About us
Neighbours is owned & registered by Leap Architects. Leap Architects are an Oxfordshire-based practice, specialising in Church and community buildings. They are passionate to equip the Church in fulfilling the needs of their community, to help advance the gospel and help others – showing the love that God has given to us. They are an architect practice who would like to fulfil a Church potential, whether through a building project or just helping them discover what gaps they need to fill in their community. By building the relationships with the community, you never know what impact the Church can have on peoples’ lives and what conversations could be sparked. Our ultimate aim is to spread the gospel and draw people towards Jesus, through Neighbours we believe that this can be made more possible.
To find out more about Leap Architects click here
"We must meet the needs of the needy in our communities. The hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, prisoners, the sick and the poor are our responsibilities as believers. It has been encouraging to see the Church increase its social outreach in recent times, but there is much room for improvement and more Churches need to be involved. The poor and marginalised are on the heart of God and they must be on our hearts too. They cannot be ignored, and must not be forgotten.”
Rouse the Warriors, Steve Uppal
We believe this wholly, the Church must help the community as God has called us to do – Neighbours can help direct where the community needs most help and then can be most beneficial. I’ve heard plenty of Churches saying that they would like to help their communities through cafes, CAP centres etc… These are all great ideas and I'm glad that the Church has a heart for the community, but I believe we need to look beneath the surface and see what the community needs, where it can be most beneficial in coming alongside their neighbours. We need to ask the question of what the community needs really are to be able to help people best.
Neighbours and building projects
Neighbours not only helps Churches to build greater relations with their community, showing them what God is calling them to do in their community – it can also help Churches with their building projects as it can help shape their project brief and the way that the building is designed and runs. Furthermore, this can then help in the future when churches apply for grants and other funding channels as it can show that they are meeting community needs.
I first became aware of the value of really good community consultation from a project in High Wycombe, where a Church had spent 5 years canvasing the local community through an extensive community programme. The results were fascinating. I saw the value in seeking out to the community and being active in abiding to their needs; but 5 years is too long. Neighbours finds the local needs in months rather than years!
Although neighbours can be a powerful tool to any Church wanting to build deeper relations with their neighbours and help make a difference. As architects, we believe that this programme can also be vital in helping a Church create a project brief, and helping the Church make decisions about the way they want it structured. I realised that if a Church wants to make a big difference in the community through their building, then they need to seek the answers of what the community needs and wants to design their building to allocate those needs. The needs of the community can totally change the nature of the building, the way it is set out and the design brief for the Church construction. In order to cater to the community needs, the building must adhere to them and be a facility where those needs may be met. For example, it could be that a new café is wanted, in that case a café could be designed into the new building. Furthermore, if a community space is wanted then a bigger room can be designed into the construction. It is handy to know what the Church mission is and what needs of the community the Church wants to help with before designing the building, so that the Church can help their neighbours in the greatest way possible.