Out of control capital campaigns

[Apocrypha]

I always keep my ear to the ground and there are more than a few larger churches in the denom that are in severe financial difficulty even to the point of losing their buildings (I can think of 3 just in Florida and 2 in Texas).

One of the new things that i've been hearing about more and more is aggressive capital campaigns in the Jerry Falwell style (the master of building projects from the last century). The latest thing some are trying is to actively solicit folks to add the church to their will and as a beneficiary on the life insurance policies per the advice of the "Capital Campaign Consultants".

Even in the Old Testament God didn't require folks to give their inheritance to the tribe of Levi or the priests (in fact their donations were only off harvests and income per the OT).

I guess this almost loops back into the older thread about building projects slowing the growth of the kingdom... but the more and more I do my budget and pray for God's guidance on how we should plant this church... the more I come to the conclusion that renting is best for worship service and to put the focus on people receiving the spirit and being baptized in the home fellowships to build real community and real growth that can scale to 20,000 people over the long term with geographically linked daughter works.

I don't understand why churches are going so far in asking for money in building bigger buildings when they can simply max their space by going to a multiple repeating service format. By my math a building that seats 250 + 75 kids can have nearly 1000 people in 4-5 services with no stress other than the need to be organized and delegate properly (1 on saturday and 3 on Sunday). Why do we need these 1200-2000 seat monstrosities? Why not just buy or rent a smaller facility and then keep buying/renting satellite churches with a proper IT infrastructure like email/cell sms messages/facebook/website to keep the church cohesive beyond the small group/house church meetings?

I have priced out how much it is to start a renting out church with projector / sound system from musiciansfriend.com / sunday stuff ... and still come to about $8,000 on the high end without operating rent costs or paying a musician from the local Calvary Chapel worship school to help us get started. What insanity is up with these 3-6 million dollar projects that really only help to keep a church financially chained to a building for decades to come?

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/business/epaper/2009/09/27/axbz_cloughcol_0928.html

[Apocrypha]

For example.. this sound system is a nice middle grade system that can handle about 300-400 people

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Behringer-PMP5000-B212XL-Powered-Mixer-with-Main-and-Monitor-Speakers-plus-Mics-Package-?sku=501606

total cost? about 1300 with shipping

[seguidordejesus]

Agree completely.

[Apocrypha]

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2009/05/11/daily29.html

another S. Florida church looking at forclosure.

[missourimary]

So sad. And it isn't just the cost of the buildings, but utilities and maintenance, too.

We were asked to cash in 401ks. They weren't very happy with me when I didn't...

When a church outgrows its building, why not start a daughter church, have a few people go there and start reaching out to a new area? Here there is one huge church, only one other church for 60 miles. Yet they want to build a new, bigger building to house all the people driving distances to come?

[Apocrypha]

So sad. And it isn't just the cost of the buildings, but utilities and maintenance, too.

We were asked to cash in 401ks. They weren't very happy with me when I didn't...

When a church outgrows its building, why not start a daughter church, have a few people go there and start reaching out to a new area? Here there is one huge church, only one other church for 60 miles. Yet they want to build a new, bigger building to house all the people driving distances to come?

Thats sad its happened to you. My grandma got hit up a year or two ago at a UPCI church to add them to her estate, but shes pretty broke other than a navy widows pension and social security so no dice there unless they want her beat up car.

I've seen churches grow to nearly 1200 people in a 250 seat building with multiple services. Heck, Saddleback is famous for having 7 services every weekend in a 1800 seat building plus kids area and they run about 14-16,000 ever week. I dont see why many of our churches can run into the 1500-2000 mark with a 300-400 seat facility that they can grab for a reasonable amount (unless they go TBN on it and it has marble and bronze).

[Monterrey]

Ah, but in order for that Pastor to look successful then he must be building a new building about every five years!

Something about "Pride of life"

[rgcraig]

So sad. And it isn't just the cost of the buildings, but utilities and maintenance, too.

We were asked to cash in 401ks. They weren't very happy with me when I didn't...

When a church outgrows its building, why not start a daughter church, have a few people go there and start reaching out to a new area? Here there is one huge church, only one other church for 60 miles. Yet they want to build a new, bigger building to house all the people driving distances to come?THAT is pitiful!

I'm sure they said that God would provide for you when the time came.

Well, I would have said, and he'll provide for you without me cashing in my 401(k) too!

[DividedThigh]

very sad, i always believed the people were the church, not some huge building, this economy reveals the lack of realism in some peoples vision, dt

[DividedThigh]

by the way any church that promotes people cashing in there 401ks or iras to give to the church, is run by crooks, run, now, dt

[Apocrypha]

by the way any church that promotes people cashing in there 401ks or iras to give to the church, is run by crooks, run, now, dt

Well, the new flavor is to have the elderly saints add the church to their wills and life insurance policies.

Its being done more than you would think and it really disturbs me.

[missourimary]

I've heard of that too. It was mentioned here a few times, too. Then it was dropped. If any entity lives beyond its means, it needs to change its lifestyle, not its means!

(Here, my location, not here the board. Sorry for any confusion.)

[Apocrypha]

I've heard of that too. It was mentioned here a few times, too. Then it was dropped. If any entity lives beyond its means, it needs to change its lifestyle, not its means!

Yes.

[Jermyn Davidson]

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2009/05/11/daily29.html

another S. Florida church looking at forclosure.

