Designing Safe and Engaging Kids' Ministry Spaces

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with return guest Aaron Stanski, the founder and CEO of Risepointe. They provide creative design solutions so that your church’s mission isn’t held back by its building.

Is your kids’ ministry space feeling tired? Churches often take more design risks with kids’ environments through use of color or theming, but that also means they age faster than spaces for adults do. Tune in to learn how you can improve your kids’ spaces and make a positive first impression with your guests.

• The first impression. // Kids’ spaces are often the first point of contact for new families visiting a church. While adults can tolerate less-than-ideal conditions, children require environments that are engaging, safe, and conducive to both learning and play. A well-designed children’s space can significantly influence a family’s decision to return to a church.
• Address security. // Churches need to strike a balance between creating a secure environment and maintaining an inviting atmosphere. The biggest risk is something happening internally at your church. While a large part of security is making sure volunteers are screened and trained properly, there are steps you can take to improve your environment too. For example, security can start at the kid’s check-in area, but then you can open up the space past that. The key is making sure you have good transparency in and out of kids’ spaces, you’re using security cameras, and eliminating blind corners around your church.
• Flexible kids’ spaces. // Creating large, flexible spaces that can accommodate various activities and age groups is a growing trend in children’s ministry design. Design kids’ environments that can be easily adapted for different types of programming, such as worship, games, and small group discussions. Flexible spaces also allow for more efficient use of volunteers, as they can be reconfigured to meet the needs of different activities. Ensure that larger areas have proper acoustic management to maintain an environment conducive to learning and interaction.
• Design for children’s needs. // Consider the wide range of needs for the kids coming into your church. What are they walking into church with? How are you providing them spaces to play and get their energy out? Where are you providing them a place to sit down and learn about Jesus? Create spaces that are inclusive and accessible for children with special needs. Include sensory rooms or quiet areas for children who may feel overwhelmed. Reducing stimuli in kids’ spaces and providing calming areas allows children to retreat if they need a break from the main activities. Ensure that all children have opportunities to engage in play and learning, regardless of their abilities.
• Design for parents and volunteers too. // Make it easy for parents to navigate the kids’ space with clear pathways and signage. Providing a lobby outside the kids’ area can encourage parents to slow down and connect. Considering volunteers is important when designing children’s space as well. Include dedicated areas for them to store materials, prepare for activities, take breaks, and securely leave their personal belongings.
• Today’s design trends. // Gone are the days of having over-the-top, boldly themed kids’ areas. We live in an overstimulated world and kids can easily get overwhelmed. Today’s designs are trending towards creating kids’ environments that are calming with simple geometric shapes and colors, bringing down too much noise and color clash. Remember to create environments that help kids feel like they’re maturing towards the next phase in their lives.
• Needs Analysis. // Risepointe offers the Needs Analysis for churches, where they come on site to take a look at your entire facility. They meet with your team and go through fun exercises to get a sense of who you are as a church and what your ministry DNA is like. They then work to align your facility to your mission and vision by drawing up plans detailing how your ministry spaces could be altered.

NEXT STEPS // Risepointe Collection, V.25

Grab Risepointe Collection, V.25, a fun and FREE resource for churches that highlights the latest design trends, and will help you freshen up your kids’ spaces. Visit www.risepointe.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to download it.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

---

Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m super excited that you’re tuned in today. We’ve got a return guest today. And you know, when we have a return guest, it means because this person got so much good stuff to say that we cannot contain them to a single episode. And that is so true. We’ve got Aaron Stanski today. He is the founder and CEO of Risepointe with 15 plus years experience of church design, leadership, project management experience. If you don’t know Risepointe, where have you been? You’re living under a rock.

Rich Birch — They provide ah creative design solutions to really remove the lids. I love their help because they really are helping churches figure out how do we keep growing ah to really prevent growth in their ministry. Their church architects and designers have years of experience working in churches, schools, nonprofits, really fantastic people doing interior design, graphic design, branding, lots of stuff to really help churches like yours. Aaron, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming back on.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, it’s great to be here, Rich. Thanks for having me.

