Our Mission
Michael Boreskie Architect Inc. is dedicated to the development of environments that:
- deeply engage and reflect the inner lives of their owners;
- are symbolically rich;
- are technically sound;
- are on time and on budget.
Our goal is to assist your congregation to achieve spaces that so closely respond to the movement of the Spirit in your midst – to your values, spirituality, vision and mission - that, upon entering the church, the members of your congregation are drawn to say:
“We are Home!”
Values, mission, vision, will, creativity, spirit, feelings, experience, hopes and the capacity for participation are qualitative realities that shape the quantitative dimensions of a project. Our firm stresses highly collaborative, consultative, and inclusive approaches that integrate the qualitative and quantitative elements of design.
We use words and gestures, both in worship and in our social interactions, to communicate ideas and meaning. Through them we connect with each other and build relationships with those around us in Jesus. So too, buildings communicate ideas and meaning, foster our connection with others, and can be a significant support in the creation of loving relationships.
Our firm’s design philosophy begins with the recognition that God has created each of us as a unique individual. Our personality and gifts are unlike those of anyone else, and the contribution that we are able to make to the building-up of the Kingdom of God is uniquely our own in all of Creation.
We are not, however, isolated individuals; we are God’s people, gathered together in congregations. Congregations share an honour similar to individuals: each congregation is entirely unique, an assemblage of persons that will never again be duplicated throughout all time. As such, each congregation has the capacity to say something entirely distinct about the love of God, to embody faith, hope and charity in its actions and in its built-environment in a manner that no other congregation is able to enunciate.
Congregations that face a new or renewal building project are, therefore, given a marvelous share in God’s creativity - the chance to give flesh to the Spirit through bricks and mortar. In order for this to occur, we believe the members of the congregation must be invited to actively participate in the design process.
The congregation’s building can be an embodiment of that special “word” that it alone can speak. We have found that the most constructive method of achieving this result is to ensure that the congregation’s sense of the Spirit moving in its midst is used to guide the way the project’s quantitative factors are formed and shaped. That is, the form of the building, its’ symbolic message, and the feelings it engenders are guided by the congregation’s sense of the unique call being made to it by Jesus Christ. In our experience, successful design projects have four main components:
1. Prayer
Good process begins with and is continuously grounded in prayer.
2. Education
The provision of education sessions for the members of the congregation, addressing contemporary theology, liturgical/worship practices, and historical and contemporary design of churches.
3. Dialogue and Discernment
The congregation responds to three categories of questions:
- “Who are we in God?”
- “What do we agree to do together in order to live out our life in God?”
- “What physical environment do we need to support how we are and what we agree to do together?”
4. Action
- The conversion of the congregation’s discernment into an appropriate design;
- fundraising;
- construction of the project;
- the congregation moves into its new home.
We offer Many Values – Many Voices: The Who, What, Where, When Process for Church Building Projects as a guide to our clients.