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Fellowship of the Woodlands, The Woodlands, Texas

A bridge across generations

by Carol Badaracco Padgett     Added October 01, 2008

As published in Worship Facilities, Sep/Oct 2008

A chapel in the woods. A fellowship plaza. A children’s building. A café. A bookstore. Each of these new building components conjures up a picture of human connection at various passages of life. And that connection is precisely what visitors will find on the campus of Fellowship of The Woodlands (FOTW) in The Woodlands, Texas, just outside Houston—the 12th largest church in the country.

As the church grows, FOTW staff wants to preserve a feeling of comfort and welcome that people experience as they arrive and engage. It is all part of Pastor Kerry Shook’s vision to reach the unchurched by making church the best hour of their week. The church’s latest building efforts have resulted in a campus—still a work in progress with plans for a future Family Life Center—that reaches across generations with totally modern spaces. Trung Doan, partner with Houston, Texas’s  Studio Red Architects, architect of record, describes FOTW’s new building components and the role they will play: “Architecturally, we developed a language that represents an image of a progressive, successful, fast-growing church, while embracing and complementing the earlier buildings on campus.”

The Backdrop
In late 2005, FOTW staff commissioned Studio Red Architects to help masterplan an expanded, compelling campus that exudes warmth and welcome. According to reports from Studio Red, the resultant design delivered “a complex of highly functional and engaging structures tied together with a palette of natural materials, vibrant outdoor spaces for recreation or tranquil leisure, and an immaculate chapel in the woods” where storybook weddings could unfold.

In 2006, Pastor Chris Ryan, who served as the church’s student pastor for more than 10 years, took on the role of pastor of expansion. “As the pastor of expansion, I have the opportunity to help launch and lead satellite campuses as well as help manage any building projects. I also have the opportunity to work alongside Pastor Kerry and our creative team as we try and create an atmosphere for life-change each weekend,” he says.

Throughout a three-year faith and building campaign aptly called “Generations,” Ryan reports that the total faith challenge for FOTW’s new building was just over $30 million. And he adds that FOTW’s goal in building is to expand its ministry locally, “thus broadening our sending base to reach generations across the world for Jesus Christ.”

A Chapel in the Woods
The crown jewel of the masterplan and expansion is the Chapel in the Woods, a cedar-sided, glass-intensive, intimate structure. The 450-person chapel is secluded from the rest of the campus, and provides an ethereal setting for weekend services, weddings, and gatherings. No matter whom one asks, the reviews of Chapel in the Woods are glowing.

Media Pastor Dave Marks, for example, reports, “We built an incredible chapel … a traditional, Gothic chapel, but both ends are solid glass. The peak is at [nearly 75] feet, and the chapel is about 90 feet long. The pulpit area is facing the woods.”

The chapel embodies the grandeur of Gothic-style cathedrals from centuries past, yet delivers an experience within that its creators felt was missing from such structures—a light and life that would reinforce the warmth of all of the church’s properties, and provide a backdrop for members’ spiritual milestones. This special touch of light inside was a conceptual touch that Studio Red drew from listening to Shook’s wife, Chris, talk of her desires for the chapel’s interior space. In the end, Studio Red reports that the chapel was inspired by Faye Jones’s Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

The Chapel in the Woods hosts traditional services each Sunday morning, often attended by the church’s older members, while video play back of Shook’s sermon is provided. And, like many of FOTW’s new building components, the chapel is relevant to other demographics and uses at the church.

As Marks describes, “We have a very traditional-looking chapel and had to integrate modern video technology into the architecture. For certain services, this technology is not needed, so we developed a way for the LCD panels to retract into the walls for the main isle and for a screen painted the same color of the walls to cover the LCD panels on the side. When you walk in, none of the technology is seen, it is only revealed when in use.” And he adds, “People want to get married in something that’s very traditional.”

Just ask the project’s building manager, Marc Perilloux of Houston, Texas-based Tellepsen Builders. “My wife and I were the first people to be married in the chapel…. I had substantial completion and my wedding license signed at the same time.”

Doan reveals the intricacies of building such a traditional, wedding-perfect little venue that is also loaded with state-of-the-art sound, lighting, and video. “The audio-visual component of the … chapel was a special treat since the structure is very open and always full of natural light. The goal was not to display or celebrate the audio-visual devices, but to conceal them,” he says. In a feat most churches should probably never attempt, Marks and his creative team installed and integrated the audio-visual components.