Rich Birch — Yeah, i’m you know it’s gonna be good, I’m looking forward to to talking. You know we’ve had you on in the past, we’ve had a couple different episodes. One about a campus opening that you had had to you know a part of, and the impact that had happened and kind of a general design stuff. And I was talking to Aaron, I said, man, I’d love to have you come back on, because you might not know friends, but a part of what I do is actually I’ll visit churches, I do this, it’s kind of like secret shopper, but it’s not secret. I’ll end up in churches. And I feel like when I’m in the churches in churches all the time, I’m walking around kids’ spaces and I’m like, they feel tired. They and I um… And so I’m, frankly, I’m using Aaron here…

Aaron Stanski — Sure.

Rich Birch — …to try to um um trying to suck the brain information or information out of his brain to learn about kids in spaces. Why are kids spaces so important to churches? Maybe let’s just start there. What why should we even be worrying about that part of what we do?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, it’s super important, especially for guests and stuff like that who are checking out your church for the first time. I mean, we can put up with a lot as adults, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — I mean, we can like make excuses for things, like we can find a chair that’s a little bit more comfortable or in a place that we can hear a little bit better or something like that. But for our kids, right, like we’re dropping them off, we’re handing them to someone. We really just want to make sure they’re gonna they’re safe, they’re going to be taken care of. We want to make sure they’re going to have fun, they’re not going to be bored. And so really some of those first impression pieces, I mean, it goes a long way for guests in walking into those environments.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s it’s so true. And you know so many churches I talk to when they say, hey, our target is to reach a 32 year old couple, or a 32 year old male, or a 35 year old whoever…

Aaron Stanski — Right.

Rich Birch — …you know those people have kids and they’re thinking about kids…

Aaron Stanski — Right.

Rich Birch — …and they’re wrestling through, hey, what what does that look like? And so this space is, um yeah, it’s critically important. Well, I’d love to, if you’re if you’re up for it…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …to maybe walk through some of the, low hanging fruit, you know, think about maybe we’re a church of a thousand people and I’m, you know, I might wander around my space. Are there some things that I should be thinking about ah that really maybe I should be improving on in my, you know, in my kid’s space?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, and I think what happens a lot of times too, right, is we take some design risks with kids spaces. We introduce lots of color, ah like lots of theming, or, you know, I’ve seen a lot of bad murals and stuff like that painted in churches. And so because we take those risks, our kids ministry spaces actually age faster than a lot of our adult spaces do.

Rich Birch — Yes. Oh, that’s good. That’s good.

Aaron Stanski — And so that’s why that’s why you’re feeling that way, Rich, when you walk in.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — It’s like, man, why does it feel tired?

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And it’s like, well, we took some big risks and some of those things trended out very quickly. But yeah, I mean, I came up with a list of things here that I’ve just seen lots of churches really kind of go all in on to make sure their kids’ ministry is aligned with their mission and vision and helping them grow.

Aaron Stanski — The first thing that like every church talks about that is security, right? It’s always on the top of the list. You know we don’t, we don’t want security at the expense of like really great space. Right? Like we don’t want it to be so secure that it’s creepy. So we’ve seen lots of churches say, hey, we really want to make the entry points right behind ah sort of that kid’s check-in area. That’s where we want our security to start.

Aaron Stanski — But then we really want to open up the interior spaces, allow lots of visual connection between all of those, um oversize the rooms, make sure the parents feel really comfortable kind of coming in and out of all of those environments. And that’s always security is always number one on the list.

Rich Birch — What how do we balance out those two? It feels like, it’s almost like they’re two contradictory ideas. One is like, you want it to feel secure…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …but then the other is, I want it to feel welcoming and engaging. And are there kind of some things we should, I like what you said there even about like oversizing the space a little bit, making sure, but are there other things we should be thinking about as we look at our space?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, ah you know the biggest risk is you know always something happening internally at your church. And so ah you know when we when we think about security, we’re talking about like making sure we don’t have any blind corners, ah using security cameras, and really like making sure we have good transparency in and out of all of those spaces.

Aaron Stanski — And I’m sure you get into this, Rich. I mean, that’s just the architecture. That’s just 5% of what security means. The rest of it is making sure our volunteers are trained, they’re screened, that we are always have two adults in the classroom at the same time and stuff. 

