Crucially, of course, this meant securing the funds— as well as the staff and volunteers— to make it happen. And those are three things only the church family can provide. And so they did. Including land donations( of a few neighboring properties that parishioners owned) and hard costs and soft costs, the project budget came in at $ 7 million. Additionally, the church family gave donations for liturgical furnishings such as candlesticks, wall hangings, millwork, pews, and even a digital organ. Every step of the way, Davis notes, the HH Architects team walked with the church.“ Obviously, they’ re architects and we paid them well for their services— but they really became mission partners in a way,” Davis says.“ They understood why we needed to grow and what we were being called to do with the new building. That really made all the difference.”
safety features— sprinklers, fire exits, that kind of thing— we did our best to create a church that’ s a larger reflection of the church we were already worshiping in.” Here again, Davis praises HH Architects for being able to blend modern construction elements with modern budget considerations and still achieve the desired traditional-looking architecture.“ If money was no object, then we’ d build a big, Gothic cathedral, right?” Davis says.“ But that’ s not the reality. In some places, we needed to use drywall instead of brick and stone. The millwork around the altar is different from what we have in the old church, but it’ s stylistically very similar.” The list goes on, but the theme is the same throughout the project: the new church— successfully— pulls design cues from the English Gothic vocabulary of the old church.
Crucial: congregational involvement in design, funding Davis and his team went to great lengths to ensure everyone who would ultimately worship in the new space had stylistic input on it.“ Our goal from the beginning was to involve as much of the church as we could in the appropriate aspects of design,” he acknowledges.“ The best way to do that was with a series of surveys, focus groups and fireside chats— not a committee of 100 people arguing about paint colors.” Indeed, the first( and perhaps most crucial) question they asked the church family was: Do you agree that we need a new church building? It wasn’ t a loaded or rhetorical question; the building team made sure of that.“ Yes, we talked with them about the need for additional worship space in order to grow,” Davis points out.“ But we also talked about not growing just for growth’ s sake.” The message: growth needed to be driven by mission— not ego.“ We weren’ t growing just because we wanted to be a bigger church. We were growing— naturally— because more people were being led to Christ, specifically in the Episcopal tradition, than we could accommodate,” he explains.“ So, if we wanted to have the capacity to be the church we felt called to be— with room for seekers, newcomers and new converts— then we had to grow.”
Ministry, multiplied With the completion of the new building, St. David’ s began almost immediately to reap benefits— specifically, in the form of enhanced, expanded ministry capabilities. One of the first gatherings in the new church was the funeral of a much-loved church member and community figure.“ When someone like him passes away, people like to pay their respects. They want to come and comfort the family. It’ s an important part of what we, as a church, do as a part of a wider community,” Davis says.“ Having the larger space available to accommodate that gathering made a difference in how we could minister to a grieving widow, her family, and a grieving community. It was a very, very full church that day and a very meaningful celebration of life.” Additionally, moving Sunday services to the new church opens up the original church-turned-chapel space for other gatherings. For example, St. David’ s now conducts a well-attended daily mass. Beyond this, church meetings, Bible studies, midweek services and special sermons are all happening regularly in the chapel.“ When we have guest preachers on Sundays, they usually do a little talk in there between services,” Davis says.“ I don’ t think we fully appreciated how useful that space would be.”
Connected by what matters Although the two churches at St. David’ s are their own individual structures, the sidewalk between them is where the separation ends. They’ re connected in more important ways: visually, of course— with cohesive design— but above all, with a shared vision for the church St. David’ s is today and will be tomorrow.
QUICK FACTS ABOUT ST. DAVID OF WALES EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Year established: 1951 Locations: 1 Staff— full- and part-time: 2 / 6 Average attendance: 210 2026 budget: $ 591,000
12 CHURCH EXECUTIVE | JAN / FEB 2026