This will be a short post. On Christianity Today’s blog, OutofUr, Dan Kimball had written a blog wherein he said he was wrong about church buildings. Previously, he used to say, “Who needs a building? The early church didn’t have buildings, and we don’t need them either!”
He now confesses that he was wrong.
I think he still is wrong.
So, I drafted a response and asked OutofUr if they were interested in using it and they were. Here is an excerpt.
It is not that I hate buildings. Because we have identified our cause as “Leave the Building,” I often get mistaken for a building-hater, but that is not the case. “Leave the Building” is about removing the things that limit us in our service for God or somehow get in the way of what he is trying to accomplish through us. For me and my church, it was our building…
I am writing this because the subject of the necessity of buildings is a crucial topic to discuss all across the Church. You do indeed describe good uses for buildings…but what is good, may not be best – either for your church or for the Body of Christ worldwide. Allow me to explain…
Click here to read the rest and please interact (respectfully) with the others who have already commented.
Also, to read Dan’s original post, click here.
By the way, it was my friend @starlyth (Ian Kirk) on Twitter who first sent Dan’s post to me. If you are on twitter, you should follow him!
I would encourage readers to visit this recent post on Pooped Pastors regarding church bankruptcies:
http://www.poopedpastors.com/blogs/shutting-the-doors-for-good/
The handful of church bankruptcies I’ve read about over the course of the last two years all share a common theme: the church leadership wanted a building and took on more debt per person than the church could bear.
The story related by “Pastor Pete” is about a helpfully anonymous “Dirk” who took over the pastorate of a twenty-year-old church running about a hundred people, but (conveniently) a building program already underway. The church (again, conveniently) grew to 130 but giving dropped off and after the church missed a few payments the bank called the loan and the church closed, not because there was no church, but because there was no building.
Because it’s the Pooped Pastors weblog, there’s no hint that “Dirk” was at fault, of course.
By: MDSF on December 20, 2009
at 12:51 PM
Thanks for sharing the story. I like the way he ended it…even if our churches close, the Church will never fail.
By: Ken Eastburn on December 21, 2009
at 8:39 AM