Aaron Stanski — But from a design perspective, like that’s really what it’s about, making sure all those spaces are are open and connected and transparent as as as we can make it. And then making sure people aren’t back there who shouldn’t be.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Stanski — So having some security at the check-in spots to to provide that.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I know I remember years ago I was visiting a name brand church that you you all would know and I, you know, I’ve said this to a bunch of leaders over there. I’ve I’ve retold this this story. i I just happened to be there and I was, you know, I was a leader from a church and I um was just poking around and was kind of looking at stuff and trying to see, you know. And then I was like, well, let’s go take a look at the kid’s space. And I like, and it was in between services, but like their security guy, he, he totally picked me out of a crowd.

Rich Birch — Like he comes up. He was friendly. He was a guy with a thick neck, uh, super friendly, but was like, Hey, sir, so good to see you. How can I help you today? And, uh, which I loved.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I was like, listen, if I’m, if I’m a parent…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …and you know, the, you know, that they he identified quickly you’re, you’re a person by your, with no kids and you’re looking around, you look kind of like.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, you don’t want creepy Rich ah back in your kids ministry area.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Guy with no hair. Yeah, but that’s to say, you know, obviously the people side of that is a big, you know, this the physical space can do so much, but the the the people is ah is a big place.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Okay, so security was first on your list. What what else were you thinking about?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, another trend that we’re really seeing in kids ministry today is like large, flexible spaces. So, you know, it doesn’t matter if you’re running a couple hundred on a Sunday or a couple thousand. We’re seeing lots of churches say, hey, let’s open up some of these smaller classrooms and let’s actually create some of these larger, more flexible environments for ah either more kids or multiple age groups. And so…

Rich Birch — Really? Interesting.

Aaron Stanski — …it opens it up. There’s there’s less volunteers required because then you can go, you know, one volunteer per smaller group of kids. It gives you some more flexibility with things, for like worship, group worship, and games, and crafts, and even small group times. And so we’re seeing, we’re really seeing that as a trend as well as like providing some of those larger environments.

Rich Birch — How do we, so that’s, let’s talk a little bit about that. So I was in a church recently where, um, literally they’re asking that question. And they do have quite large open spaces, but their concern, then they were thinking about going in the opposite direction. They were like, Oh, like maybe we’ll close some of these in, because they were like, when we get an, you know, a hundred kids in this room, it, man, it’s loud.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Is there stuff we can do to treat those spaces…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …to, you know, or or should be thinking about treating those spaces to try to make them so they’re not crazy?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah you’re You’re jumping down to the bottom of my list.

Rich Birch — Oh, I’m so sorry.

Aaron Stanski — No, no, that’s acoustics is a big deal, right? Because kids are loud.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Aaron Stanski — And so how do we trap the sound and make spaces indoors…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …that are conducive to play, but still feel good for parents and volunteers and it feels like it’s under control? So there’s a few products and stuff that we use quite often to really make those larger spaces feel that way. And then ah we have done quite a bit with ah like movable partitions and some things that can fold out from the walls…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — …that provide acoustic separation when you go into small group time.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — I’m a small group leader. I have sixth grade boys ah in my small group at church.

Rich Birch — They’re very quiet, very quiet.

Aaron Stanski — And so trying to keep 11 sixth grade boys like on task, it’s important.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Stanski — So, you know, where where we meet, ah you know, is it helpful for that or is it something that kind of hurts ministry?

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. I love that. Good for you being a volunteer there.

Aaron Stanski — Oh, yeah, they, yeah yeah, they take the energy out of me. I mean, they they they run me ragged, that’s for sure.

Rich Birch — No, that’s good. I like it. You’re a, you know, you you speak not just as an architect, but as a, as an operator as well.

Aaron Stanski — That’s right. Put me in, coach. I’m ready. I’m ready to go.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Rich Birch — All right. That’s great. What else should we think? So large, so we’ve got security, we’ve got these kinds of large flexible spaces. What else should we be thinking about?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, and another big trend that we’re seeing is, I mean, churches that are growing that are really getting after it are addressing a really wide range of needs for their kids.

Rich Birch — Oh, so good. Yep.

