In this age of rising real estate costs and aging church facilities, questions about and concern for buildings often gets in the way of ministry. I am not an anti-building person - I just know that too often these days, the building becomes the tail that wags the dog. Add in the likelihood that the average American adult Christian these days will have lower income and higher debt load than their parents. It all means that churches must do a serious rethink about our relationship to physical facilities.
Some churches with a cathedral ministry model may be able to solicit a considerable endowment to help future generations maintain an expensive building. Other churches have a high enough commitment to their ministry vision that they can tolerate nearly unending capital campaigns to address building issues. But few thriving churches in this century will be wed to an endowed building (i.e. sacred cow) nor will they choose to sacrifice to build arena facilities (that will soon be more than half empty as neighborhood demographics shift).
In my work a few years back with Cornerstone Church in Markham, Ontario, I discovered a young congregation that wanted to build a community center facility. Because of Toronto area land and construction prices, it took them three successive capital campaigns to make their community center building a reality. That cost them a decade of very intensive work. I know few churches that would be up to this challenge. But the folks at Cornerstone knew that, even though their ministry vision included a building, that they could not wait a decade to be the church God was calling them to be. So for years, their mantra was to be the center that we intend to build. To start the ministries, and use the whole neighborhood as an assortment of ministry venues. The church that I met in a middle school auditorium with fewer than 150 worshipers a decade earlier became the church where I preached to 800 on opening day in their new facility. That growth happened because, even in the long pursuit to build, they remembered that ministry is non-negotiable, with or without home-ownership.
The Cornerstone story came up in one of my coaching calls this past month. A church in the Midwest bought land 12 years ago, in order to relocate to a larger and more modern facility. Their community was growing and they wanted to respond with a bigger building. Arguably their small aging building has worked as a factor in preventing church growth, even as their town exploded with new people. Lately, the people reiterated their commitment to build on the new land - but the costs have sky-rocketed faster than they could save money. This conundrum conspires to keep them stuck, and (if not addressed) will discourage any positive momentum, causing the church's growth opportunity to slip away beyond reach.
I said to the pastor, "The Great Commission is not predicated on our ability to build a facility." The fundamental question there, beyond the desire for a better building is this: "Are we called to reach new people in our community?" And if so, we must then do whatever it takes to reach them, now. This year. We must choose to be the church that we wish to house (eventually) in that new building. We must take action now to begin growing ministry in the neighborhoods around our piece of land. By growing a church in that place, without the building, we increase the chances that we will be able to afford the cost of construction. Further, the building we build will be smaller than what we might wish - meaning that it cannot contain all our ministry. It will serve simply as a home base for ministries that happen in homes and public places all over the area.
Is your church (or for you judicatory leaders - one of your churches) being constrained in its ministry by a fixation on building? God's call precedes building, and outlasts old buildings. God's call carries us beyond building (into the neighborhood). Great churches thrive, with and without buildings. Seek first the Kingdom of God... and all these (many) things will be added to you - including places to gather.
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