When people hear the word “church” what do they think of? Usually they would see something like a building. Hang on, a really old building.
A building with a high ceiling, some arches, white pillars. Maybe they would think of rows and rows and rows of pews. Maybe red carpet? This ethereal old musty building.
This is one of the greatest problems for the mainline church : the building.
The word “church” has nothing to do with a building. But that’s all that we think of when we hear that word. Why? How has this happened?
We think church is this “place”. Even more, this is a place where you would go to on a Sunday morning for an hour. You can’t miss the building. It’s on the corner, it has stained glass windows, it has this big bell tower. It’s magical.
Believers and even unbelievers talk about church in this way. It’s not uncommon for a Christian to say “I’m going to church today.” Or they say, “I left my Bible at church.” they are referring to this place, this building.
The church, properly understood, is a gathering of people. The called-out ones. The saints.
It’s not about a place, but about a people.
And almost all churches know this! They know that the church building isn’t real the church. They knew it’s the people that matter. But in practice, do they really believe that?
Now I want to start off by saying something good about church buildings.
All gatherings need some sort of “space”, a place. So in saying that, no matter how you do church, it cannot detach itself from a setting.
But to then make the venue the value is going too far. And we do go too far.
One of the most important “assets” to a local church is their building, or buildings. In fact, a lot of time, resources, money, and energy go towards it. Many churches, for their website, would have just the picture of the building. Or even the building is in their church logo.
But as good as church buildings are, they can be very harmful. Here are 6 problems with church buildings.
You need to maintain it
This takes a lot of time. If you look at a church’s roster it may well have a few people it’s numerous tasks to look after the building. Lawns need to be cut, flowers need to be replaces, leaks in roofs, gunk in gutters, technology to be updated. You need people to come in and look after it. This is the dilemma of the church building because it is not hospitable to let grass grow and leave toilets unclean.
It needs a lot of money
Buildings are not cheap. Some churches may be in great debt because of their building, so much of the giving goes towards the mortgage of the building. Added to that, in order to maintain it, with all the multiple rooms, all these “little upkeep things” add up. Week after week. Sometimes you may need to give it a whole facelift due to the aging of the building. That will cost money.
It is like a big fat member of the church that keeps asking for more money to be fed. You need to listen to the monster or else he will crumble.
It makes church static
Once you have this big old building, you have to use it. That means you are in one particular location.. Now you might see that as a good thing. A predictable location for all to know and see whilst they’re driving right?
Well, what if the neighbourhood changes? What if highways need to be placed on top of your building? What about those that came when they lived in the area but now they live 40 minutes away? You are stuck in this area and that may not be to your advantage.
It may be better to be a little more mobile to move around if needed. It’s very difficult to move an old building. Some buildings are not even allowed to be changed due to its heritage status. Some buildings you can demolish and make another one somewhere else, but again, that’ll cost money.
And you are still left with the same problem. Even if you make a new building in a new location, that new building is static too!
If the church is supposed to be the people, and the building is just a space to gather, then the building should not dictate where and how a church gathers.
The building forces you to play a particular “church” game
Some buildings, because of the design, force you to “do church” a certain way. Inside the building the design is usually one that has a stage on one end, with rows of pews (sometimes bolted down) filling the space. They would have a pulpit up the front for preaching , or just general leading of the service.
Basically the design of the building on the inside has two parts : The actors and the audience. Much like a concert hall, or cinema, or even a school hall, the shape of the building will have a say on how people do church inside.
Now some modern church buildings understand this, and have a more “multi-purpose” style setting. Things like chairs, stages, screens can be moved around. they would not have pillars, pews, or pulpits.
But even then, things like the size of a building or the location will “shape” what you do. If you have a large church building with a car park, you may need to pay off that mortgage for it. How do you do that? You need a certain amount of people coming to your church to pay it off. Hence the large church building for large congregations. What if less people come to your church? Less money means it’ll be more difficult to pay for the upkeep of the building. This may mean that the preacher never talks about sin, makes his talks just about self-help psychology, or that the church focuses entirely on the service to be “entertaining” for the audience.
The large building needs to be fed and starts to dictate what “church” looks like.
Another part of this “church game”, because of the building, is that you may hire out the building to a secular group during the week. This may be seen as a nice gesture, but the motivation is probably to pay off the building.
They are stuck to this building. They must “play the game”.
It perpetuates the idea that building growth is church growth
Let’s just say that renovations are done on your church building. It makes you think that the church is buzzing. You may think that if you think the church is the building. Or say that the church builds a new church building altogether. Then there is that day where you all go into the new building. People are excited about it and it feels like there is this real church growth. It may even attract new people to come to the building.
But all of that will fall away soon.
Some churches, who wait 10 or so years to build a bigger building, upon entering it, have actually shrunk size since the initial planning. Yet even then, some think that church growth is happening.
Two things have happened : A building has been made, AND it has taken a truckload of money to do.
Now there are times where a group does outgrow their space and does consider building a bigger space, but even then, is that real church growth or is it just more people coming to something? There are plenty of churches that grow numerically on the back of false teaching and sheer music experience. Many churches grow quickly but have ALOT of people come out the other end.
True church growth will be new disciples making new disciples. And will that reality be in a world where it is all about getting more and more big buildings?
It makes people think they are like Old Testament temples
People start to think that the church building is special because that is where you meet with God. You feel like you are entering the Holy of Holies. Especially with the design of the building, what the priests wear. You feel closer to God. The preacher may even say, “Welcome to the House of the Lord”, or “The Holy Spirit is in the house tonight.” People need to put on their Sunday best and have a certain posture when they come in because you are entering sacred ground
So if something happens to the building, such as a fire, it feels like a death to the family. Now you have been “cut off” from the presence of God.
No, there was something special about the Temple in Israel 2000 years ago. That was where you met God. But to think that that idea has transferred itself into the local church building is nowhere to be seen in Scripture.
Again, many churches agree with this point, but in practice, they love their holy buildings.
So there are a few ideas about the church building being a problem for the church. Basically the building is helpful for gatherings but it can also create unintended hindrances to the proclamation of the Gospel and the discipleship of the disciple.