What Should You Know Before Starting A Reordering Project?

The best way to preserve the historic beauty of churches is to keep them in use as much as possible. Abandonment and underuse can often be the first step towards a beautiful property falling into disrepair and dedicated project management can help with this.

However, if the congregation of a church is not enough to sustain the building, one option to keep the church open and the community thriving is reordering, which is where the church building is adapted and rearranged to incorporate secular uses.

This can be something as subtle as turning a piety shop into a more secular cafe, or it can be something as substantial as turning a church building into a school for trapeze artists or even an indoor skate park.

However, as even a small reordering project is a big step that will affect the congregation, it is important to prepare, consult and be as transparent as possible with your proposals.

The first step to this is to consult your Diocesan Advisory Committee or similar governing body depending on denomination. They can provide excellent advice and signpost successful churches that have followed a similar approach, as well as highlight historical issues.

Another aspect to consider is that a lot of reordering projects are relatively small and subtle; they are less about rapid construction or destruction of the existing space away from the chancel but more about maximising what is there.

Because of this, it is worth thinking about what you need and why. Do not try to make do but at the same time avoid being overambitious with projects that do not seem to have an evident need for your local community. 

You will need to prepare statements of significance and needs so the sooner you think about these steps the better.
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Finally, consult with members of the congregation and the local community but also get an architect on board as soon as it becomes clear that this project is likely to start.