Thoughts on Church buildings and waste

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from one of my friends in India asking if we would sponsor their building a church building. If we did, they would call it the "Ruth & John Grant Memorial Church." A little bit of my heart broke off as I read the letter.

As Dad and I travelled with this very pastor across Maharashtra a little under three years ago we spoke of the way that American Missions had taken the worst of our culture as well as the best with us as we tried to proclaim Jesus and that the idea that material opulence in church buildings was part of that sin.

In India more than 600 million people live on less than $2.00 a day. Somehow they survive. Here a pastor wants several thousand dollars to erect an additional church building when they already have a compound built as an orphanage. Something is out of kilter.

Unpacking some of my library I came across two books that speak to this issue. The first is by John Alexander. It was never published so it sits on my shelf in two notebooks. Its title says it all, Stop Going to Church and Be the Church. “How can we go to something we are?” he asks. Yet, that is the nature of how we think: “Do you want to go to church today?” Or, “Come on kids, we’re late for church!” we yell angrily because we are going to look bad, arriving late for the church gathering.

The second book, The Torch of the Testimony, makes the statement that if the evangelical church in North America was to divest of all it’s property the church would have over two billion dollars to spend on feeding the poor, clothing the destitute, and generally fulfilling the great commission of our Lord, Jesus.

One of my favourite churches is called the Evergreen Community. Because it meets in pubs throughout Portland, my wife and I were married in a Pub. I think it is one of the best possible partnerships. The pub isn’t going to open on Sunday morning (because it is not a sports pub). And so their space goes unused. Some of the church stick around to have lunch also helping the pub’s bottom line. The elder who preaches encourages people to tip well and most do. Jesus smiles.

Now, if you talk to the church planter that started it all he will tell you that not having a building sucks sometimes. Evergreen is truly missional and wants to be involved in feeding the poor and clothing the homeless. But because they have no building, they forgo the opportunity for a food pantry or a clothing bin for the homeless. In today’s day and age, there is little need for an office, though at times it would be nice and having a print center could be a great cost savings. There is a cost to not having a building.

Matt Hannan is a pastor at another of my favourite churches, New Heights, in Vancouver. A few years ago the church truly was out of space. They were meeting five times a weekend because there weren’t enough seats in the building for everyone to sit. Matt, who is probably Portland’s preeminent preacher was running out of voice by Sunday night, and the energy outlay of the weekend had to take it’s toll on his effectiveness during the week. However, when the church planned expansion they didn’t plan a seat for everyone. Instead they planned to still have three services and so they planned their expansion accordingly to save dollars so they would have more to throw into church planting and community engagement.

Another church here in Portland partnered with local businesses to build their building as part of a retail, and office space complex. By partnering with business the cost to each party was less than it otherwise would have been.

There is no right answer to these questions. And so even I have a suggestion to add to the mix. It might help someone somewhere. Let’s see. What if several church’s here in Portland that do not own their own building got together to lease space together… not to meet mind you, but for mission purposes. An old warehouse could be turned into a copy center, food pantry, clothes closet, or who knows what else, people could share the space. Church communities could work together to make it functional and fir their needs. Costs could be shared and kept low, and so congregations that could not afford their own space might be able to share space.

I fear that this would only work if the commitment of the leadership was to not see this as a stepping stone, “until we can afford more” but as a commitment to Kingdom values, and doing it in order to be missional. Anything less would lead to outward selfishness, conflict, and eventual collapse of the venture.  

Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone and afraid. Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others. Early on, we came to feel disconnected. We tuned out our pain through any number of idolatrous diversions: a relationship or sex, food, alcohol, drugs, work, fantasy, media, and trying to control everyone and everything else; anything that could keep us from facing ourselves or our God. We ran to our idols looking for something… anything that could speak to our souls. We did not like the way God was providing our world to us and so we demanded a different one, which He seemed unwilling to provide. We found relief in our idols when God refused to give us what we demanded. They were much better. We could control them. We became true addicts. The only way we knew to stop the pain was to look to our idols to provide for us what only the Trinity could provide. We asked people to fill a void in our lives that they could not possibly fill. In so doing, we alienated them and pushed them away even as we cried for them to come closer. Progressively we moved farther away from our Creator and his creation, destroying any chance of healing, freedom and real life. Our idols produced guilt, self-hatred, remorse, emptiness and pain, and yet we knew we would die without them. We were stuck and we were dying. We found ourselves driven inward, into a virtual reality of our own making, away from reality, and away from love. We were lost inside of ourselves. Our self absorption made real connections and intimacy impossible. We never knew true union with the Real, or any of His creation because we clung to the unreal. We craved control, adrenalin, safety, chemistry, and / or freedom from pain, fear and control of others. We created virtual ‘unreal’ worlds that existed in our minds and online, and they corrupted the real world God had made. The powerless, selfish “I” killed love. And we found ourselves falling of the edge of isolating, unmanageable insanity.