COMPASS CHRISTIAN CHURCH: Expanding with intention + focusing on continuity
Whether built in from the beginning or added during renovation, two-story lobbies with glass walls, as well as modern flooring and finishes, are some of the cohesive visual elements evident in all three Compass Christian campuses.
When Compass Christian Church first engaged Goff Companies in 2013, the immediate challenge was obvious: the church was running out of room.
At the time, the Colleyville, Texas-based church was already experiencing rapid growth. The original campus occupied three corners of a major intersection, while a growing campus in Roanoke was meeting in a school. But the real challenge wasn’ t simply adding square footage. It was determining how to grow intentionally— not just for the next building project, but for the next decade. That forward-looking mindset ultimately shaped every expansion decision that followed. What began with a Strategic Assessment for Facility Expansion( SAFE) evolved into a multi-campus roadmap that still guides Compass Christian today: start humbly, invest in the right facility in the right neighborhood, and build future growth into the plan from the beginning. More than a decade later, that strategy has produced a thriving network of campuses across the Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex, including a North Fort Worth( NFW) location now approaching the attendance of the original campus. More importantly, leaders say the process created something many fast-growing churches struggle to maintain: continuity.
Building beyond the immediate need According to Maureen Hilt, now Associate Pastor at the NFW campus, Compass Christian’ s leadership team recognized early that outside guidance would be critical.“ At the time, the church was definitely starting to take off with growth,” she recalls.“ We were at 80 % capacity, so that metric kept coming up.” Leadership began visiting other churches and exploring future possibilities.“ Goff Companies’ name kept coming up,” Hilt says.“ They were really good on putting a vision together for us. It was something that [ Lead ] Pastor Drew [ Sherman ] liked right away.” The SAFE process established the master-planning framework Compass Christian still uses today. That long-range approach became especially important as the church transitioned its Roanoke campus from portable to permanent.
Lessons learned in Roanoke The Roanoke campus began meeting in a school as a portable congregation. Once land was purchased and a permanent facility was built, growth accelerated quickly. The original 500-seat worship room filled almost immediately. Rather than expanding the physical footprint, the church adapted by maximizing the space it already had.
Colleyville campus
“ The Roanoke campus hasn’ t expanded any square footage at all,” explains North Fort Worth Campus Pastor Nate Grella.“ It has just changed the layout of their building.” Lobby space became classrooms, kids ministry areas were reconfigured, and additional weekend services were added. Today, the campus operates four weekend services within the same footprint originally constructed. But the experience also revealed several key lessons about church design.“ In terms of lobby space, Roanoke honestly doesn’ t have enough of it,” Grella says. Parking and entrance flow also created challenges.“ Where Roanoke put their parking lot in relation to their building was problematic,” he explains.“ It only really has one entrance that actually gets used.” Children’ s ministry security became another major consideration.“ One of the things the Roanoke campus didn’ t think through originally was security and lockdown,” Grella says. Those lessons would directly shape Compass Christian’ s next major project.
Designing for future growth By the time planning began for the NFW campus, church leaders knew they needed to think differently. Instead of building for current attendance, they decided to build for future growth. Grella— who had previous church construction experience before joining Compass Christian— intentionally gathered feedback from the Roanoke team.“ I sat with the staff at Roanoke who helped build that facility and just asked a lot of questions,” he says.“‘ What do you like? What do you not like about this? What would you change?’” The result was a dramatically larger campus. While Roanoke totaled roughly 20,000 square feet, North Fort Worth came in at nearly 50,000.“ We built for phase two in phase one,” Grella explains.
16 CHURCH EXECUTIVE | MAY 2026