An inside look at what and who makes Elmbrook Church go

Article and video by Alan Hamari | Photos and slide show by C.T. Kruger

Posted: Apr. 9, 2009

Elmbrook Church is big.

Really, really big.

Sure, passersby can get a sense of the size of the non-denominational church driving by it on Barker Road in the town of Brookfield - after all, the building is a quarter of the size of the Brookfield Square shopping center and sits on 40 acres of land south of Davidson Road.

But inside, the enormity is inescapable - first-time visitors literally need a map to find their way around.

It's not just the 3,000-seat sanctuary that makes Elmbrook seem big, either. It's the book store and resource library, each open seven days a week to church members and non-members alike. It's the full-service print shop and the video production studio. It's room after room filled with day care classes and the smell of fresh-brewed coffee wafting from the in-house café.

A church this size needs a budget and a staff to match, and Elmbrook is powered by nearly 150 full-time equivalent employees, an army of volunteers and an annual budget approaching $11 million, 2 1/2 times that of the town in which it is located.

So what does it take to run Elmbrook for a week? Follow along and find out.

Monday

While Sunday is a day for Elmbrook's pastors to preach and inspire, the focus shifts to more secular things on Monday.

Mark Heckman, the church's director of operations, oversees the church's finance, facilities, human resources and information technology departments.

"It's the stuff we don't let the pastors get near," he said.

On Mondays, Heckman holds a staff meeting with Elmbrook's facilities manager, IT manager, finance director and human resources representative. There, he hears about donations from the previous weekend, upcoming facilities issues, payroll and staffing concerns and pretty much everything else regarding the church's operations.

Heckman ultimately is the one responsible for coordinating the efforts of the church's employees and thousands of volunteers.

Elmbrook's 2008 operating budget was $10.6 million - all of it donated - but the church still has made a concerted effort to attract more volunteers in recent years, Heckman said. Heckman couldn't give an exact figure but said the number of volunteers that keep the church running in a given week is "hundreds and hundreds."

Tuesday

Elmbrook Facilities Manager Chuck Weathers is responsible for the church building and 39 acres surrounding it. If that sounds like a big job, it is. Weathers and his employees take care of cleaning, maintenance, security, snow and ice removal, painting and pretty much everything else that needs to be done to keep Elmbrook running.

"Our building is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 at night, and there's always something going on," Weathers said.

The church has its own maintenance and facilities crew, including painters, electricians, carpenters and plumbers, and Weathers estimated his staff does more than 90 percent of repairs in-house.

"Very seldom do we have to call in an outside vendor unless it's a major remodeling project," he said.

Weathers said having on-site staff who are able to do most of the work saves Elmbrook a lot of money - that's important in a facility with a $300,000 annual utilities bill.

Wednesday

Elmbrook's Mission Café provides a pick-me-up to churchgoers five days a week. The coffee shop, a converted former classroom, sells everything from coffee to blended drinks to baked goods.

The coffee shop is usually closed on Thursdays and Fridays and is staffed by two part-time employees and 25 to 30 volunteers, each of whom are required to work one shift a week. All the proceeds from the café go to the church's Harvest Fund, which supports a variety of missions and organizations.

Kelly Andaloro, who splits her time between managing the Mission Café and Elmbrook's women's ministry, said the purpose of the coffee shop is to provide people with a place to connect and to inform them about Elmbrook's local and international missions via displays and videos that play on the televisions inside the cafe.

"We're not just serving coffee," she said.

The café has some set hours - Monday mornings, all day Tuesday, Wednesday mornings and before and after services on Saturday and Sunday - but can open up for special events, Andaloro said.

"Anytime there's more than a couple hundred people in the building, we try to open it up," she said.

Thursday

As the first weekend service approaches, the worship team - under the direction of worship coordinator Jan Keddie - gets a chance to see how things are shaping up during an evening rehearsal.

Elmbrook's weekend services rotate between four worship teams, each with a different musical style. The Thursday night rehearsal gives Keddie and her staff a chance to look at the service's musical elements, which can range from full rhythm sections to acoustic guitars.

"There's just a very wide range of musical style, and we vary it within a service," Keddie said.

The pastors aren't involved in the Thursday rehearsal, but Keddie said if the service includes a testimony or a special talk by someone not used to speaking to a large group, they have the opportunity to rehearse in the sanctuary.

Friday

Ron West is a busy man.

West manages the church's print shop and is responsible for all outgoing mail. That means printing up and addressing pamphlets, newsletters and other items to the thousands of Elmbrook members and the 57 other churches and nonprofit groups around the country that have their materials printed at Elmbrook.

West is the print shop's only full-time employee, and he relies on 25 volunteers to get everything done. Without them, he said, he would have to hire at least two more full-time workers.

"They do just about everything," he said.

The print shop can make everything from business cards and booklets to large-format items like banners.

"Anything that can be done, we try to do it in-house," he said.

West said helping other churches and nonprofit groups - most are in Wisconsin but some are as far away as Maryland - with their printing and mailing needs can save money for those organizations.

"We try to make that affordable to them," he said.

Saturday and Sunday

It's showtime.

After a week of preparation, the worship team runs through one last rehearsal, a full service with music, prayers and video elements, at 3:30 p.m. and says a short prayer before the service starts at 5 p.m. Saturday.

A legion of volunteers, including greeters, ushers and parking lot attendants, shows up at 4 p.m. to guide the Elmbrook members who will show up during the next hour, since the Saturday service usually attracts about 1,200 people.

By 6:15 p.m., it's all done, and crews are getting things ready for the next morning. Keddie said the service is usually pretty well put together by that point, but some minor tweaks can still be made - leaving a verse out of a song, for instance - before Sunday.

"Usually we try to make our adjustments on Thursday night," Keddie said.

The doors open at 5:30 a.m. Sunday, 2 1/2 hours before the first service. Facilities crews clean the lobby, bathrooms and other common areas, and another battalion of volunteers arrives to guide members through the parking lot and into the building.

The 8 a.m. service brings in 500 to 900 people, the smallest crowd of the weekend. But Keddie said the 8 a.m. service has a large radio audience, which Elmbrook records in-house and streams online on the church's Web site and broadcasts live on WISN 1130 AM.

The big crowds are at the 9:30 and 11 a.m. Sunday services, ranging anywhere from 2,200 to about 2,700 people. Moving more than 2,000 people around the parking lot and into the sanctuary in the 25 minutes between each of the three services takes a well-organized group, and that doesn't just apply to the parking lot attendants and ushers, either.

"The fact is that we have three services back to back on Sunday mornings, so we can't decide to run 10 minutes long (in the service)," Keddie said. "When you have three services in a row, you have to get people in and out."

Keddie said even with the scheduling and the rehearsals, the services operate with a sense of "planned spontaneity," allowing a little flexibility to the worship team.

"We always say God kind of works in spite of us," she said with a laugh.

A moment to rest

When the final Sunday service finishes and the last worshipper leaves the sanctuary, things slow down a little, giving the volunteers and full-time staff members a chance to relax a little - but they can't rest for too long.

After all, they've got four more services next weekend.

Alan Hamari can be reached at (262) 446-6601.

At a Glance

*Full-time equivalent support staff, not including Elmbrook's 23 pastoral staff and 115 missionaries

**Combination of full- and part-time (town has about 30 full-time employees); numbers are from 2006