I wholeheartedly subscribe to the principle that ministry is about people, not buildings. It is reflected in what I do.
This said, I have been struck by the mediocre quality of so many church buildings. Over the past year or so, I have deliberately visited a number. While there are exceptions (that make us all jealous), the overall ‘vibe’ was underwhelming.
In many cases, to walk through the door felt like a time warp (backward not forward). Sadly, sometimes I felt like I was walking through a dump. If I was looking for a church and I was honest, I would be forced to admit that the teaching of God’s Word would have to be pretty good to offset the …. ‘surroundings’. I do realise this is not a particularly theologically driven rationale, but if that was the reaction of one who is firmly committed to the priority of people and the Bible over buildings, how might others react?
In many cases, a tidy up would help no end [this was one of the encouragements of Connect09 – to think about your own church as an outsider]. In other cases, the problem is deeper. Simply put, the buildings and facilities have aged. In some cases this was recognised. In other cases, people were too close to perceive the facilities as an outsider. As someone said: ‘For me this is home. Tell me what you see.’
But here’s the problem: for those church buildings that need more than a good clean up, the reality is that building work costs significant money – even when it can seem like minor work. To bring facilities up to public building standards (required when you lodge a DA), for example, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars even before you begin doing what you want to do.
Remember, I am not one that is particularly attached to buildings. They, like many other things, are tools for ministry and the teaching of the Word of God (an interesting observation is that churches that begin in schools often end up seeking premises of their own). But at the same time, they are tools that are hard to do without in the long term.
In an environment where central funding is tight, how does a church raise the funds necessary for improving facilities without diverting its focus on people? Some have sold branch churches to improve another site. Is this a way forward, even to the extent of parishes combining to this kind of end? Or is it necessary to make the short term investment in buildings at the cost of people, in order to achieve a greater long term gain? Or is there another way?