Aaron Stanski — And so, I mean, every kid is unique, right? And so when we think about, man, what are they walking into church with, right? Like, what is their home life like? Like, what are ah What are their emotional needs, their spiritual needs, and how do we address that? How do we pay attention to all of those things?

Aaron Stanski — And so, I mean, we see a big trend in addressing special needs as well across a wide range of spectrums. And so, um whether that’s calming areas or break spaces, or even you know churches that are having dedicated environments for special needs, ah we see that as ah you know as a big trend, as well as just realizing, hey, kids need to be kids. So how are we like providing them space to play? And providing them space to like get some energy out and really kind of learn in tactile ways? As well as, you know, like we mentioned with the acoustics, a place for them to sit down and have a conversation about Jesus and what that means in their life. So, yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. We’ve had a number of conversations um about, you know, really creating accessible opportunities for kids. We did a podcast podcast back with Kerri-Ann Hayes. That was maybe two months ago. And then…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, that was a great one.

Rich Birch — …ah Gail yeah, and then Gail Ewins or Ewell on, you know, really trying to create a church that’s that’s inclusive. And I would agree, this is one of those areas where I would say expectations have shifted in the church world , um definitely from when I started serving years ago, that um you know that the creating space whether and and having a team of people who are serving kids of a wide variety of backgrounds um and trying to figure out how to integrate them into or what that looks like, really asking that question, and It looks different in different places…

Aaron Stanski — That’s right.

Rich Birch — …but is um is critically important. Are you seeing um You know, when you think about that kind of chill space, are there, you know, rules of thumb on the kind of percentage of space that people are dedicating to that? Like, is it like a, you know, or or how do you think about that chill space thing? Or is that not really maybe developed even into a ah rule of thumb yet?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, it’s not it hasn’t really developed like that far yet. I think um more often than not, it’s it’s letting the parents know that we’re listening, that we’re caring, um that we’re capable and ready to address a need.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — If a child is like, wow, this is just way too much stimulus. I’m really struggling emotionally here. We have a plan to be able to kind of like take them, ah allow them to like sit down, refocus, and then kind of rejoin the group. So it doesn’t take up a lot of space for the kids who are like participating in regular church ministry, but just might need some of that chill space. For churches that are like really kind of getting into like more advanced special needs, it does require dedicated space. You do have to have volunteers that are trained a little bit more ah to be able to address some of those needs. But we I mean, we see it a lot. We see parents like asking for ah those types of things you know from their church.

Rich Birch — Yeah, and this this, like I’ve said to a lot of churches, if they don’t have a ministry or space like this, and they’re a church of a thousand, let’s say, if they made it without this kind of thing, I will say, listen, you you, and you know, often I’m talking to like an executive pastor or lead pastor. And I’m like, talk to your kids ministry people. I bet you that they have families who are asking for this; that this is a part of the conversation that’s already there.

Rich Birch — And you know for my seat, I think it’s a table stakes kind of thing. It’s like, we’ve we’ve got to provide this. We have to figure out, you know as the church grows. Just you’re ignoring too big of a population you know to to say, hey, we’re not going to do something on that front.

Aaron Stanski — Yep.

Rich Birch — You know, you you can’t just ignore that. You can’t just be like, ah, we’re gonna, you know, we’re just not gonna do that. We’re gonna leave… there’s a church across town that does that. I think, man, it’s too important to, you know, to do that, so.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, and we should talk about it on our website, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And we should, you know, we should have that entire, you know, stream of communication ah with the parent, right, all the way throughout. And it’s ah it’s a big deal.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, let’s let’s talk about whatever, what’s what’s next on the the list.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, a few of these we could probably shoot through really quick.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Aaron Stanski — But ah like some of them end up being really important. We see a lot of churches, you know, wanting to provide some sort of like secondary lobby or gathering area for families. So sometimes that’s either like right outside the the kids area or the kids check in area or even back inside there just as a secondary place for families to to gather, some furniture, allow the kids to kind of run around and play.

Aaron Stanski — Again, you know, we’re not what we’re not trying to do is create the most efficient engine for getting parents in and out as we possibly can in a single file line. We’re trying to provide like some eddies and some places for them to like stop, connect, right?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Aaron Stanski — We want to we want our kids’ environments, like we want to resource parents. Like we want to come alongside them on this journey. And so we have to have some of those conversation places. And so we see that a lot in some of the design trends and some of the spaces that we’re creating and and designing today is trying to figure that piece out as well.

