Roanoke campus
The auditorium was designed with future stadium seating already accounted for structurally, while curtain walls can eventually be opened to expand capacity further. Growth has happened so quickly that the church is already using folding chairs in spaces originally reserved for future seating, with plans underway to add approximately 450 permanent seats. The campus also incorporated more intentional circulation, parking flow, gathering space, and children’ s ministry design.“ To me, that begins in the parking lot and extends until you leave,” Grella says of the guest experience. The building placement was carefully studied to improve traffic flow and distribute guests across multiple entrances.“ We wanted the best chance of flow for traffic into all the doors and not one singular door,” he explains. Inside, the goal was to create a space that felt warm and welcoming.“ We wanted it to feel warm, inviting— not necessarily a church atmosphere, but a home,” Grella says. Large glass walls, intentional lighting, warm finishes, and carefully planned production systems all contributed to that environment. Compass Christian also approached children’ s ministry differently at NFW. Rather than building heavily themed environments that might quickly feel dated, the church focused on timeless branding elements.“ We did shapes, patterns, and colors that I think are fun, vibrant and welcoming,” Grella says. Hilt agrees.“ I don’ t think these elements have dated themselves,” she says.“ It feels very fresh and clean, and we get comments all the time about how inviting and warm it feels.”
Renovating the original campus After delivering both campuses, Compass Christian turned its attention back to the original Colleyville campus. Unlike Roanoke and North Fort Worth, Colleyville was a 20-plus-yearold facility that had evolved incrementally over time. Prior to renovation, Hilt says, the campus lacked gathering space altogether.“ People just came in and then left,” she recalls.“ There was no place to visit. There was no lobby. It was a bunch of hallways, literally.” Feedback from the congregation made the solution clear.“ Our people kept coming back with,‘ I wish we had a place to visit. I wish we had a place for a lobby,’” Hilt says. Today, that space is known as the Family Room.“ For Pastor Drew, it was really, really important to have a place where people could actually come and stay,” she explains. The renovation touched nearly every area of the facility except the worship center itself. Circulation improved, children’ s ministry spaces were modernized, a dedicated online-campus production area was added, and exterior branding elements were refreshed. Perhaps most impressively, all of it happened while the church remained fully operational.“ In a word: communication,” Hilt says. Hilt describes weekly meetings, detailed timelines, contingency planning, and constant coordination between church leadership and the construction team.
“ When we had to shift— if we needed to stop using this door because we were taking a wall down nearby— Goff [ Companies ] was ready with plan A, plan B,” she says.
Three campuses, one identity As the Colleyville renovation unfolded, Compass Christian also faced another challenge common among growing multisite churches: creating a cohesive identity across campuses. The original Colleyville campus consisted largely of“ big, boxy buildings,” Grella notes. It couldn’ t simply be rebuilt to match the newer campuses. Instead, the design team focused on carrying over recognizable architectural and visual elements. Two-story glass walls were added to the newly expanded lobby. Exterior metal trellises mirrored features used at Roanoke and NFW. Updated flooring and finishes brought the older building visually closer to the newer campuses. Children’ s ministry branding became one of the most significant unifying elements. Before the redesign, each campus largely operated independently in how those spaces looked and felt.“ We really didn’ t have a brand before for our kids’ spaces across the campuses,” Grella says. Those environments were eventually replaced with a unified Compass Kids identity built around modern graphics, vinyl wall treatments, coordinated flooring, and consistent playground elements.
NFW campus
“ That continuity translated to the playgrounds,” Grella says.“ Everything from the color of the slides to the playground structure materials was all branded around Compass Kids.” The result: families moving between campuses immediately recognized they were part of the same church.
The value of continuity + looking ahead Compass Christian leaders point to continuity as one of the biggest factors behind the church’ s expansion strategy. While many churches experience turnover during long-term building initiatives, Compass Christian maintained consistent leadership throughout multiple projects. Hilt has served at the church for nearly three decades, while Grella has remained closely involved in the design and operational planning of several campuses. That consistency allowed lessons from one project to inform the next.“ Everything we do with our buildings is scalable,” Grella says. That philosophy now shapes future campuses throughout the rapidly growing Dallas – Fort Worth region, including the church’ s mobile Mid- Cities campus. While future permanent campuses may look different, the core principles— flexible expansion, cohesive branding, operational efficiency, and guest-centered environments— remain unchanged. For Compass Christian, buildings are simply tools that support the mission to“ navigate people to God,” Grella says. Future campuses will likely continue beginning as portable locations, while leaders balance strategic expansion with debt reduction and long-term stewardship. Ultimately, the church’ s growth strategy centers on creating a repeatable model designed to anticipate growth rather than react to it.
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