Niermann, Matthew William, author

Unchurched church architecture : an examination of the relationship between exterior Protestant Church design and the conceptualizations of the churched and unchurched / by Matthew William Niermann.

[Ann Arbor, Mich.] : [University of Michigan Library], 2016.

1 online resource (332 pages)

In recent decades, the exterior design of Protestant churches, primarily those affiliated with evangelical Protestantism in America, has undergone radical re-formulation. Since the late 1970's many congregations have built churches that intentionally avoid traditional churchly design and instead are designed with an exterior architecture similar to secular building typologies such as schools, offices, stadiums, and commercial buildings.
This design trend, known as architectural evangelism, is a product of the combination of the evangelistic desire to engage the unchurched such that they may become churched, and the application of a missiological logic which proposes that churchly architecture is a barrier for unchurched attendance. The influence and adoption of architectural evangelism is pervasive, having produced decades of engagement and practice. Yet, despite this widespread engagement, there has been no systematic study of the accuracy of architectural evangelism's ideas. Thus, this dissertation examines the aptness of architectural evangelism and the efficacy of its design prescriptions by asking: What is the relationship between the design of Protestant church exteriors and 1) place constructs and 2) place judgements held by churched and unchurched individuals?
Utilizing a comparative case study research design, the research employs an image-based sorting task interview. Four case studies were conducted with 25 churched and 25 unchurched respondents interviewed in each case study, for a total of 200 respondents. Two case studies were located in Southeast Michigan and two in Southern California. In each location, one case study was drawn from a case study church that does not embrace architectural evangelism and one case study church that does.
The results of the study demonstrate the accuracy of architectural evangelism's presuppositions that churched and unchurched individuals hold different constructs, yet the details of those constructs are not as predicted. In fact, the unchurched respondents judged churches designed with a more traditional ecclesiological profile to be more comfortable, beautiful, and overall more preferred over churches that use secular typologies. Furthermore, the unchurched preference is most highly correlated with aesthetic beauty and also positively correlated with perceived emphasis of worship. The results suggest that architectural evangelism's design prescriptions may be in error.

9781369589313
136958931X

Protestant church buildings United States.
Church architecture United States.
Églises protestantes (Édifices) États-Unis.
Architecture chrétienne États-Unis.

theses.

Location: Library main 319912
Call No.: 319912
Status: Available