Dear BPCWA worshipper, Although you may not see or have heard much about the church extension project recently, it does not mean that nothing has been happening. In fact, for more than a quarter of the year, demanding and detailed work in the background has been keeping the church extension committee members intensely busy. During this time, the committee has looked into and commented on literally a few hundred details while poring over the architectural drawings assigned to them. And we have had to go through all of them to decide what are critical to highlight to the architect for changes. I thank God for their commitment in doing due diligence for the church.  In this pastoral, I feel it is important to inform worshippers of a particular aspect and development concerning the acoustics of the new sanctuary. I hope that worshippers, both young and old, will be interested and not ignore this pastoral. It is important that you realize how the Lord continues to lead us as we pray.  We must be interested in the affairs of the Lord for His kingdom’s work to progress. Moreover, documenting such records in the pastoral also helps the future generation to know what occurred years before their time.

Prayer and providence. We must give thanks for how God has constantly and wonderfully answered our personal prayers and our weekly church prayer meeting supplications for this project. A particularly recent reminder of this is regarding the acoustic planning for the new sanctuary. When approving our drawings, Melville Council’s main concern was the amount of sound which will escape from our church into the public space surrounding us. But whether internal acoustics met recommended standards was not their concern. In reviewing the drawings and specifications of the hall design, we also want to be very sure that reverberations will be optimal. Reverberation happens when sound waves reflect within the hall, resulting in a prolonged sound. This is not an easy task, especially when looking into a yet-to-be-built building. We do not want so much absorption that singing sounds very dull, muted, and “dead”; but yet not so much liveliness that speech from the pulpit sounds like a noise from a tin can, making it uncomfortable for the ears of the hearers and affecting their concentration. In order to do this, we had to spend some money to engage an acoustic consultant. However, even doing this did not come easy. The challenges to start with was getting quotes and finding a reliable company in these uncertain times. The quotes we received ranged from very expensive to suspiciously cheap ones, and they all had widely varying scopes of work. We thank God for answering prayers and leading us to eventually engage a consultant after evaluating the quotes received. And what we must particularly give glory to God for is that He providentially helped us discover, through the acoustic reports in the consultant’s studies, that there was a need to look further into the hall design if we wanted the internal acoustics to meet recommended standards. If we had not carried out this acoustic study originally intended for internal reverberations, we would not have found out until it was built that the sound intrusion into the new hall from Canning Highway would be at a level exceeding the recommended standards. This would have had adverse implications for our worship and the learning of God’s Word. We truly thank God for how He led us to uncover this aspect before we opened it up for tenders!

Human responsibilities. Among the key priorities set forth for the extension is that it should be conducive to aiding in the worship of God and the learning of His Word. This must be of the highest importance and is the guiding principle for all our decisions. When faced with choices, whether they be for practicality or costs, this key priority will be non-negotiable, as compared to other factors, in decision-making.  So as to save us money in engaging an acoustic consultant, the architect had designed the building based on his past experiences which were sufficient under most circumstances. However, we decided that it was necessary to pay for a scientific study for our new worship hall which will be just next to Canning Highway (which is the only feasible location for our extension). We wanted to be sure that a proper study was conducted scientifically, rather than simply using experience to ensure that we meet our key criteria. You may have noticed, at one point, that there was some equipment outside the church along Canning Highway, and a stranger sitting in at our prayer meeting one night with equipment. He was from the acoustic company and his report stated that, based on the architect’s drawing details, our new hall’s internal acoustics will not meet Australian recommended standards.

Rationale for decisions. According to the acoustic consultant, some changes to the internal construction and materials must be made to the roof design to meet the standards. And these changes could be to the tune of a hundred thousand dollars from our initial estimation! The next key decision was – how much of the consultant’s suggested redesign work should we adopt or turn down, while yet still meeting our key criteria of maintaining a conducive environment for worship and study? The redesign also meant delaying the tender, not to mention a cost increase from the budget. But since the hall will be directly next to Canning Highway, we had to take the report seriously. There are reasons why Australia sets internal acoustic standards, though they are not deemed to be compulsory factors for building design approvals.  So, to be able to make informed choices, some committee members had to study this topic of acoustics themselves to understand the very comprehensive acoustic report. We communicated with the architect to get his revised quotations for the potential roof redesign.  An urgent Session meeting was convened to decide on whether to go ahead.  The decision was to go ahead with the roof redesign. The rationale was mainly that if we did not do so now, it would either be nigh impossible or too cost prohibitive to reconstruct the internal and external roofing if the sound intrusion from Canning Highway was unacceptable after the building was completed. Moreover, in doing so now, we are also paying for better roof insulation for the future, which will also help with buffering the noise from the rain.

Continued responsibilities. We pray weekly for the church extension project in our church prayer meetings. We have often given thanks for how God has answered in such marvellous ways. This is yet one, among many other prayers, answered by God when the church prays. In this case, God directed us towards making changes for something which we otherwise would have been ignorant of. Please continue to include the church extension project and the committee in your personal and family prayers every week now as we will soon enter the critical tender phase. 

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;” (Eph 6:18)

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor