Since opening its doors in 1997, The Fathers House church in Vacaville, CA has experienced tremendous growth. It describes itself as one church with three locations—it has satellite facilities in Napa and East Bay—but Vacaville is the heart of its operations. And that heart just got bigger. A recent expansion allows the church to better serve the current congregation and sets the table for future growth. The utilization of glass storefront-style bifold doors from Schweiss Doors figured not only into the goals for the present but also those ahead.
“Our church set out on a journey to see a new facility built in Vacaville that would enable us to minister to thousands more in our community as well as people from all over the globe who connect to the ministries of our church. We set out on our three-year financial campaign to see this vision to come to pass,” noted Lead Pastor Dave Patterson.
Vacaville is a city of 92,000 people. About 5,000 of them attend services at The Fathers House. Services at the three locations require 450 volunteers each weekend. With the move into a new, larger Worship Center, the church will be holding three services instead of one and expects to grow the congregation by 1,000-2,000 people over the next 12 months.
In addition to stadium-style seating, one of the neat features in the new 1,900-seat worship center is a 17’ 1” x 15’ Schweiss liftstrap bifold glass designer door. The door is equipped with electric photo eye sensors. It was ordered through Industrial Door Company of West Sacramento, California and recommended by Visioneering Studios architectural firm of Irvine, California. The building contractor was Overaa Construction of Richmond, California.
“I’ve been involved with the construction project from day one. The bifold door is an impressive door, no doubt about it. The cool thing is its storefront look that ties the building together. It looks heavy-duty. We are big on creating space for people to hang out, not just come to church and go home but to enjoy each other while they are here and to bring their friends and family. This door assists us and allows us to do that even better. The use of the door will help line us up on how people use our facilities, that is a big thing,” expressed Executive Pastor Mark Sligar.
“The door is off of our lobby and the design of the door is to extend our lobby outside to a huge patio area that will have unbrellas, tables, chairs, firepits — it’s a big gathering area for our people.” added Sligar. “The second purpose is when we build our fourth building, across from where the door is, that building will have an outside amphitheatre, bookstore and up above will be administrative offices. There will be a lot of movement of people between the two buildings. It will be a huge new experience for people. Our new auditorium was where we put the Schweiss door. The auditorium is a 30,000 sq. ft. main building where we hold church services Saturday nights and two Sunday services.”
Jerry Fields, owner of Industrial Door Company, said they contacted Schweiss Doors after learning of the project from the general contractor. He said the architect dictated what door to use and decided on Schweiss after considering another specification from another door company.
“The installation went very well with no problems,” noted Fields. “We did separate the control panels to make it more aesthetically pleasing. We believe they are very happy with the door and we will absolutely recommend Schweiss Doors to others.”