When I taught grade 12 religious education classes I asked my students to reflect on what the church building expresses about our understanding of the Church with a capital "C". As Catholics, words are not the only media we have used over the centuries to express our faith. Our music, our rituals, our religious art speak volumes about what we believe. That also applies to religious architecture. Since Vatican II there have been a number of changes in the way we celebrate the eucharist and the way we set up the environment in which we do so. You may remember the uproar that erupted when statues or pews were removed from churches. Even if people did not express it in these terms, this was one of the symptoms of a collision between two different conception of what the Church (the people/institution) was meant to be and how that should be reflected in a church building. The way we build and set up churches "speaks" about our understanding of what we are/should be as Church. I believe that it is important for us as religious educators to challenge our students to thinks about such matters. Newman wrote about a "faith that seeks understanding." We need to invite our students to have such a faith.