In the chapel, four six-foot plasma screens are mounted on retractable brackets, enabling the screens to be stowed away when not in use. To combat problems with the chapel’s abundant natural light, Doan reports that Studio Red employed a separate large screen. “Another 30-foot-wide by 40-foot-tall fabric screen rises from the floor of the stage to help diffuse glare from the natural light and provide a better lighting environment for filming and viewing of videos,” he relates.

Chapel in the Woods is constructed of steel, Perilloux reports, “but it was made to appear like wood beams.” Large tube steel was used for columns, with A-frame ceiling framing, and the upper ceiling of the chapel is exposed tongue-and-groove wood. A large curtain wall of glass, made of energy-saving, low-E (low-emissivity coating that reduces heat flow from the sun) material, is at the entrance and behind the altar, while stained cedar serves as the structure’s exterior skin.

Perilloux reports that throughout the building of the chapel, as well as all of FOTW’s new components, he worked from an office on the job site, alongside Tellepsen’s senior superintendent, John Brock, to ensure that material deliveries and subcontractors remained on schedule and within budget.

A Fellowship Plaza
Another integral component of FOTW’s expansion is not a building at all. A three-acre Fellowship Plaza with green spaces, outdoor water features, and a children’s pop-jet fountain gives members and visitors of all ages a place to reflect and connect.

As Doan details, “FOTW has an average attendance of over 15,000 people per week. So developing successful outdoor, transitional spaces to accommodate thousands was as important as the buildings themselves. Outside of the chapel, the buildings became backdrops to the outdoor spaces and allowed the transition of outdoor spaces to blend seamlessly with the indoor spaces.”

In this rambling outdoor expanse, FOTW and Studio Red Architects kept true to the vision of connection between all generations and their Maker. One unique aspect of the Fellowship Plaza is a prayer fountain that Doan describes as “a water feature with an iconic 30-foot-tall cross floating on water with a prayer trail that has seven prayer nodes, representing the seven continents.” It is also a baptistery where hundreds of people are baptized each month.

The outdoor site includes 45,000 square feet of brick pavers as part of the campus’s walkways, 16 brick tree wells, and one acre of Bermuda grass in the middle of it all. The expansion also includes additional parking to accommodate more than 800 cars.

A Children’s Building, a Café, and a Bookstore

As an investment of love and hope in its youngest members, FOTW included a new 110,000-square-foot children’s ministry building as part of the expansion. Yet, like all its endeavors, the children’s space is flexible to conjoin other needs and older members. The building includes five auditoriums wired for all types of sound and video, a bookstore, and a café, called Sycamores, with 10 Mac computers and free Wi-Fi throughout the building. Offices and areas for infant and toddler care are also part of the structure.

While some churches opt for children’s spaces that are conceptually themed and filled with bright colors, FOTW chose to keep the interior design neutral and flexible. As Marks relays, “Architecturally, the idea was to make our spaces [contemporary], without adding the fluff—without actually branding the room.” So while the children’s space may serve as Planet Kidz on Sunday morning, it can easily adapt to accommodate an older men’s group on Tuesday nights. Instead of interior design doing the branding, FOTW and Studio Red chose to let technology accomplish the task.

“The men don’t want to meet in a room with cute little flowers on the wall. So the decision was made to use technology to brand the room for the event. You do that with creative lighting, with video. We can achieve two different looks and feels—or more—with technology,” Marks says. And he adds that all throughout the building expansion, a clever lighting look designed by Stephan Graf of Illuminart, a lighting solutions design company near Detroit, Michigan, is present.

“It’s lighting architecturally with a theatrical creative thought process—and underlying all of this is the goal of saving energy. The lighting is pleasing to the eye,” Marks describes.

The children’s building is constructed of tilt-up concrete panels on the back side of the building and glass curtain walls at the front entrance, while brick over conventional steel framing makes up the remaining front visible areas, according to Perilloux. And he notes that energy-savings was built into the structure: “… we used double-insulated, low-E glass throughout and installed white TPO [thermoplastic polyolefin] roofing, which reduces the heat absorption from the sun. The building also has occupancy sensors in all rooms to shut down lights if the room is inactive.”

From the children’s building, to the Fellowship Plaza, to the Chapel in the Woods, FOTW’s expansion is a keen success, spanning generational needs and uses. The church’s goal to create additional space that reinforces a feeling of warmth and welcome is apparently agreeing with Houston. “Attendance in the children’s ministry has grown 40% since the [expansion],” Ryan concludes.

Carol Badaracco Padgett is editor of Worship Facilities Magazine. She can be reached at cpadgett@worshipfacilities.com.