Economical Church Buildings
 

Anybody here have any experience with modular church buildings?

What is the most economical way to build/relocate?

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Bro we are in the middle of a build but it isnt modular. we are spening about 2 to 2.3M

We are usnig metal building instead of traditional red iron.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

From what I've seen in looking now in this climate, they are considerably more expensive per square foot than renovating or converting an existing building. (at least in Houston)

There are also issues with finance charges on actual church buildings from my understanding. I will, however, be interested in the responses and insight on this thread. We are looking at location options at this time.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Building using metal buildings I can tell you will come in between $110 and $120 per sq. ft.

this is a good time to be building because people are hungry for work and bids seem to be less than a year or two ago.

This has been our experience in the Dallas area.

I dont know about renovation.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

The $110 to $120 number is about in line with what I've been getting from Metal building companies. Many of the existing properties that I've looked at in Houston run anywhere from $30 to $60 per square foot. Of course with the metal buildings you have to factor in the land, any retention or ther city issues, paving parking lots, etc....

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Sprung Structures hands down.

You can actually move the structure from one side of a property to another, they are also hurricane and earthquake rated.

Saddleback used and still uses them and I've seen several churches use them very very successfully. You can have up to 600+ people for about 1/4th of the cost in a nice neutral space you can later relocate to another foundation on the property to use as a kids area or multi-use facility.


http://www.sprung.com/en/index.php

http://www.baptiststandard.com/2001/...pupchurch.html

They are also used by the US Military and FEMA. You can have your church logo put on the sides of the structure for passing traffic.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Also the Olympic Village uses Sprung Structures.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

If you want to be truly economical, make an impact on the local community and people's spiritual lives why not do what this Vineyard pastor did with his church?

House Church and the “Pareto Principle”
Filed under: General Simple Church, Leadership — H2H @ 12:01 am
By William T “Bill” Faris, MPC
http://www.story.house2house.com/

Like me, you’ve probably never met Mr. Vilfredo Pareto but you know something about the so-called “80-20” rule that bears his name. Simply put, the “Pareto Principle” is the observation that in many systems, organizations and events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle is also sometimes known as the “law of the vital few” and has found wide application in business theory and, not surprisingly, in traditional church leadership models. For example, popular Christian leadership author John Maxwell makes the following observations of how the Pareto Principle works in traditional church life in his book, Developing the Leader Within You:

“Time—20 percent of our time produces 80 percent of the results.

Counseling—20 percent of the people take up 80 percent of our time.

Reading—20 percent of a book contains 80 percent of the content.

Donations—20 percent of the people will give 80 percent of the money.

Speech—20 percent of our presentation produces 80 percent of the impact.

Picnic—20 percent of the people will eat 80 percent of the food.”

Over the course of my own life long journey as a pastor and church leader, I became quite familiar with the Pareto Principle (Pareto Curse?) and its applications to traditional church life. I think it is fair to say that I, like most pastors, did everything possible to break the 80-20 grip on most church giving, ministry participation, decision making and organizational ownership. After all, our stated call as professional church leaders was to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry”. However, it often seemed that empowering church members to truly engage this biblical concept and live it out in the context of our church life and ministry was always more difficult than it sounded. Then a funny thing happened. Nearly two years ago, I initiated a process that eventually deconstructed our traditional Vineyard local church and reconfigured it from a traditional destination campus ministry to a house church network. Gone were such familiar features of church life as a full time staff (including me!), rented building, worship band, Sunday School and other standard church life markers. These days “Vineyard at Home” (the name of our small house church network) operates on an entirely different basis as it seeks to accomplish its mission in an entirely different environment and structure.

One of the most satisfying outcomes of this transition has been a demonstrated victory over some of the more stubborn aspects of the 80-20 principle in church life. A very recent experience will illustrate what I mean. However, in order for the story to make sense I must first explain how we operate.

In our new modality, our church operating budget has been radically slashed. Wonderfully, this means that funds that were once used to pay staff, rents, and other fixed expenses are now available for each house church to use in the accomplishment of their localized ministry and mission. Can you imagine how fun it is for me to send out an email to all our members each month which updates their budget and asks them to “please spend more money” on Kingdom stuff?

