Around thirty-five people showed up. If it was for your birthday party, there would be cause for celebration. If it was the number that showed up for a home Bible study, you might be elated. In reality, it was the attendance for a Sunday morning worship service at a church that can seat over 1000 in their sanctuary. I learned that factoid from a friend that had been attending services there for a while in the late 1970′s. I remember thinking at the time what a shame to have such a small crowd in such a big building. It has to be depressing to many of those church members. That discovery and my reaction took place around thirty years ago.
Fast forward to 2008. I asked another friend who was in the know what the current situation was at that church after I had related the story from three decades earlier. He said that not much had changed. That’s when it becomes more than just an unfortunate situation.
What we have here is a stewardship issue. That particular church had its heyday many decades ago and probably filled the sanctuary and used that building constantly during the week. It is in a very affluent neighborhood and has an endowment that will allow it to operate for the indefinite future. The building is a beautiful, huge stone structure that was probably built at least 100 years ago.
Within a ten-minute drive of my home there are about a dozen churches that are meeting in schools, office buildings and shopping centers….one is meeting at a funeral home. (I would guess the salvation message carries some clout there.) Several of them are getting well over 100 people attending on a weekly basis and continue to grow. Most are looking for a more permanent home since any arrangement that’s not on your own property is subject to change. Several are not sure how long they’ll be able to remain where they are. These churches range in age from newly formed in the past year or so to well over a decade. Property is hard to come by with all the zoning, financial and other issues. They could move further out and find a place, but that could be many miles away and would remove them from most of the people they serve.
In some cases, even churches that have their own property are outgrowing their current facility and need to find more space. They often don’t have any room to add on and even buying up property around them is a very slow process. You can’t claim eminent domain if you’re a church. You have to wait until it becomes available.
I believe one of the greatest acts of stewardship that the body of Christ could execute would also be one of the greatest witnesses to the unchurched world. Trade places! If all of the churches with huge facilities that have merely a remnant of their former membership would trade places with growing churches in desparate need of more room, we would be honoring God in ways that would echo for generations.
Will it ever happen? In some cases, no way unless God makes his presence known in an unmistakeable fashion. Generations of tradition in a building are powerful. On the other hand, I recently witnessed the merger of two churches. One had the nice building with a diminished congregation. The other was only a few years old, renting space and growing fast. Like any marriage I’m sure they hit the occasional pothole, but they are making it work.
Whether it’s trading spaces, merging, sharing facilities or some other arrangement, let’s be the body of Christ when it comes to our facilities. I don’t claim to know what any particular church should do, but they all need to be challenged to pray and seek God’s face as to how they exercise stewardship regarding the material resources with which God has blessed them.
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