(Before I go any further down the road of deconstructing the need for church buildings, I’d like to share some reasons they are beneficial. Because they can be very useful for the practice of ministry.)
10. Consistent worship space that is designed for worship, and that doesn't require set-up and break-down time each week. It doesn't take many weeks of pushing furniture around a rented space to start wishing for permanent pews.
9. Permanent signage and free advertising space for your church and all its programs. Got a special service coming up? A brief message to share? Or just want an easy way to remind your community that you exist? This requires consistent money and effort when you don't have the convenience of your own church sign.
8. Office space. This isn’t really appreciated until the pastor and church employees have to work out of their homes on an ongoing basis. Children, pets, the dirty dishes. They are all distractions. A healthy balance between work time and off time is much easier to achieve when you have a physical place to go to each day.
7. Space for classes, meetings, counseling sessions, youth activities, etc. Again, not usually appreciated until you don’t have it. Meeting in private homes is wonderful in its own way, but gets to be a burden after a while. And most clergy spouses don't want a whiteboard installed in their living room.
6. Storage space. Once again, not appreciated until you don’t have it. I can't recall how many times we have said, "That would be a great thing to get, but where will we put it?"
5. Sense of legitimacy. As much as we might say, "The church is the people, not the building" - the culture in general still doesn't think you're a "real church" until you have erected an edifice. Many people won’t visit a church until it has a building of its own.
4. Random encounters and conversations. Many of the best ministry moments happen when someone just “drops by the church,” or you happen to meet them while they are at the building for another reason. This doesn’t happen when there is no building.
3. Ability to host community events. It’s much more difficult to host an interfaith service or a community forum when it involves finding rental space and conforming to someone else’s regulations.
2. Ability to develop outreach ministries. Churches without buildings are able to start food pantries or grief sharing groups. But it’s a lot more convenient when you’ve got your own space that you can schedule as you please, and that you make the rules for.
1. The default setting. Ministry by nature is unpredictable and chaotic. A consistent location that is “yours” provides a sense of stability and grounding that goes a long way in giving a congregation an identity. Having "a place of our own" provides confidence for a group of disciples seeking to do the difficult work of being God’s people.
As the pastor of a new church that doesn’t have a building, I sometimes find myself driving by other churches and feeling some pangs of jealousy. There are many challenges to doing ministry in a “homeless” church context. But in the end, I feel that moving beyond our buildings is ultimately the only way we will reach the emerging culture of the 21st century
(In the next installment of “Building Up The Kingdom, or Just Building?” we will begin to look at the Biblical concept of place, and what we can learn from the struggle of the Israelites during their 40-year period of being "homeless.")
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