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Photo courtesy of Garrison Barrett Group

by Rachel Allen     Added February 15, 2009

As published in Worship Facilities, Jan/Feb 2009

They meet once weekly on Sunday evenings in a theater, their communion bread is really crust donated by a local pizzeria, and some of their congregation members walk, bike or run to church, leaving strollers in the lobby. But the exceptional approach of Birmingham, Ala.’s Red Mountain Church (RMC) to ministry and outreach is leaving an impression on the city, blessing their young church with strong growth and answering the fundamental calling of Christians to reach out to their community.

Seven years ago, the 30-member core of this Presbyterian church knew they were in a position to be used by God in transforming Birmingham. “We realized we were living in a postmodern world, though still in the Bible Belt, where many people had been burned by the church somewhere along the way,” says founding member Brian Barrett. The people he speaks of make up the diverse population of singles, young families, medical professionals, artists and impoverished single-parent families that surround RMC’s past and present locations. To truly impact them, church members, including Barrett, who was also the project architect and is a principal of Birmingham’s Garrison Barrett Group, accepted that they had to be all things to all people and thus resolved to become a “church for the city.”

RMC kept this resolve by remaining in the heart of downtown Birmingham, and by deemphasizing their facility—the exact opposite of most churches’ idea of announcing their presence in a community. Additionally, many individuals within the church bought homes in the neighborhoods around the downtown church while the rest of Birmingham was moving out to the suburbs. “Our hope is that the gospel brings hope and life to our entire city,” Barrett says.

Staying in the City
Two years ago, members of RMC finally admitted they wanted a permanent, or somewhat permanent, home. (They were holding multiple services on Sundays in rented space.) The answer came when a few church members purchased the historical Avon Building in downtown Birmingham, just 12 blocks from the facility the church was then renting. The group then turned around and leased the theater space to the church for a below-market price, allowing the church to put money toward the theater’s renovation.

The brick and steel-truss theater was built in 1927, but was owned by a production company from 1985 to 2005, which had outfitted the space for filming commercials. Because of this, many surprises and challenges were encountered during the remodeling process, among them bringing the building up to modern codes, recalls Kyle Tyree, project manager with Birmingham contractor G & B Enterprises.

When work began, the crew was met with overhead pipe grids, labyrinth-like floor plans, and generally poor and dilapidated conditions throughout the building. There was only one entrance to the theater and the entry lobby was small—and in no way conducive to gathering before and after services and other events. Adjacent to this space was a string of small editing rooms with low ceilings. Upstairs an original balcony had been removed and replaced with congested offices and a recording studio.

In the theater space, a concrete slab covered up original wood floors, and curved, shadow-eliminating walls used by the film industry draped every side, giving the room the feel of a giant skateboard ramp. “In the original theater there was a beautiful skyscape mural on the ceiling, but it was ruined years ago when it was glued over with soundproofing insulation,” adds Barrett.

For these reasons and others, Tyree says the team entered a demolition and discovery phase almost immediately, even before the design work was finished.

“There were only diagrammatic floor plans of the original building with no sections or details,” says Barrett. “We had to find out how the building was structured and the condition of the ceiling above the theater.”

When this phase was complete, the team had uncovered original murals that later inspired the new design scheme. The old theater became a 450-seat worship space. The concrete slab had to stay, but the pipe grid above was removed to open up the ceiling. Behind a floating film-set wall the very large original stage was found, too large for RMC, says Barrett, but a solution was created. “Rather than setting up long-ways in the room, we turned 90 degrees so our seating could wrap around three sides and bring every seat closer to the front.”

In the area of audio, video and lighting, RMC took a very relaxed approach. Most of RMC’s musicians are in local bands and were therefore knowledgeable enough to know what equipment they needed and how to set it up. Extra lighting was provided only for reading and to emphasize the lectern. “We were careful not to do anything that felt slick or packaged or that might repel our younger generation,” says Barrett.

The theater is much darker than the rest of the building because of all the structural brick, but glass installed around the vestibule borrows light from a now sun-soaked, north-facing lobby. In addition, a backstage loading door was glazed over and fitted with a wooden screen to allow filtered, natural light to flow in. Stackable chairs are in place for ease of removal because the theater is used by various groups for a variety of purposes.

The once-small lobby grew when the design team removed a reception desk, and a second lobby was created when Barrett and his team expanded out onto an existing parking lot. The addition gave the otherwise untouched exterior of the building a much-needed facelift, as well as curb appeal, and took the cramp off of egress needs. Also on the first floor, the low ceilings of editing rooms were ripped out and re-raised, creating airy nursery rooms and a mom’s room. The nurseries have large windows looking out to the street and are bathed in bright, primary colors.

On the second floor, the confining spaces where the balcony once was were obliterated, save the recording studio, which stayed to serve the same purpose. The rest of the space was refurbished into two offices, a conference room and three larger children’s church classrooms.

“What’s great about our situation is we’re not locked in,” Barrett says. “If our needs or ministerial direction changes, we can move or at the very least, remodel.”

Challenges outside of construction arose, too. Before the renovations were complete RMC lost their founding pastor. “Another real challenge was [reassuring] the city that our presence would not put stress on the entertainment district,” says Barrett. However, with only Sunday evening services, this has not been an issue. In fact, Barrett says that RMC’s presence and service schedule have positively impacted nearby restaurants.

Meshing with the Mission
“We use our facility less than anybody else,” says Bradley Cordell, RMC’s facilities manager. The Avon Theater is also the meeting place for another church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, and is available to all of Birmingham the rest of the time as a nostalgic event venue. For instance, in September 2008 the theater hosted the After Party for volunteers of the Sidewalk Film Festival, a city-wide event that attracted thousands to the downtown area.

Cordell goes on to say that RMC has a missional philosophy, meaning they want to exist within the community, as opposed to expecting the community to come to them. “Where our members go, Red Mountain Church goes,” he says.

Although RMC members do have a weekly service, the balance of their fellowship occurs throughout the week in the community, usually in people’s homes, but also at coffee shops and restaurants. Members are divided into 16 Community Groups, which are not based on age, marital status or career path, but instead on neighborhood. “Often, church buildings turn into a fortress keeping us isolated from the world; we go to school there, eat meals there, take aerobics classes there and spend much of our time at the church building instead of interacting with our community. Community Groups are one small way RMC tries to encourage its members to live life in their neighborhoods and not locked up in a church building,” says Cordell.

Since RMC’s outreach model is based on being in the community and their staff is small (two pastors and a few part-time employees) they need very little space for actual service time and administration. “The simplicity of the facility fits our mission,” Barrett says. “We wanted our physical presence [in downtown] to be low impact.”

To further illustrate this, Barrett points out that RMC doesn’t even have a sign. Instead, three-inch high letters mark the door. “We just happen to meet at the Avon Theater—so do some other groups. [Our] emphasis is not on the church being a building, but on being a community of believers in the city.”

[ See a photo flipbook of Red Mountain Church for more images of the church in the media section of our website. ]

Rachel Allen is a freelance writer and marketing consultant. She can be reached at racheld_allen@yahoo.com.

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