Church Building Programs Part Three

I can see a need for buildings in the United States. In many people’s minds, the building IS the church. And buildings can serve very useful purposes, such as housing a food pantry or doubling as a seminary campus during the week. As brought up by Dr. Randy White of FBC Katy, a new sanctuary can also be an investment for the future (this was not an angle I had previously thought about, and it will require me to reconsider my position until I fully think it through).

However, I think that churches far too often use constructing a new building as a first resort rather than a last resort. Smaller churches could tag team in the same building like how Anchor conducted business instead of constructing their own buildings. Medium churches could add another service, operate a video service linked to a classroom or two, or some other method of taking care of the problem. And, large churches could actually—imagine this—peacefully separate, and form several smaller congregations that could potentially be more responsive to the actual day to day needs of the members.

I think the reason churches don’t think more outside the box is often a result of pride, convenience, security, or just genuinely not thinking through other options. I think one more option that many believe is that they are glorifying God. As a child I was told to be quiet inside the building because it was where God lived. God no more lives in a church building than he does in a believer’s home! After Christ died, God parted ways with the Temple, and never again dwelt in a building; instead He chose to indwell us! Praise God! I would much rather God live in believers instead of in an empty building! But, listen to what Dr. Jeffress said: “As I look around downtown Dallas, I see spectacular temples of commerce, of culture and of government - many new, some restored to former glory, and all intended to stand for generations. The Kingdom of God needs a home to equal them.” Of course. Because the Kingdom is contained inside the walls of First Baptist Dallas. Please. The God I serve is much larger than that and has much bigger plans for the world than a new auditorium!

Church Building Projects Part Two

My first encounter with a church building project was when I was five. Our church plant had outgrown the school that we met in, and a developer donated 10 acres to our church, so we built a modest building and settled in—nothing controversial.

My second encounter, and the first controversial circumstance, was when I was 12. I was a member of an Independent Fundamental Baptist church. Our pastor had been thinking about a new building for quite some time: When I was ten, our church reached capacity (a little over 200 seats), and he started talking about a new building, but a church split soon eliminated the need. After three years, the church had grown enough that we were again at capacity and about 20 people each week had to be in overflow in the fellowship hall, watching the service though a video screen. The pastor once again brought up a new building, that seemed a bit too grand for our congregation (The price tag was about 400,000 and the church budget every year was only 150,000). Some people mentioned other solutions such as adding a service, but the pastor would have none of that, and pushed through the building project. It passed, but almost a fifth of the congregation left. Seven years later, the new building is still not completed, and the church has continued shrinking, since every spare dollar goes to a new building instead of increased ministry.

Another major building project that comes to mind is at First Baptist Dallas. The church is pushing through a one hundred and fifteen million dollar new project. At one point, they were actually considering dissolving a ministry of the church that trained pastors—Criswell College—so that they could sell the property and KCBI to help fund the new project.

In contrast, when I was at Anchor, I saw a much more generous church with regards to its building. They owned a modest building, but there were actually four churches that met inside of it: Anchor, A Hispanic church (that met in the fellowship room), a Brazillian church (that met in the fellowship room before the Hispanics), and a Haitian church (that met in a classroom). The churches were each in their native language, and would usually meet every month or two to have a meal all together.

Church Building Projects Part One

I recently saw a free book at my school titled, Downtown Church: The Heart of the City by Howard Edington, which I thought was going to be a book on urban ministry and so I took it and brought it home. Once I started reading it, however, I soon realized that I was misguided. The book was instead on how the pastor had led the church to build a proposed 21 million dollar building project (30 million in today’s money, and it almost certainly cost more to actually finish) so that they could properly “do ministry” in the city. Here is an excellent quote that summarizes the book: “Here, then, is a cold, hard principle for the downtown church: secure enough property to make the church’s ministry viable. Beg or borrow the money. Spend whatever time it takes, but get your hands on the property you need.” This got me thinking about church building projects and how needed or useless they are. So, what do you think? Do you have to build a new church campus and buy a lot of property to carry out ministry? If so, then how did the early church carry out its ministry without owning property and buildings?

Church Building Projects: Introduction

That was the destruction of several buildings owned by First Baptist Dallas, to make way for their new building.

For the next few days, I will be writing about church building projects. This was prompted after my visit to First Baptist Dallas, and learning about their 115 million dollar new sanctuary. Please go here to watch the videos about the new project and see what it will be like.

First Baptist Church of Dallas

DISCLAIMER: I know that every church has its own weaknesses and strengths, and that every denomination has its own weaknesses and strengths. No one is perfect, neither is any church. I also know that most churches have ministries to the community that you cannot see from visiting, nor can you judge an entire denomination by one church. Furthermore, I am a Baptist, so I am approaching each of these churches with a Baptist’s belief system. I do not mean to attack anyone, just I have heard people ask me about my experiences and I wanted to write about them, positive and negative.

I moved into Dallas from my little suburb town and thus left my church that I had been a member of since I moved to the Metro-Plex, due to commute time and gas money. At the end of the semester, I had several preaching opportunities, as well as a couple times to lead worship through music ministry; this prevented me from church shopping, and then I went home for surgery followed by the holidays. After visiting a few Baptist congregations upon my return, I decided it would be insightful to spend a few weeks visiting other denominations, since I have only ever been in Baptist services (minus a few times when I went to Mass). I decided to use the “main” or preeminent church of each denomination as my destination of choice.

I started with the First Baptist Church of Dallas, pastored by Robert Jeffress. As I walked through the Criswell Center, I marveled at the size of the building. I found my way into the balcony of the historic sanctuary and spent ten minutes just enjoying the beautiful architecture inside. For how large the other buildings were, it shocked me how “small” the sanctuary was. I also noticed that seats seemed to be put in every possible place, and almost all of them were filled.

Once the service started, it immediately struck me as a grand production. Everything was perfectly orchestrated, even the singers in the praise chorus (which had separated from the choir) had tape marking off where they were supposed to stand.

The musicians were talented, but nothing to write home about. The Worship Pastor seemed to think his job title was “Lead Soloist”, by the way he sang—leaving the melody to go do his own thing. The talented orchestra added a lot. I could not really even tell there was a choir there, except that I could see them standing.

As an extra feature, they had a guest speaker—the colonel in charge of the capture of Saddam Hussein. I found problems with the church giving a standing ovation when talking about the harm his soldiers did to another human being, but that is a discussion for another time.

Robert Jeffress’ sermon was not the best. He preached from Ephesians on having your feet properly shod. He did go back to the historical use of Roman soldiers’ shoes, and how they had spikes to help them hold in place in battle. He had quite a bit of psychological aspects in the sermon—somewhat hard to describe.

At the invitation, a few people joined the church, which showed that people obviously enjoyed the service and preaching.
I honestly could not get over the 115 million dollar new buildings that are being constructed. They were a major place where attention was pointed in discussions, and in the large model of the new building, and the massive tv dedicated to only playing information on the new building. I could never be a part of this church simply because I can’t see any way to justify so much money on a building.