Purchase & Renovate Hilltop School
Located at 175th & S. Mur-Len
Proceed with Phase 1 of Church Construction
Blessings and salutations from Harrison Design Architects. At the invitation of Fr. Farrar, we are happy to prepare a short weekly piece on Catholic Sacred Architecture, its origins, principles, great works, history, and importance for the liturgy. This week, we would like to introduce our team, which has been working diligently on the future campus for St. John Paull II Parish. As you may note, most of our team graduated from the University of Notre Dame’s traditional architecture program. This education forms the basis for our understanding of the grand history of western architecture, and we hope that this series of brief lessons will in turn impart the wonder and joy that traditional architecture gives us.
Principal, Studio Director
Nic received his calling to Architecture during a study abroad trip to Italy. A visit to the 16th-century San Giorgio Maggiore basilica sparked an interest in the work of Andrea Palladio, and the Classical tradition of which he was exemplary. In the exquisitely refined palaces and churches of the Renaissance, Nic saw that classical architecture was deeply beautiful, in its forms and proportions as well as the nobility of its principles, and he resolved to pursue design and the building arts. After an internship with an architecture firm, Nic attended the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, and attained his Master of Architecture in 2009. Nic joined Harrison Design in 2015 as Director of the Sacred Architecture Studio in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. He has overseen all phases of design for a diverse group of projects, ranging from intricately detailed interior renovation projects to large-scale ecclesiastical and institutional projects. Nic is married and the father of six children.
John Parker first dreamed of building churches while sitting in the gardens of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College, his Alma Mater. While earning his Master of Architecture from the University of Notre Dame, he enjoyed designing churches in a variety of styles as a means to more fully understanding the deep symbolic meaning and rich history of sacred spaces of the Church. An additional year, earning him a Master of Urban Design, led to a richer understanding of the entirety of the human environemnt and its interaction with creation as a whole. At Harrison Design, he has assisted with several renovation projects, including the design of wood and marble liturgical furnishings, as well as schematic design and construction administration of several new builds.
While studying in Rome and Florence, Joshua first encountered the most exemplary sacred architecture of the Catholic Church, which instilled in him a desire to serve the Church directly through architecture. For his Master’s thesis at California Baptist University, Joshua choose a Catholic parish design project. After intensive study of Catholic architectural tradition and theology, he defended his thesis and won the ICAA Julia Morgan Award for Excellence in Classical Design. Following graduation Joshua spent half a year on a missionary pilgrimage with the Catholic Community of the Beatitudes, living at monasteries and traveling across Israel to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. He has architectural experience in California and Washington D.C. across a wide variety of building types from commercial and educational to higher-ed and sacred.
Michael fell in love with church architecture while visiting churches both home and abroad during his high school years. His degrees of architecture and theology from the University of Notre Dame gave him both the tools of architectural design and understanding the profound sacramentality of the built environment. His student design work and renderings have garnered him an Acanthus Award and a John Russell Pope Award from the Institute of Classical Art and Architecture. Michael has enjoyed working on all types of religious projects, seeking to create transcendent spaces that use the material world to point to the immaterial. At Harrison Design, he has assisted with schematic design for both renovations and new construction, as well as the design of liturgical furnishings.
Natalie’s interest in architecture began at the University of Notre Dame, where her eyes were opened to the power of architecture to affect and uplift people. She graduated from Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Architecture with a concentration in furniture design, which allowed her to develop her design skills at the urban and architectural scale alongside the detail scale with her design and construction of wood furniture. Her education culminated in her thesis design of a pilgrimage church, which was awarded an ICAA Acanthus Award. After graduation, she came to Harrison Design, where she has assisted with a variety of church projects in different phases, which has allowed her to continue to follow her passion for sacred architecture.
God called us to this newly formed Catholic Parish in Southern Johnson County in September of 2016. Many of us were at that first Mass at Madison Place Elementary. We put up chairs, set our humble altar and celebrated Mass. We looked around at our new fellow parishioners, and we knew we had a journey ahead of us. Father Andrew Stobl was our first pastor. In December of that year, we had our new name: Saint John Paul ll Catholic Parish. We were called, not to have more, but to be more. We began forming ministries to serve, faith groups to learn our faith more deeply and other forms of fellowship. It was beautiful.
At our inception, we were given land to build our church campus, and in 2019 it was discerned that we would begin the process of making our church campus a reality. Before building, we had parish town hall meetings where parishioners gathered and shared their wants and needs and our Open Wide the Doors to Christ capital campaign began. Father Andrew Strobl consecrated our parish campaign efforts to Our Lady in June 2019. We had a preliminary master plan drawn up, and the process began. Our plans were to build the elementary school with worship space. Then came COVID. Building plans were paused because of the uncertainty. Our parish was forced out of our worship space at Madison Place Elementary, and we were forced to worship via the internet! Fortunately, after several months, we were able to begin in-person worship in the parish hall of Divine Mercy in Gardner, Kansas. In October, 2020, Fr. Andrew went on sabbatical, and Fr. John Riley became our interim pastor.
In an effort to have our own to worship space, we pivoted to building a parish hall on our property to save money and expedite the process. We attempted to continue the capital campaign, but it became obvious the timing and circumstances were not right to proceed.
Fr. Brandon Farrar was assigned as pastor in July 2021. Under his leadership, we rented and transformed a 15,000 sf building into a temporary worship space with offices, classrooms and a social hall. We moved into the building in October 2021.
Shortly after we began Masses in the new location, we had Archbishop Joseph Naumann celebrate with us. He referred to us as a pilgrim church. He was absolutely right! Pilgrims can be defined as a community who travels to a holy place as a religious act. That certainly describes our journey at St. JPll!
Because of the efforts of approximately 175 parish families, we currently have nearly $6 million dollars designated to building. Under Fr. Farrar’s continued leadership, and God’s divine intervention, we are embarking in a new and different direction. Because of the generosity of a parish family, we will have a much better piece of land and location. The Archbishop is allowing us to sell our former property and add the proceeds to our capital campaign. As a parish, we have decided to begin our project with a portion of our school and a portion of our church as the first phase. As our parish increases in size over the years, both buildings will be designed to be expanded to meet the needs of our growing community. We are beginning again our capital campaign in the fall of 2023 to fulfill our mission of spreading the gospel to to those in and around southern Johnson County!
We are all called to be more. To be the “more” that God calls us to be, we have to give our “yes”. In a society that tells us: "just say no", the faithful are called to follow the example of our Mother Mary who gave her “yes” which changed the world. You are invited to join us in saying “yes” and work to build a parish that will serve the faithful for generations to come. And so our journey continues!
-Dan and Helen Biller, Captial Campaign Chairs
Stay tuned, exciting things are happening...
JPII Leadership Team
JP II Building Committee