Rich Birch — Talk to me about, um, so when I’m thinking about my kids space, am I, there’s like an interesting dual, um, kind of target audience here. One is like the space for the kids, but then there’s, then there’s the, the parents. Um, and I would think the needs are different. Like there’s the actual program needs and then there’s, hey, does this space actually deal with… How do you think about, you know, that issue and how you balance those two kind of distinct groups out?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, they have to be, ah from a design perspective, they have to be considered simultaneously. You know, none of the kids are choosing to drive themselves to church either, right? Like, and so, like…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …the parents are the ones who are ultimately making that choice. And so understanding…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …like, what is it like for mom ah with a couple kids to navigate down, is this hallway like narrow? Is it Is it hard to navigate? Is it easy for her to understand where she needs to go next or what needs to happen? And so, yeah, we have to pay really close attention to that, what it’s like, you know, how are we dropping off? Are we inviting the parents into the classroom to pick up, and doing the security check on the way out? Or are we doing that at the door? And, you know, how do we make it as relational as we can and less transactional, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — And so like that’s ah that’s a big part of it. And so we’re designing for the kids. That’s super important because we want them to be like, that was fun.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Stanski — I learned something about Jesus. I want to go back.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — We have to design for the parents because like they’re like navigating it and they’re trusting us with their kids. And then I’d say the third thing we have to is we have to um design it for the volunteers as well.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.

Aaron Stanski — You know, you know, people do ministry, not buildings.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And so, you know, those volunteers, they’re coming in early, and they’re, you know, they’re staying after, they’re taking care of our kids, like they’re loving on them. So how do we set them up for success? What kind of spaces do they need? Do they need a secure area, you know, to be able to drop off their stuff on Sunday and and be able to grab a cup of coffee or something? How are we creating those types of environments?

Aaron Stanski — And so we see churches like having dedicated volunteer space um at the at the ministry level. We see them paying really close attention to how volunteers interact with storage and all their supplies, right? We want it to be a great experience for those volunteers…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Aaron Stanski — …so they can spend more time loving on the kids and less time you know fighting with ah storage or setup or any of those things.

Rich Birch — Yeah, this this is, so I totally echo what you’re saying there for sure. That’s like a hearty Amen. There’s like an interesting connection between I think a lot of times when we’re so when we sit down and design, we’re thinking about like on the church side rather than, you know, on your side of the table as a professional. I’m thinking about where are the kids going to check in? What is the program space? But then there are things that can get squeezed out of our program really quickly. One of them is volunteer space because it’s like, we don’t think about that as like, uh, that’s not worth, you know, it’s like, ah it’s a support area, but it’s a critically critical support area.

Aaron Stanski — That’s right.

Rich Birch — If it’s done well, people will love it. They’ll be like, this is amazing. Like what it’s a, make it a great experience. I got a place to put my purse, all that. It it feels great.

Rich Birch — And then the same on the storage issue. It’s like that gets squeezed in so many of these projects. Cause it’s like, yeah, but I need more space for kids to sit. But it’s like, but if we don’t have any place to put the googly eyes, it will not matter. You know, when they, you know…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …they’ll have a place to sit, but they won’t be able to do anything. Or it’ll be a hassle for, you know, for your team.

Rich Birch — So that’s one of the reasons why partnering with Risepointe when you’re thinking about this, or really thinking about redesigning, I think is critically important. Because there’s some of those kind of secondary, but but critically important, not secondary in the like, it’s not so important. It’s like it’s like a support area. It can be easy to overlook that.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Can we talk about bathrooms, washrooms, toilets? I like I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time in my ministry career thinking about sinks. What’s the…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — It feels like this is an area that it it is we know, and I don’t want to get into all the issues around this, but we know like in schools, it’s a real issue that these are like have become like a hotbed. How do we do this? What’s the kind of state of the art on that front? What should we be thinking about in kids areas for bathrooms?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, so I mean, i’ll I’ll skip the obvious, right? Like you got to have bathrooms for kids and stuff like that. I mean, you know lots of ministries do like do a great job. We can put a large bathroom bank inside the secure area for elementary kids to kind of use. I would say a design trend that we’re seeing ah is utilizing like single occupancy toilet banks.

Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.

Aaron Stanski — And so like the way that’s helpful, especially for the younger kids, is a volunteer can send a younger kid into like a single occupancy, like toilet stall. They can close the door and use the bathroom and then they can come out and we can help them wash their hands at the sink and stuff. And so rather than having two adults go in there into a larger bathroom bank or a bunch of kids go into a larger bathroom bank and mess around, um we’re just seeing it. It’s easier to manage. It’s safer for the volunteers. It’s cleaner for the younger kids.

Aaron Stanski — And so we’re really seeing that as a design trend, um you know especially for like the preschool age group, kindergarten age group. And then you know it takes up less square footage. And so there’s some less you know there’s some cost savings and stuff there. But we’re seeing a lot of churches kind of go in that direction.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. we did a We did a building years ago, this is 15 years ago, where we did, in all of our preschool spaces, we did like a dedicated restroom um you know for each each one of those. And it was right in the room, which was was great.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, because then a teacher can just send the kid in, right…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — …and they can use the restroom and come out. I think if you have a room of 100 kids…

Rich Birch —Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — …like you mentioned, right…

Rich Birch —Yes.

Aaron Stanski — …well, you can put dedicated boys and girls restrooms with like, let’s say two girls and two boys, but then like they have to just kind of go in there by themselves. And are there other people? And you got to check, and you’ve got to go in there with two adults, right, and all of those things.

Aaron Stanski — Well, instead of doing those two restroom banks, you could just do three stalls or four stalls. And a and a sink on the outside, and you you reduce all of those problems that you get with sort of that traditional bathroom.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s good. As as crazy as it sounds, man, critically important.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch —Restrooms are a big deal in, you know, in these spaces, important to think about for sure.

Rich Birch — What about, um it talk me through, so I was in a ah church recently in the last couple months where they’re redoing their kid’s space. And they have on the walls, like this floor to ceiling, hand done, like drawing stuff, cartoons, which like looks great. And they were reflecting the internal leadership stuff of, there was a person on staff that did that and then now they want to change it. And there’s all these interesting conversations around that. So we’ll ignore that for a minute. But but what they were saying, what they wanted to go to was something that was less stimulating. It was less kind of like, it was, it was like, they felt like they’ve overshot, you know, it’s kind of like, and some of it, I think it’s just the style has changed…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …but like, hey, they they overshot. It was kind of too stimulating. What’s the balance there? How do we, how do we have environments that are fun? We don’t want it to look like a school. We wanted to walk in and it’d be like…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …this is something great. But we also, you know, we don’t want it to be so bonkers that it’s hard for, for kids to focus.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I think gone are the days where, you know, we’re having these huge themed kids areas, and and let’s kind of taking it up over the top. Most of the time, you know, kids, I mean, like us, I mean, we we just live in an overstimulated world, um you know, whether it’s screens or, you know, technology or any of those things.

Aaron Stanski — And so a lot of times we’re trying to create kids environments that are calming, ah that are you know that reduce some of that stimuli. And ah so I’d say you know we’re we’re moving more towards you know geometric shapes and colors, vinyl graphics, and things like that. And and so we’re trying to kind of bring down ah you know, like too much noise, that kind of gets back to what the we said with the acoustics. And same thing with too much color clash, too too much of that that over- overstimulating idea.

Aaron Stanski — And I think that kind of leads into you know sort of the next thing that ah that we’re seeing is we’re really kind of trying to design up ah for a lot of kids ministries. And so um you know we’ve been doing a lot with you know what we would consider pre-teen ministry, right? So how do we ah how do we make the fourth and fifth grade environment feel like it’s a middle school environment? Right?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Aaron Stanski — How do wehow do we create a space for them that’s separate from the kindergartners that feels like it’s something that’s elevated. And then same thing with middle school, right? Like we’re designing, you know, middle school environments to feel more like high school environments. And we’re designing high school environments to feel more like adult, right? And so we’re kind of designing up ah in a lot of those trends to kind of help those kids, you know, feel like they’re maturing towards something. And we see that as a huge trend, especially as you get up into student ministry spaces.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s a ah, yeah, you can see that where, even just programmatically, there’s a lot of churches that are doing like Club 56…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …and it’s like a fifth grade, sixth grade kind of thing. It’s like a interesting kind of in between.

