Churchgoers flock to All Nations Church opening

After years of planning and preparation, many parishioners with Sudbury's All Nations Church were turned away from the parking lot at the state-of-the-art new building on St. Raphael Street because it had filled up 20 minutes before the first service got underway.

But that didn't stop throngs of devoted churchgoers from parking their cars on nearby side streets and walking to the top of the scenic hill the church now calls its permanent home.

Since 1999, All Nations Church used Laurentian University's Fraser Auditorium for its Sunday morning service, but that was always meant to be a temporary solution.

In 2004 church leaders, lead by Pastor Jeremy Mahood, started to discuss plans to build a new, long-lasting and sustainable home for the church.

After researching different types of buildings, they decided the church should be a monolithic dome.

“We had heard stories about large churches in southern Ontario that are unable to open for smaller events because they can't afford the heating or air conditioning costs,” Mahood said.

But a large dome would prove to be at least 50 per cent more energy efficient than the next best building. When it is heated in the winter the warm air stays inside, and when it is cooled in the summer it stays cool without relying too heavily on air conditioning.

Construction on the $4.5-million project started in 2008. The plan was to raise the necessary funds through a charitable capital campaign, supported primarily by the church's 900 parishioners, and the 3,000 people in Greater Sudbury who associate with All Nations Church in some way.

Mahood said he was overly optimistic at the start, and expected the unique building to be completed in a year.

It was so unique, in fact, that All Nations Church had to initially rely on an American company, called Dome Shell, to build the dome. There were no builders in Ontario at the time who had any experience with monolithic domes.

But as with most ambitious projects, the finish line extended, and the building was not completed until 2016.

In that time the church was able to raise most of the necessary funds through its capital campaign, and received a final push to finish the project thanks to a loan from the Northern Credit Union.

To churchgoers used to more traditional places of worship, the new All Nations Church is as alien as such a building can get.

Mahood said that was a very deliberate decision.

“What I believe about religion is that they’ve got a truth, but they’re packaging it in an outdated modality,” he said. “It's designed so it doesn't remind you of church.”
That philosophy extends beyond the church's architecture.

When you step inside the building you're greeted by a room that resembles a modern hotel lobby, complete with comfortable sofa chairs, and access to a variety of refreshments one would find at a trendy café.

The auditorium itself has more than 500 seats, imported from Colombia, that are more closely related to those in a performing arts centre than a church pew.

A state-of-the-art lighting system ensures Mahood is always well lit when giving a sermon, and a number of large high definition screens can project him above, or help him illustrate a story with some visual aids.

“It's so cutting-edge we have some pieces of equipment that don't have manuals,” he said.

The auditorium is also equipped with three cameras – two robotic and one used by a camera operator – which allows the church to broadcast a live stream on its website.

Those live streams are later archived, and can be watched at any time. While the church did live streams at the Fraser Auditorium, the new set-up allows them to be more sophisticated.

Between March 2014 and March 2015 Mahood said the archived sermons had more than 11,000 downloads.

“It's people choosing when they want to watch the event we're presenting,” he said. “We recognize that our fastest growing audience probably won't be in a seat on Sunday.”

As people already do with on-demand television, and streaming services like Netflix, more parishioners are also choosing to take in church services on their own time.

Mahood said he expects the new building to last for generations, and made sure it was built to stay current with how people express their faith.