Recently, I was present as one of our house churches took a portion of their meeting time to decide how they were going to direct certain funds at their disposal. In my role as overall Network Director/Pastor, I do not tell them what to do with their resources. I only remind them of our mission to “empower everyday people to take the ministry of Jesus to everyday places” and ask that they use funds in ways that reflect that priority. It was great to be a part of the decision-making conversation that followed as parents, single adults, teens and even younger children discussed the options under consideration. Before long, the following decisions were made by the group:

1. Some of the money would go to a particular family in their house church to help them face some pressing financial challenges.

2. Some would go to a particular children’s home in the Philippines in order to bless the fifteen staff members and forty children residents at Christmas time.

3. Some would benefit the ministry of a local crisis pregnancy center by purchasing diapers and other supplies and to help with other expenses.

It was great to observe the way everyone agreed that it had to be about much more than “just sending money”. Together, the members decided the children would make cards for the individual residents and staff of the Philippine children’s home. It was also decided that several shopping trips would be put together that would enable house church members to purchase specific gifts geared specifically to each of the children overseas. In this way, a life-on-life touch would be extended from the members of our house church to those receiving the gifts overseas. From the beginning it was clear that this was no 80-20 experience. It was a “100% participation” endeavor that defied expected organizational convention.

Since shifting to a house church modality, I have witnessed other ways that the normal, organic nature of house church life defeats the Pareto Principle. During church meetings, for example, Bible-based discussions are often led by various adults in the house church fold and even a teen or two. One of our house churches has already thrown two different neighborhood fairs over the past several months. These joyful events have included games, food booths, crafts and many other activities offered freely to the neighbors – all manned, of course, by house church members of every age. The same is true of the “at home” neighborhood Christmas Eve service, the Easter gatherings and various other outreaches, meetings and events. Even the potluck meals that precede weekly worship gatherings are a result of “every member” participation.

I find that House Church life is rather fluid when compared to more traditional church modalities. House Church involves challenges and opportunities that constantly call out different gifts and modes of participation from the various members in ever-changing ways. It is my observation that, due to the “home grown” nature of house church life and ministry, there are many more roles and opportunities available to members than are typically found in the more professional, fine-tuned environment of a traditional church body. In all my considerable experience as a full-time local church pastor or assistant pastor, I have never seen such a natural fulfillment of the “every member a minister” notion of church life and ministry. And it makes sense since house churches are structured from the ground up to facilitate such total involvement as a matter of course.

I am sure that the 80-20 rule still applies to various aspects of church life – including house church life. However, my experience with Vineyard at Home has provided me with a most rewarding vision of what church life can look like when the Pareto Principle is trumped by the kind of Spirit-directed, and organically constituted “every member” ministry that arises from our life together in Christ.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR JOURNEY: www.vcmn.org

For a free book that talks about House Church please visit the following link:

http://www.simplechurchrevolution.com/download.htm

http://www.house2house.com/images/10...o_bottom1.jpg?

Mark 10:21
Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

Little is much when God is in it. Labor not for wealth and fame. For there's a crown and you can win it. If you'll go... in Jesus name.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

We are desperate for more space, but I refuse to take on a huge debt load.

We're in need of godly wisdom and a financial miracle.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

praying for you. and I agree on not taking the debt. We are blessed to have cash on hand from the sell of our prevous property.

Are you needing space for your services or for class rooms?

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Why not take 30% of your congregation and start a new work or do split replicating services or do multi-campus? All are super cheap to do and still grow the church.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

And, while I am not opposed to house churches, I am fairly confident our members want a traditional meeting place. Our church is in a rural community.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

I think the replicating services are our next step until we move. But I have always wondered how to set those up.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

I don't know a lot about these things in the states BUT I will pray for you to find God's best plan for your people.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

The big trend here in Dallas is to do Sat. Night/Sunday morning services.

I also know of a lot who do
Service
Sunday School
Service

on Sunday morning. the service is the same both times, broken up by sunday school in the middle.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

I've read several REALLY good resources on how to do it and have spent time with several churches who do it well.

Try these...