Rich Birch — That got me thinking about kind of a related issue, which is um, the balance of dedicated kids space versus making, designing these spaces in a way that they can be used for other things during the week.

Aaron Stanski — Sure.

Rich Birch — You know, the kind of extreme example is like the men’s group doesn’t want to meet in the the fluffy kingdom, you know, you know…

Aaron Stanski — That’s true.

Rich Birch — …preschool space or whatever, right? They’re like, it’s a great room, but like, we’re not, we’re not meeting in there. Um, you know, ah how do you think about that?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Or if there’s some kind of interesting ways around that?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Well, I mean, if you if you design a space for all things, it’ll be really boring, right? I mean, it should be a gray room with like big storage closets and stuff.

Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.

Aaron Stanski — So at some point, we do have to pick who is going to win, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Aaron Stanski — Are are the fluffy bunnies gonna win or is the men’s group gonna win? And so what I’d say is, you know, for spaces that we know are going to be multi-purpose, we’re gonna we’re going to take some intentional design choices and we’re gonna kind of put those in and throughout.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Aaron Stanski — So we’re still gonna have the accent colors, we’re still gonna have those sorts of things. But if we have enough storage, then we can move a lot of those kids things out of the way and sort of reset that room. If we have the right technology in the room, that can play a big role. And so, you know, trying to identify those spaces that we want to be ah used a lot more multi-purpose and adding some things to of them ah goes a long way in helping that.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — But I’d I’d say you have to pick a winner.

Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. That’s good advice. Yeah

Aaron Stanski — Like you have to pick like on Sundays, like we want this to knock it out of the park for a mom who’s dropping off her second grader.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — Well, then let’s let’s knock it out of the park and ah you know, the men’s group, we’ll figure it out. We’re good.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That’s even good kind of practical advice around like, hey, we’re you might it might think like you can get or make everybody happy, but that just isn’t going to happen.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Like, it’s just not going to take place. And so, you know, let’s let’s pick one. There is no, you know, it’s like there’s no one room to rule them all. This is the ideal room that will be, you know, that’s just not going to happen. So let’s start with, OK, what’s the primary use and and how do we go from there

Rich Birch — You know, when i’ve when you’ve been talking today, it’s got me thinking about it. I know you have a solution where you’ll come actually on site at a church and help us think through these issues. I know there’s leaders that are listening in today, and I didn’t tell you this ahead of time, so but if you could tell me about that Needs Analysis.

Aaron Stanski — Sure.

Rich Birch — What is that? Because I feel like this is one of those things. We’ve raised a bunch of questions. I’m thinking about our kid space, and I’m a little bit overwhelmed, but i’d I’d love to get your team’s help. What does that look like?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. So most churches that reach out to Risepointe, I mean like they’re just not sure. Like ah should we do we have to demo out all of the kids space? Do we need to build new kids space? Like is our kids space even big enough? You know, they have lots of questions. And so most churches, yeah I mean they bring us on site to do a Needs Analysis. And that’s where we’re taking a look at your entire facility. We meet with you know your team for an entire day. We walk through some really fun exercises about who you are as a church and your DNA and what it’s like to do ministry, specifically where God has put your church.

Aaron Stanski — Um, and then we, yeah, we take a look at the entire facility. We draw it all up in, uh, in our AutoCAD program. And, and we sort of come back to you and say, Hey, based on what you told us and the trends that we’re seeing and and how other churches are using their space, here here’s a list of things that you would have to do in order to align your facility to your mission and vision that God’s given your church.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Aaron Stanski — And so, yeah, that might be, Hey, we think you need a ah light renovation of your kid’s space. And so we we’ve done all the math and all the square footage. And so here’s what it would cost to do that. And it might be, hey, you need to you know fix some things on the exterior to help people understand where the entrance is. Or ah you know you know might think about moving some things around.

Aaron Stanski — We did this recently ah with a church and um they were out of kid space. Kids was packed. And I mean, packed.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And the auditorium was about 60% full. So they still had some room there.

