I think my intitial hesitation about the whole building thing came when the church building craze started my last year of high school. My church decided we need to add a $2.5 million addition on to our building. I didn’t realize we were outgrowing the original building in the first place, and now they wanted to add on. And in adding on they wanted it to look really nice, which is understandable since the current building looked quite nice. But I thought to myself $2.5 million is a whole lot of money, and it just doesn’t seem necessary.
Little did I know over the next few years practically every church I went to was doing a building campaign. Some of them really needed it, others I wasn’t so sure. We attended one church for a while and then they started a building campaign for a second building and they where putting an indoor waterfall in it. That was it, I was gone.
Then at some point I started thinking… Why the heck do we need a building anyways? I mean we all live somewhere, why don’t we meet in our homes? It seemed to me that’s mostly what the early church did. I mean, it’s true we couldn’t all pack in to hear the really good preachers, but since when is that what it’s all about? Some would say that’s what small groups are for, to meet in smaller communities in our homes and stuff (I’ll address this later).
I’m not saying church buildings don’t have a purpose, I’ve just started questioning if they are really necessary at all. I mean is it feasible to do the things we do in a church building in our homes instead? And what about bigger events? Is it possible to do those in a place other than our own building?
One of my main concerns about the building is that seems to be all we spend our money on, or talk about spending our money on. The main time you hear about making tithing pledges in most churches it seems is usually related to a building campaign. And then the church goes into debt to purchase the new building before they even have all the money.
That was just a rant of sorts, I really should fine tune it a bit, but there it is raw
I’d be interested to hear how many who read this blog HAVE NOT had the church they attend go through a similar process. I bet they would be few?? Maybe??
You do have a point (and $2.5 million definitely seems a bit excessive), but I wonder about unchurched people. I’d be willing to bet a lot of them would be much more willing to walk through the front doors of a gorgeous megachurch than to walk into someone’s home where everyone is going to turn and stare. Some people like that environment (including myself – my home church is ~75 people) but lots of people (especially non-Christians) would find that very uncomfortable. A church near me just spent $250,000 on a huge statue of Jesus being crucified and a reflecting pool beneath it. I initially rolled my eyes and thought that I was glad it wasn’t my money they were wasting, but it’s on the interstate and every time I drive by I can’t help but look at it. Recently I’ve found myself wanting to check out the church, and I am very happy in my home church. Imagine those who don’t have a church or are new or non-Christians! Necessary? Probably not. Beneficial? I’d argue yes…
Oh, and Mindy – I’d be willing to bet that you are very right. I think that we do place too much of an emphasis on satisfying human desires for the biggest, nicest, best, most unique, etc. and not nearly enough on the Godliest
Brian,
Great stuff, I’ll respond to it in my next church post. Definitly interesting stuff.
p.s. when are you gonna finish responding to the “resist not” post?
later.
Done 🙂
Brian,
I don’t understand your:
“especially non-Christians” comment. Is that really a generalization you want to make?
Yeah it is. Obviously everyone is different, but it can be very awkward to go into a new setting like that. I went to a Catholic Bible study with some friends the other night and I was so uncomfortable when they started reciting their Hail Mary and when everyone crossed themselves after prayer. I felt like everyone was watching me and noticing that I didn’t know the words or whatever. And this was a Catholic Bible study! We believe (for the most part) the same thing! I think it would be really difficult as a non-Christian to walk into a house on Sunday morning and not know what to do, what to wear, how to act, not know the words to the songs, not be able to flip right to the passage in the Bible like everyone else, etc. In a big church there is that safety blanket of blending in. “Well, there’s a thousand other people here – probably no one’s looking at me specifically” as opposed to “OK – there’s 10 people here and 1 of them is new. Guess who everyone’s looking at?”
interesting thoughts on a building. i’m not sure how i feel about this subject. on one hand, i do think churches have gotten carried away with spending lots of money on structures. on the other hand, i feel like the building where our church meets now has been a blessing in many ways. no, we didn’t put a lot of money into building it. we rent it. is it flashy and extravagant? no. for us, it would be hard, if not impossible for our corporate group to meet in a home. we did have dinner together in a home for a while, but outgrew that space. does that mean we shouldn’t grow? i don’t know. i do think there are more opportunities that open up with a larger group. can a group become too large? i think so. why am i relieved to have a regular place to meet? for a while, we were renting a building that was unpredictable. one week we had no water. we were borrowing water from a faucet on the building next door and filling up toilets just so people could use the restrooms. the next week we had no power. for a few weeks we had no heat in the middle of winter. there was a rave party that went on there one night until 7:00 Sunday morning. we had to clean up spilled beer, tons of trash, condoms, throw-up, etc. for me the building that we utilize now offers a place for the church to meet and hopefully a place that we can open up to the community as well. we dream about having a place where bands can play and people can come to listen, a place to display art where we can invite others to join in, a place where we can have a corporate prayer experience that we can share with groups, a coffeehouse, a homeless karaoke night, a place where groups can meet outside of the sunday morning time. before, we didn’t have a place that we could use 24-7, nor a place that was large enough to host such events. i don’t want to be about a building just to have a building and be impressive. i want to have a building that can be used and used and used by different groups for different purposes to reach different people.
(sorry for the LONG reply)