ABSTRACT
In Chapter 7 we saw that the Celebratory church is dominated by the architecture and the need to create and maintain a holy or sacred space. The Protestant Reformation did away with virtually all the symbolism and the need for a sacred space. Instead of a sacred space designed to be a home for the Mystery of the Eucharist, the Evangelical church is a gathering place for people to hear preaching, a proclamation center. In the Evangelical church the architect, acoustician, and sound system designer will have considerably more latitude in tailoring the acoustics and sound systems to the needs of the people. A cursory examination of the order of a typical evangelical style service outlined in Chapter 8 will reveal that there are actually three types of activities that should be considered in the design of the acoustics and sound systems in Evangelical churches. There is the spoken word from the pulpit to the congregation, there is congregational singing, and there is performance music generally originating on stage and heard by the congregation. Only one of these design goals has a specific objective standard. It is possible, within limits of course, to predict at the design stage the intelligibility or the ability to understand the spoken word in a space with a specific sound system. The other two design goals are not generally specified directly. There are no terms to describe, for example, the “sing-ability” of a room. Unfortunately it is as if there were orthogonal vectors pulling the design in mutually exclusive directions. If the sanctuary is optimized for any of the three, the others will suffer. This is what is challenging about the acoustics of the church, especially the Evangelical church. Performance spaces can be optimized for a particular activity. Opera houses can be acoustically optimum for opera, theaters for theater, etc. Evangelical churches are multi-use rooms, and the acoustical and electro-acoustical designs will always be a compromise.
