Photos from the Presbyterian Church in Barrington IL, ...the original WoRM church.
Photos were copied from slides taken in the early 90's. Captions by Neil MacQueen
Our Sunday School Workshops transformed the dimly lit, windowless church basement into an explosion of color and fun stuff.
The "Art" workshop was originally PLURAL. The signs were made out of cloth and felt "quilted" together then handpainted --a volunteer's particular talent.
The theater seats that launched a thousand "Theater" Workshops.
But notice that the original concept was more than 'video'.
It was "A-V" as evidenced by our sign below.
The A-V sign is another one of the paint on fabric creations of a church artist.
(Empty Tomb) Plastic ficus trees are the Drama Workshops secret :-)
The Barrington Church's WoRM was built in the church basement. We had no windows, and thus needed to make our space inviting. Luckily, we had a college student who was a great muralist.
This foundation wall which used to be covered with mildew until the Trustees fixed it. Being a small room, we made the mural 3-D. The Temple motif of our Bible Skills and Games Workshop inspired countless Rotation churches to build Temple/Synagogue and other such Bible-themed spaces. This wall is in the room I tell the story about the day I found two teachers literally flipping a coin to see who "had to make it their classroom" that year because it was so ugly and smelled bad.
This is the Bible Skills and Games Workshop (aka "Temple School") taken with my back to the Temple mural. Notice the cloth on the ceiling which inspired many to go whole-hog with "Tent" workshops.
This is the first computer ever put in a Rotation Sunday School,
a brand new 386SX with 4 megabtyes of RAM !!
Very early on in the computer lab movement, we were grouping around computers and leaving space between them for the teacher.
Our utility workshop was often a "Map" or "Mission" room was often used for large art projects or dramas.
The little girl in the photo is Shelley, Neil's now grown daughter.
The "Gates of Heaven" mural was created to fill in a dark unused end of a hallway. This is the end of the hallway I often mentioned in Rotation-founding stories that we discovered kids were afraid to go near (before we relit and painted the mural).
Love the exit sign and fire alarm by the gates of heaven.
The other side of the large central hallway mural showing Peter, Paul, and John Calvin. Over Calvin's shoulder is the Barrington church on a hill.
