Based on our experience, our building committee has come to believe that church renovation projects are among the most challenging of building projects. It was very important to have Michael’s highly developed process in order to guide the parish along the paths that it had to follow to achieve success as measured by overall parishioner support of the project.
Robert Wrubleski, Building Committee Chair, St. Luke’s Parish, Calgary, AB
Desiring to relocate our church to a new campus on 40 acres, we were lost as to the process and critical thinking our leadership needed to go through in order to analytically and systemically design the kind of campus our church needed both immediately and in the future. Michael's gift of being able to challenge the thinking of our leadership team was invaluable. He held workshops for both our administrative teams and staff as well as our church body. He was able to bring together the entire church in a cohesive manner steering us in a unified direction. He walked us through surveys, personality profiles, systems thinking and the ability to bring about creative thinking resulting in deductive reasoning and outcome. He helped us reason through conceptual design and forced us to ask the "why" questions throughout. I would recommend Michael's expertise to any congregation and believe his gifts and outside-of-the-box thinking helped us to develop a very functional and expandable facility.
Tim Gates, Senior Pastor, Dodge City Church of the Nazarene (1994-1997)
Our pride of ownership stems from the conviction that we, as a representative committee of the parish community, were able to define a building that expresses our faith, our uniqueness and the needs of our community. Michael’s process has helped our parish at large in a discernment process with regard to our identity, our needs, our values and our vision as a growing Christian community. The various experiences of discussion, discernment and planning have been most beneficial for our parish. We have come to see “building” as a process and feel that the time spent at the beginning of the project was an investment that proved very cost-effective. It was a very enriching and positive experience.
Fr. Paul Campeau, Parish Administrator, Parish of St. Timothy, St. Boniface, MB
The town hall meetings with our congregation led us to consensus in a democratic way of who we are, where we wish to go and the type of design we wish to develop. In this process the congregation’s opinions were recognized, listened to and incorporated where appropriate. Without hesitancy we would highly recommend Michael Boreskie’s process to other congregations.
Marvin Borgfjord, Building Committee Chair, Dauphin Pentecostal Church, Dauphin, MB
Michael Boreskie’s process is unique. It provides a clear guide from schematic design through working drawings, tendering and construction.
Andrjez Wodkiewicz, Project Coordinator, Property Department, The Salvation Army Territorial Headquarters, Toronto, ON
Michael Boreskie’s process pulled together our congregation’s wide variety of opinions into coherent design criteria and objectives.
R. Christian Poate, Building Committee Chair, St. James Anglican Church, Keewatin, ON
The various approaches and experience of discussion, discernment and planning enabled us to realize who we were as a Christian military community and where we wanted to go and what we wanted to achieve by the building of a new shared chapel.
P. A. Monpas, Major, Wing Chaplain, Shared Chapel Committee Chairperson, CFB Trenton, Astra, ON
Michael made us think about things we would not have thought of on our own. We were thinking of bricks and mortar, and he invited us to step back and look at ourselves as a community, our character, our aspirations.
He made us see that our building must somehow reflect and enhance the values we hold dear in this particular parish, at this point in time.
A real learning experience.
Building Committee Members, St. Bernard Parish, Little Current, ON
We were struggling to come to terms with our history, our values and the need to tie our future plans for programs and activities together with our physical facilities. The idea of the town hall meetings to get member involvement, participation and ownership in this decision process was excellent. The open format encouraged discussion and creative expression.
Robert Matthes, President of the Parish, Grace Lutheran Church, Winnipeg, MB
Your process of making the journey more than just building a building, by leading us through self evaluation to determine our values as a congregation and by leading us through our use of the building, was invaluable in guiding us from conception to the completed project. The steps that were particularly valuable were:
The development and listing of our values through the Parish Town Hall Meeting. It was these values that we used as the footprint for all the decisions we made when deciding on the renovation and the inclusion, exclusion or design of different components. The consultative process of developing a plan with the Renovation Architectural Committee with emphasis on how the plan met our values. A key part of the process was the evaluation of our existing building and our use of it. It was this part of the process that determined that the space being occupied by the stage in the gym could be put to better use. This led to all the pieces of the final plan falling into place. Without this step we would not have arrived at the final design.
Garth Fallis, Chair, Renovation Architectural Committee, Westworth United Church, Winnipeg, MB
The essential part of helping a congregation move into the future and make good choices is planning. As a parish we are in a need of an objective - a home. Taking the planning steps in finding this home is key to successful implementation and involvement of the whole parish. Michael was very strong in bolstering our process, answering questions, guiding our quest. The facilitation included readings of scripture and texts putting into the right perspective our work as a large team and helping to manage tensions when present. This step was a great success, a unique experience.
Jean-Marc Legentil, Co-Chair, La Paroisse Catholique St-Joachim de
Pointe-Claire, Montréal, Québec
Enclosed please find the promised honorarium for your recent address at Godspace, the symposium on church architecture in Hamilton, ON. I regret that it is such a small token of the huge appreciation we all feel.
As I remarked on the last day, your electric address was not only the highlight of the conference for many, but also a turning point in the way our Standing Committee thinks and will tend to think. We cannot thank you sufficiently for leading us all into new awareness and vision. We are on the point of renewing several members of the Architectural Resource Group. I don’t suppose we could lure you over from the jurisdiction you call home?
We thank you for your ecumenical sensibilities and grace in such a forum. I hope we can count on you for some leadership and support in the near future, as our symposia march forward!
Fred Kimball Graham, Worship Officer, The Mission and Service Fund, The United Church of Canada, Toronto, ON
On behalf of the National Council for Liturgy and the Episcopal Commission for Liturgy I wish to thank you most sincerely for taking time from your mini-vacation to share your insights regarding the building of good worship space. Despite the fact that not all of us are “into process”, everyone appreciated the process through which you led us.
I personally found your presentation helpful in light of the concerns I brought to the meeting. I believe others had the same experience. It is good to know there is someone in Canada who is not only qualified but committed to the development of liturgical awareness in parish communities and the building of appropriate structures for the Roman Catholic liturgy.
We would be grateful if you keep in touch with us, letting us know about your work and any new resources you develop to help parishes building committees.
Reverend Murray J. Kroetsch, Director, National Liturgical Office, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Ottawa, ON