How could this possibly be the will of God?

[Apocrypha]

How could this possibly be the will of God?

There was fraud in that deal somewhere. A church doesn't magically lose 10,000 square feet in a appraisal unless the initial appraisal was done to boost the square footage to help get a loan. I have yet to meet a pastor who doesn't have his building pretty much measured down to the square foot to layout usage space.

I've held a FL, GA and CA real estate brokers license and went through some rigorous training on the three types of acceptable appraisal methods. The bank is well with its rights to go after someone with a vengence for 1.5m+ in damages in that case.

[Apocrypha]

actually i just re-read the article, 17,000 sq/ft disappeared magically from a 36,000 sq/ft building which pretty much made it 2x its actual footprint.

[Praxeas]

400 members? They borrowed that much money with only 400 members to pay it off?

[Apocrypha]

400 members? They borrowed that much money with only 400 members to pay it off?

I know of 2 churches they were in "competition" with in the area, one UPCI (500-650ish) and one indy/AWCF (900ish + 3 daughter works).

Gotta keep up with the Jones's and all that.

[Sherri]

We are in the process of building a 1,400 seat auditorium. I don't think it's a bad thing. We've been doing two or three services every Sunday for a long time, and it gets very wearing on the leadership, trust me. We can seat about 350 in our present auditorium, and we are running between 1000 and 1100. It will be a blessing to have a place big enough where we can all worship together for a while. We will start out with just an 11 AM service, but hope to soon have to again go to two.

We have never asked anyone for their inheritance or 401K. I think the Bible teaches us to leave an inheritance for our children and our children's children. We didn't do a capital campaign, but we did do an inhouse fundraiser. God has been in the process from the very beginning. All building programs are not bad.

[Apocrypha]

We are in the process of building a 1,400 seat auditorium. I don't think it's a bad thing. We've been doing two or three services every Sunday for a long time, and it gets very wearing on the leadership, trust me. We can seat about 350 in our present auditorium, and we are running between 1000 and 1100. It will be a blessing to have a place big enough where we can all worship together for a while. We will start out with just an 11 AM service, but hope to soon have to again go to two.

We have never asked anyone for their inheritance or 401K. I think the Bible teaches us to leave an inheritance for our children and our children's children. We didn't do a capital campaign, but we did do an inhouse fundraiser. God has been in the process from the very beginning. All building programs are not bad.

The price of land in S. Florida is different. We are completely built out from the ocean to the everglades. There is literally zero available land, similar to SoCal.

With 1,100 folks its not as big a stretch for you to do that since im sure theres open land. Im sure there are sacrifices but you don't have to roll a hard 6 to survive every month. I hope you grow to having 8000 folks in your new building with multiple services :)

[Praxeas]

I know of 2 churches they were in "competition" with in the area, one UPCI (500-650ish) and one indy/AWCF (900ish + 3 daughter works).

Gotta keep up with the Jones's and all that.
Id rather focus on the service and the outreach. All that money could be saved and used to help the poor, which is a great soul winning technique if you don't mind the fact you are helping the less desirable people get into heaven...

[Sherri]

The price of land in S. Florida is different. We are completely built out from the ocean to the everglades. There is literally zero available land, similar to SoCal.

With 1,100 folks its not as big a stretch for you to do that since im sure theres open land. Im sure there are sacrifices but you don't have to roll a hard 6 to survive every month. I hope you grow to having 8000 folks in your new building with multiple services :)We have 30 acres that God has blessed us with. And no, thankfully, we are not in survival mode. That would scare me silly!:runhills

[Praxeas]

The price of land in S. Florida is different. We are completely built out from the ocean to the everglades. There is literally zero available land, similar to SoCal.

With 1,100 folks its not as big a stretch for you to do that since im sure theres open land. Im sure there are sacrifices but you don't have to roll a hard 6 to survive every month. I hope you grow to having 8000 folks in your new building with multiple services :)
That is the way it is here. Personally I think we make a mistake when we try to build larger churches and not instead build more churches. Spread them out through out the city.

It's more cost effective because you can start those churches in homes and them rent small locations, lease and then if necessary buy or build

[Apocrypha]

That is the way it is here. Personally I think we make a mistake when we try to build larger churches and not instead build more churches. Spread them out through out the city.

It's more cost effective because you can start those churches in homes and them rent small locations, lease and then if necessary buy or build

Multi-site is what all the churches are doing around here. It may take most apostolic brethren about 20 years to catchup since they are still getting the idea of team ministry instead of the central controller/gatekeeper.

[Praxeas]

Here in California it seems we believe "church" should be a city per city monopoly.

The AOGs have several congregations in our city, some are spanish and some english. We have 1 UPC.

The Spanish Assemblies sort of have the same kind of friction between competing pastors/churches.

Larger congregations do make it easier though to have certain programs like recovery homes, which also tend to help make some congregations larger

[Apocrypha]

Here in California it seems we believe "church" should be a city per city monopoly.

The AOGs have several congregations in our city, some are spanish and some english. We have 1 UPC.

The Spanish Assemblies sort of have the same kind of friction between competing pastors/churches.

Larger congregations do make it easier though to have certain programs like recovery homes, which also tend to help make some congregations larger

It was that way in FL until that last 10 years, hence the S. Florida metroplex only has a handful of churches for 4.1m people.

[Praxeas]

Thats rediculous. Oh well