So you’re a pastor — or a church building committee member, or a guy in the pews interested in church architecture and art. It’s time to renovate your church, or even build a new one. Where to go for good help?

With ongoing input from sacred arts leaders in Oregon, a Georgetown University liturgical think-tank has created a website to help Catholics facing the daunting task of re-doing a church building.

Each year, liturgists say, 150 new Catholic church buildings are constructed in the U.S. There are five to 10 times that many Catholic church renovations annually.

Jesuit Father Larry Madden, 74, opened the Georgetown Center for Liturgy 26 years ago, in response to requests from church leaders for organizations to help dioceses and parishes implement the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The center, though affiliated with the university, is hosted by the nearby Jesuit parish.

“We wanted to be a pastorally-oriented liturgy center,” Father Madden, an expert on the sacrament of marriage, told a group gathered in Portland last week to review the website. For years, the center has hosted large workshops on liturgy. At times, as many as 500 participants came.

Recently, when a popular liturgical magazine published elsewhere sputtered, Father Madden considered starting a new journal. But the idea rose of going onto the web, a cheaper option with fewer limitations on space. For more than a year, center staffers and Georgetown computer technicians worked on the site. EnVisionChurch.org went live four months ago.

“With the web, there is a chance to build a big community so you can go someplace to contact all sorts of folks,” Father Madden says.

In just four months of operation, EnVisionChurch.org has virtually convened more than 1,300 people interested in liturgy, spirituality, sacred art and architecture.

The website, which is accessed free of charge, includes a list of artists, architects and crafters who do everything from design entire churches to finishing pews and building tabernacles, chalices or crucifixes.

“What we have been trying to do here in Oregon since 1957 is have local artisans to do as much of the church work as possible because we want to get rid of the mass-produced ugly stuff,” says Father John Domin, an artist and Archdiocese of Portland priest who lauds the website’s potential.

Professionals who offer services and products in church construction or renovation, religious artwork or worship space design can buy space to appear on the site. Some are invited to write articles or offer images of samples. Sponsors can also get space.

The site includes links to other liturgical art pages.

On the EnVisionChurch.org now is a collection of images by Father Domin and other artists. Georgetown has just offered to upgrade servers so thousands of images can be archived in cyberspace galleries for the long term.

One of the site’s special emphases is helping parish staff and committees learn to build green, employing ecologically sound materials and design.

Father Madden dreams of other uses for the website. He’d like to post liturgical manuals for parishes that could help with concrete ideas and outlines for various kinds of liturgy, like a rosary service, for example.

To let parishes know about the new site, the Georgetown center sent 17,000 post cards all over the U.S. Meeting with Father Madden in Portland last week were board members from the Sanctuary for Sacred Arts, an Oregon group that is heir to the Sacred Arts Commission, launched by Archbishop Edward Howard 50 years ago to promote worthy art and architecture in churches. These are people who welcomed the Second Vatican Council and abide by the notion of full and active participation by the laity in liturgy. They are troubled by those who would overly reform the reform.

“We’re trying to keep the flame alive,” says Dave Richen, a board member and an architect who has designed parishes and monastery buildings in Oregon.

The Sanctuary for Sacred Arts is seeking a home for art and books, much of which has come from the collections of local clergy.

The prophetic voice behind the Sanctuary is 84-year-old Father Domin, one of the original members of the Sacred Arts Commission. The priest recalls the days after Vatican II as a “green time,” full of freshness and hope. While some have sought too much to “revise the revision,” he contends, the Holy Spirit has continued to speak to the church, particularly the laity. He thinks the church can pass through the current polarity and says tools like the new website can help.