What Do We Do With our Facilities?

by John Daugherty

In a recent Pinnacle Leadership Associates newsletter article, Team Leader Mark Tidsworth asked a great question: “Who Moved the Front Door?” In the article Mark addressed the changing ways people connect with the church today requiring a variety of ways to “enter” the church and become part of the ministry.

The same circumstances of the pandemic, which forced churches to explore various ways for people to worship and connect, now leaves more of our church facilities less used, if used at all. Do we simply allow parts of the buildings and property to lay fallow without cultivating new areas of ministry? How do we make the best use of the single most valuable asset the church has which are the facilities?

I was called to pastor a well-established downtown first church in a county seat town in 2008. This was an aging congregation, or as author Will Mancini commented in a conversation, “It seems perhaps the church has lived beyond it’s Great Commission days.” Like so many such congregations, over the years the facilities had been developed for a day-gone-by when attendance was much larger and things were more vital in using the facilities. What were we as a congregation to do with this great asset? How would we continue to invest that asset in the work of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven?

We began a conversation, well, really a dreaming activity through worship and with the church council over a few months. The question was “what if.” What if we were to invite others to partner in ministry utilizing our facilities. The leadership took an inventory of ministries and non-profits in the community with whom we had some level of participation and investment. How could we incorporate those ministries by sharing various parts of our physical facilities? What if…?

The first major partnership was developed with the Homeless Coalition. Our family life facilities had men’s and women’s showers, a large commercial kitchen, the gym, and two sets of washers and dryers. A weekly ministry with the homeless began on Tuesdays providing everyone breakfast, a shower, and washed a load of laundry. In the process we identified two unused bathroom facilities in another part of the property so more washers and dryers were added there. On most Tuesdays the church, along with additional volunteers from other congregations, hosted 80-125 homeless men and women. As the ministry grew, other community resource providers would send representatives to make connections, provide services and assist with moving people into permanent housing and jobs.

The next ministry to move into our facilities was related to the homeless ministry. A man and his wife had begun a bicycle ministry in a small facility several blocks away. They would receive donated bikes, unclaimed layaways, and unclaimed bikes confiscated by law enforcement and repair them and make them available to the homeless for basic transportation needs. It was not long before that ministry outgrew its space. The man who started the ministry came to us and asked if we had the space so they might move to the church and be closer to the population with whom they worked. That ministry became a new partner on the campus and made a huge impact, not only on the homeless.They soon gathered enough children’s bikes to partner with a local elementary school serving a large population of free and reduced lunch students offering the bikes as incentives for reaching reading and academic achievement goals.

Next to “move in” to the facilities was a community urban youth ministry who lost their base facilities. The church had been a financial supporter for a number of years. The church definitely had the space for classrooms, offices and the gym. It began as a temporary arrangement. It became a permanent partnership using the facilities.

From a church facility being used by a shrinking congregation, over a few years it became a 7-day a week ministry center. The church had learned that the facility was not to be kept and admired, but to be worn out in service to the kingdom work of ministry among its neighbors. By the time I left, there were four permanent ministry partners on campus along with dozens of organizations who used the facilities for meetings, events and outreach activities.

The question for churches struggling with shrinking on-campus presence due to the challenges of the pandemic and changing culture is, what do we do with the asset of these facilities? Dream, ask the “what if” questions, move from maintaining to investing and using. For a good biblical story to stimulate thinking I recommend the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. The two servants took the portion of the master’s estate entrusted to them and invested it, put it to work, and they were proclaimed “good and faithful.” For the one who feared losing the portion in his care and held onto it, kept it safe and clean, he was called, “wicked and evil.” God has entrusted into the care of congregations facilities that can be invested to make a difference in their communities. Will we be good and faithful or will we fearfully hold on and not invest the asset of facilities?