This is kinda the basic book about it

http://www.amazon.com/How-Start-New-...1085538&sr=8-2

This book is amazing and ive been to his church.. they have multiple services at once in different building on their campus, one with a gospel theme, one with a cowboy theme, one hard rock for the youth, one contempory worship in a warehouse complex. they run about 7000 and have about 80% attendance in their midweek sermon small groups.
http://www.amazon.com/Sticky-Church-...ref=pd_sim_b_7

This is how Christ the King is starting multiple campus churches with multiple services, its like the 3rd or 4th fastest growing church in the nation in rural areas that it services.

http://www.amazon.com/Deliberate-Sim...ref=pd_sim_b_3

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

One of the advantages to replicating services is that if you keep them to a reasonable time frame like 60-75 minutes you can train your folks to "Serve one and Attend one" in otherwords to do ushering, parking, nursery, kids ministry, etc in one service and then attend the other.. that way no one misses either the opportunity to serve or the opportunity to learn.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/...le_church.html

Multiple Church Services
(Filed under: Evangelism & Outreach)
Question: When should churches add another service?

Answer: When the pews are full.

Wrong.

At least according to Tim Stevens and Tony Morgan of Granger Community Church in Granger, Ind. In their Rev magazine article (adapted from their book Simply Strategic Growth) they argue for a number of ideas for drawing crowds to your church (which I've already summarized), and one of them is adding multiple services regardless of how full your church is.

Let's take a look at why...

Multiple services give churchgoers a choice. More choices means it's more likely your church will fit into their schedule. Not everybody works 9-5, Monday-Friday. Some people work Sunday mornings (gasp).
Multiple services means more opportunities to serve. If you have more opportunities and more needs, you're likely to get more volunteers. That's their logic anyway. Frankly, I think this is positive spin on a bigger issue: Multiple services are more work.
Multiple services let you be creative. God forbid anyone should mess with the Sunday morning service. But there's more freedom to experiment with an extra service and try out something new.
Multiple services maximize space. What good is empty space on Saturday night? You get the most bang for your space if you use it more than just Sunday morning.
Multipe services create unity. Well, not really, but let me explain. 800 people in one worship service aren't getting to know each other, so why insist on having your entire church meet together? Instead realize that church unity happens when members get to know one another on a deeper level, often through small groups, sports, classes, fellowship groups, etc. Multiple services force you to be intentional about creating unity in your church outside of the main services, instead of relying on that main service to do it (which it probably isn't).
Of course the downsides aren't really mentioned. More services are more work. They may eventually pay off when more members equal more volunteers, and more offerings equal more budget—but that's a pay off churches might not see right away. Multiple services also increase the importance of having all the right infrastructure in place, from staffing to branding to communication—it's more an obstacle than a downside, but not every church is prepared to offer more services.

But I still love this idea because there's less emphasis on filling every last pew. Forget about whether or not we've reached building capacity, throw open the church doors and let the people come.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

We are in incredibly desperate need for space. We have people literally parking blocks away and sitting in additional chairs in the aisles. We are actively looking at options to address this, but I agree with you about the need for Godly wisdom. We are currently debt-free and are very cautious about what kind of position we are willing to put ourselves in.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

By the way, thanks for the thread. I am already seeing a lot of interesting info and food for thought.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Heres how one of the fastest growing churches in FL is doing it, they are in my backyard and on my list to visit this upcoming month.

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/..._seven_ni.html

Church Seven Nights A Week
(Filed under: Examples)
The Church of Pembroke Pines in Pembroke Pines, Fla. has a pretty interesting strategy. You've heard of multiple services. Sometimes two on Sunday. Sometimes one on Saturday. Heck, sometimes even one on Wednesday. We've got something new and interesting for you though: Seven nights of worship at 7 p.m. That's what the Church of Pembroke Pines does. Every night has a different feel, a different aim, and a different team. It's crazy, but I think I might be sold. (link via Monday Morning Insight)

Update: The Church of Pembrook Pines is now Oasis Church, in case you're looking for it. You can also hear more about the church at Pastor Guy Melton's blog.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Saturday evening services are a big hit in our area.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

We just wait for the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night to rise up and we all hurriedly pack and follow until it stops. It's not so bad once we made the conversion from ox carts to Airstream RV's and Trailers.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Where's the old path that led to the brush arbor and the revival tent. Canvass is a lot cheaper than steel.........:jolly :jolly :jolly :jolly :jolly :jolly

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Ah, true. Rural folks probably want a more traditional church setting.

I pray you guys work it all out.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Stew, which church in Houston do you gather with?

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Btw, I really appreciate the input.

This kind of stuff is my greatest pastoral weakness.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Btw, I really appreciate the input.

This kind of stuff is my greatest pastoral weakness.

Re: Economical Church Buildings
 

Theres never any downside to playing to your strengths and delegating your weaknesses.