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/co...hcol_0928.html
Threaded Mode