Rich Birch — Oh, interesting.

Aaron Stanski — But they were trying to figure it out. And so we did the whole Needs Analysis with them. It was a great day. Got to meet their entire staff. And then I met with the pastor at the end. And I said, hey, man, I don’t i don’t know how tied you are ah to junior highers meeting on Sunday morning. But they also meet on Wednesday nights and they have a space that’s really it was a great size space.

Aaron Stanski — And I’m like, for a season, if you ask those junior highers to either sit with their parents in church or even better, volunteer in kids ministry on a Sunday morning, ah you would free up that space for fourth and fifth graders. And then if you moved the rest of your kids around. And so we did the math. They’re running ah they’re running three services on a weekend. They could add 500 people in attendance at their church…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Aaron Stanski — …by simply making that shift and moving those things around.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Aaron Stanski — Now, I’m not sure like that’s that’s what they want to do or if that’s what’s best for their church or their programming. But the Needs Analysis is meant to evaluate all of those types of things and say, man, are we using our space the best we can? And is there anything we should do ah to help it improve?

Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. That I love that. Like that, what a great example. And you know, this is the part of what I love about you, Aaron, and your team is it’s like. You could have easily said, you well, you need to build a whole new thing. And like, here’s all that stuff.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And like, it’s going to cost you a gajillion dollars. Uh, but you’re like, Hey, before that…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …what if we did this? Um, this might be an interesting, uh, middle stuff. I love that. You can obviously reach out to, uh, Risepointe. We’ll put a link in the show, show notes there. You also have a, um, a tool that you’re going to hand out to people. We’re going to link to it here.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Talk to us about the, uh, The Risepointe Collection 25. Tell me about this.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, ah ah we like to release The Risepointe Collection. This year it’s version 25. This is really just kind of what are some interior design trends that we’re seeing? What are some really hot colors and palettes? What are some of the carpets and finishes that we’re seeing that we’re really loving? How are they being applied? What are some example pictures and stuff of some churches that have applied some of these things? ah We really just kind of see it as ah as a fun resource for churches to kind of pick it up and say, hey, ah we were thinking about repainting something. ah What are some of the hot colors or what are some of the things that Risepointe’s recommending?

Aaron Stanski — So we’re gonna be ah we’re releasing that. It’s actually already already completed here. It’ll be up on our website right down at the bottom. But if you’re interested in that, yeah, go to our website. It’s risepointe.com – risepointe with an e. Scroll down to the bottom and you’ll find The Risepointe Collection, Version 25. Just click that. We’ll email that. It’s a big PDF, but we’ll email that over to you. It might be something fun for you just to kind of check out and see what see what we’re recommending and what’s what’s coming.

Rich Birch — That’s so cool. What a great tool for folks, you know, as you’re, as you’re thinking about, you know, these kinds of changes in the, in the coming year. I just love that. That’s, that’s so fantastic. Oh, Aaron, I I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I got a couple of pages of notes here, stuff to think about in in kids ministry area in areas, which I really appreciate. So is there anything else you want to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?

Aaron Stanski — No, I just say, I mean, you know ah you know, kids are the future of the church, right? And so like loving on our kids and loving on our families, and knowing that, I mean, there’s a lot of crap they’re dealing with out in the world and with schools and all of that stuff. If we can welcome them in and resource our parents and love on them and teach them about Jesus, I mean, that’s gotta be at the top of the list for why we, like why we got into ministry, right?

Rich Birch — So true.

Aaron Stanski — And so I mean, the environment plays a small role in all of that. And I i know that. But if that’s something that we can help you with, like if that’s something that we can, I mean, just give you a fresh idea on, would love to do that. So if we can help out in any way, reach out to Risepointe, um and we’ll we’ll figure it out.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. You know, and and the thing many church leaders they do, if they do renovations like this or this kind of project, they do like one in their entire career or maybe two…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …like that’s the, you know, the where you guys do this all day long, you know, you really should bring in ah the folks at Risepointe to help you think through this. So I can’t, I heartily endorse Aaron and his team. You really should, ah you know, talk with them. Again, we’ll have the link in the show notes, but you can also just search Risepointe with an E and find them online. Thanks so much for being here, sir. Thank you for for being on the show.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich.