forum My Church!

Started March 05, 2019 by @croccin-champagne

tune

In a story I've been working on, one of the key landmarks/spot a clue is hidden is this old church. I'm not christian though, and my church experience is…subpar. Any tips on anything, like terminology and general layouts?

That's… actually a good question. I go to one of the more "Modern" churches, but we still have a chapel and whatnot. But then we have the basement floor (finished) where all the little kids go, a second floor with a gym and rooms for the high schoolers and middle schoolers, and the "Sanctuary" where all the main services are held. We also have "Fellowship Hall" for overflow, a kitchen, and a Cafe. On the basement floor, there's a workshop, my mother's "office" where we work on Visual Arts stuff, and the choir rehearsal room. I spend a lot of time there because I work with my mom as grunt labor.

Oh, thank you! It's not a very modern church, it's from the 1800's, but a bunch of that will help!

Do you know if you want your church to be catholic of protestant and also where geographically is it located because there's vast differences in architecture between European and American church and which regions they're built in cause believe it or not it's a big difference.
But in general though a Catholic church especially in the 1800s will be larger, grander, will high arched ceilings and an tall thin gorgeous stain glass windows. It'll be made of stone and filled with ornate decorations, they'll have confessionals and racks of candles. A protestant church will be more simple, smaller, humble(?) if you will (less elaborate), made of brick or wood and if you're set in further west in America it'll probably only be one or two rooms. Also Catholics will have crucifixes in all rooms (the cross will Jesus on it) where as Protestants have empty crosses.
The main room of any church is called the sanctuary, it'll usually have a pulpit at the front and a large cross on or mural the wall behind it, and a communion table that will have a cross (often gold) sitting on it with IHS on it, and then rows of wooden pews. If it's a bigger church then the room before the sanctuary that you first walk into will be called the atrium, and the doors will bigger than usually and arched. other than that a church might have a choir loft, offices, or a library but it really on location and the resources available. in this era many churches would have graveyards next to or near them enclosed by an iron fence.
And uh, yeah… stuff like that

Man, my church is so cheap! Closest we have is the small, brass crosses that you never really notice unless you're looking for them.

Y'all are really helpful. It's a church in North Carolina, and I was thinking that it's become more nondenominational. It's also smaller, built in what used to be a small fishing harbor, that's grown a bit to become an almost touristy town during the summer.

my church is Christian, but doesn't use a cross as it's symbol, because the living Christ is our symbol mostly.

i'm also not christian but i've oddly been in numerous churches so here a few descriptions of them the first few are not from the 1800's but are in the same area of where your's is located the 1st one has double doors that lead right to where sermons/weddings (a nave) are held it has two columns on the outside of the door inside there was a bowl of holy water a balcony and past the rows of seats their is a small stage where a stand is for a preacher (where the preacher stands is a sanctuary) on the side of the stage there are two doors one leads to outside the other leads to a hallway with a bunch of doors and bathrooms this was a catholic church in virginia the 2nd had double doors a short hallway and the another set of double doors and a nave where the santurt is their is a gate on the wall next to that there is a door which leads to a hallway with rooms for sunday school and across from the sanctuary there is a door that leads to the exit that leads to a courtyard and food distribution center a Presbyterian church in florida the 3rd has a head cover before the doors so if it is raining you can drive up to it and not get wet when you get in side there will be a wall made of windows and a door that leads to the nave on the right wall there is a door that leads to sunday school area and a hallway that leads to the area where the wall of windows and opening doors are a church in louisiana the 4th is a small church in a small town it opens up into the nave where there is only six or seven rows of seats but there is also a balcony where people sit it is next to a baptist church a Protestant church in georgia the last one is an older church it has a nave not as big as a the first churches I mentioned but triple the amount of seats as the one in georgia on the sidewall of where people sit their is a very very small spiral staircase with a place for people to stand and it looks kind of like a tower on a castle in the back of the church there are two staircases that lead to a balcony where there is an organ behind and around the church there is a graveyard around the graveyard the is a fence and a path way that leads to a newer building for other activities this on was not in america though.

Look up the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement and the sort of churches they had probably.