak midweek bible program works, doesn’t mean it won’t have an impact on Sunday worship or church growth.
There has been other events that suggests a strong desire of people interaction. Should a Monthly men’s prayer breakfast replace weekly bible studies? What happens to people after getting through an Alpha Meeting program? Some churches are good at promoting 12 step programs but what is the follow-up to that? Where do Christians go if they want something more than just milk? Seriously! Feed Yourself! Nowhere does it say that in the Bible but there are many times where God says he will send a shepherd to feed his flock. Where are the teachers to guide us through the milk to meat or even strong meat?
So if the church is not providing places for people to get something more than just milk, where do people go to seek spiritual meat? Promise Keepers, Full Gospel Businessmen’s association, Women’s Coffee Break, Woman Alive are just a few of the many great organizations. I get the impression that the attendees are mostly people who want more than just getting milk at church on Sundays. I think a lot of the people who go to these groups are people who are looking for some meat. The thing is, can you receive meat in large groups? The Bible says no.
Heb 5:11 – 14 and 1Co 3:1 -3
Meat is for those becoming mature people. Mature people become teachers. Teachers start teaching with milk and later teach the meat until those who grow become mature people. Maturity is not about age, it is about knowledge, experience and being well grounded in the Word. Jesus by example gave us the Sermon on the Mount which was mostly milk and later he preached meat to his disciples. Preachers spread the milk and teachers give the meat. So where does that happen? Not by just attending Sunday services. It is by being involved with follow-up teaching. People are asking for more teaching but many churches have stopped. Meanwhile I have discovered that some churches have never stopped and those are the churches that quietly move forward.
It is high time that the midweek bible study gets restored and restored soon if we want to see churches be sustained or even grow in North America. If the church you’re attending is growing and there is no mid-week meetings, how long will that last when there is a change in leadership? As an observer of many churches, congregations can survive with teachers and thrive without a pastor. I’ve seen churches build a brand new facility without a pastor leading the way but a church will fall apart if there are no teachers and where there is no meat being passed on for those to become mature in Christ.
Welcome to the world of Church Acoustics 