Owensboro—A pint-sized Spiderman clambered up a rock wall at Bellevue Baptist Church in Owensboro one recent Wednesday night. His friends zipped through a curved tube or piloted a helicopter.

While their parents went to choir practice or English classes, the children were burning some energy on a multi-level, indoor playground rivaling anything a fast-food restaurant could offer.

“It’s a ‘wow’ factor,” said Greg Faulls, the pastor of Bellevue Baptist, which recently moved into a 70,000-square-foot building that will seat about 1,000 people in worship and is expected to cost nearly $12 million. “It also tells families we care about kids.”

The playground will make children eager to come to church and “it just communicates we’re a church that wants to minister to families,” Faulls noted.

The glassed-in play area is strategically located in the new building, overlooking busy Kentucky Highway 56 west of Owensboro.

“Any time we have children in the building, we’ll be using it,” said Susan Fenwick, the church’s children’s director.

Such indoor play facilities are a growing trend at churches in larger cities across the state, observers said.

Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown installed one when that church relocated in early 2007. Like Bellevue, the congregation was trying to telegraph a message to the community about its interest in families.

“We wanted to be very visible with the children’s ministry, to make it an exciting, interesting place,” said Billy Compton, Severns Valley’s former pastor who now is executive associate for Cooperative Program and resources at the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

“It’s becoming more and more common,” explained Donald Ball, an architect at L&F Design Build in Louisville, which serves as a consulting firm for the convention.

“We’re working on a project now where we’re putting in two indoor play areas,” one designed for toddlers and one for elementary-age children, plus an outdoor playground at Valley View Church in Louisville. “Some churches say we want to draw kids to get the parents,” Ball said. “I’m old school. I say we want to get to the kids to get to the kids.”

“We are seeing more and more churches really defining their vision,” noted Bill White, director of L&F’s Kentucky Baptist church division. “Instead of being a mile wide and one inch deep, they’re becoming much more focused on their ministries.”

The indoor play areas, Ball pointed out, offer better security for children. The equipment can be used in all kinds of weather and youngsters do not get their church clothes dirty while playing. “Of course, the kids need some outside time also (but) this gives (the churches) a lot of versatility.”

While not the case with Bellevue, many congregations that are installing the indoor playground equipment also run week-day childcare centers, consultants said.

Of course, a mid-range play set can add $20,000 to a project’s costs. “I guess every church has to weigh these cost issues,” Ball said. One congregation he knows contacted a local fast-food franchise when that restaurant was remodeling and removing its play area. The business donated the equipment to the church, he noted.

At Severns Valley, many members of the 226-year-old congregation are senior citizens, but as grandparents and great-grandparents they realize the potential impact despite the play area’s $100,000 price tag, Compton noted.

“We reached new young-adult families with it,” although its difficult to say exactly how many, he explained. “It was a symbol: This church values ministry to families and children.”