Church Growth

[Guest AngelStar]

I'm looking for information rather than answers but here goes.

My current church, in which I have become very involved, is now blessed with the "problem" of growth. Meaning we are fast out growing our current facility. We currently have two corporate services along with a sunday school hour. The second service is at capacity and the first soon will be. The sunday school space is beyond capacity. Our elders have proposed three options to the congregation looking for input.

Option 1: We can move our worship to a local public school. This will get us down to one service and one sunday school hour. This facility already has equipment for sound and we would only need to set up our instruments and all the materials for sunday school. The problem here as I see it is we will loose our visibility as a church. We all know that a church is not the building but newcomers don't know that. There are no classrooms available for SS in this building and we would have to utilize a separate building for that. We will also have to pay the school to lease the facilities for Sunday mornings. However, we can recoup some of that cost by, in turn, leasing our current facility to another, smaller church.

Option 2: Mostly the same as option 1 but with a different school. This facility will allow us to meet in the same building for both Service and SS. The same cons as option 1 also apply including the fact that this facility does not have sound equipment and we would have to set this up as well.

Option 3: We can remain at our current facility and make whatever adjustments necessary to accomodate this growth. This includes the possibility of going to three services and more than one SS hour. We can also look into purchacing some exterior mobile buildings to expand our SS facilities. The parking lot can also be expanded. The problems here are mainly personell. We do not have enough trained people to manage more than two services and more than one SS hour. The worship team is already stretched to manage the two services. Plus more than one SS hour means more teaching staff. The nursery is also understaffed.

It's important to note here that we are planning on building new facilities in the future. The Lord has granted us 80 acres with which to use for His purpose. The issue is we cannot yet afford the required new facility. The time required to raise the money and than build is in the neighborhood of three to five years. The options our elders are now considering is what to do for the interm.

I am neither pastor nor elder. I am merely a parishoner and deacon in training. The elders will ultimately decide this and I don't envy them that decision. I am merely curious as to the objective opinions of other Christians. I know there are several pastors and elders on this board but I will be interested in anybody's objective opinion.

Also, we appreciate prayers that our church will remain unified during this period of transition and change.

Praise the Lord that we have this "problem."

[boblandis]

I have one suggestion. Pray to the Lord. Maybe He will lead you to sell your current building, movew to the school, and rely on Him about where the rest of the money will come from to build your new building.

[bebakerus]

Trust me prayer is not something that is lacking in this decision making process.

As I said I am not the one making the decision. That is up to our elders and I will support whatever they decide. I am simply interested in the objective opinions of other Christians.

[Guest AngelStar]

Hi bebakerus,

I currently do not 'belong' to any 'church'.

So perhaps my opinion is not worth much.

But here goes anyway.....

First of all, I've been to churches where there are more then one service

but only one SS hour. So that might be something to keep in mind.

Have you asked the parishioners for help? Help in teaching SS classes?

Help in fund raising? You can put out a suggestion box and let the people make suggestions that way, either signed or unsigned.

It has been my experience that people who belong to the church love

getting involved. They love being asked to help. They love putting

together and pulling off fund raising activities.

Also, since you are planning on building in the future is there a reason

why you can't just accommodate the people until then? Get folding chairs.

Tell the people the situation and ask to borrow folding chairs.

It has also been my experience that the community as a whole loves to

"help" when they can. Whether they 'belong' to the church or not. So that

is another idea. Go to the public, ask for suggestions and help.

I will keep you in my prayers. Prayer is the most powerful thing we can

do right now to help each other. Prayer, peace and love!

Angelina

[kiwi]

One suggestion may be to post "jobs" in the bulletin in order to let people know what volunteer positions are available.  In larger churches, the congregation who are volunteers make the church run.  There's no way to keep a larger church running without the staff.  Most people, just as AngelStar mentioned, are more than willing to work in the church.  Good luck!  What a wonderful "problem" to have!

God bless!

[Teri Mc]

Hi Brebakers

We dealt with this problem by going to a public school. It works out great for now and does not in any way stop newcomers. At our last new membership meeting we had over two hundred new members. Because of the rapid growth we are still experiencing it has been hard to settle on a building. In fact I think it being in a school is more appealing to new people because alot of the negative responses to religion is the collosal buildings it puts up. Being in a auditorium kind of says we care of about the truth of the Gospel not the surroundings.

We also rent office space and classroom space at a different location. Our Bible classes are smaller so this works. The school we are at is very accomadating as it lets us use their class rooms for day care, and Sunday school. We run the Sunday school during both services and it is led by people who go to the opposite service. We also have in home Bible studies depending where people are at in scripture. Oh and another neat thing we do is with new comers we have volunteers who work with them for the first 30 days of their commitment. We're hoping to put up a new building this year that is functional not beautiful. Hope this helps. If anyone wants to ask more questions we are at Mad City Church. 2713 E. Washington Ave. Madison, WI 53704 email madcitychurch@madcitychurch.org www.madcitychurch.org phone 608-210-8000 Pastor Shane Holden. Shane could let you know how it was all set up, and how functional it is.

Love in Christ

Teri

[bebakerus]

Thanks,

I guess the only thing that worries me about going to the public school is that it is a public school. We're looking at a transition period of at least three years. Right now the principals are willing to work with us. Will this be the case for a couple years? I don't know. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

As I said the decision is not mine and I'll support our elders with whatever they decide but I don't envy them.

[Teri Mc]

Brebakers

The only thing I can tell you is have someone get ahold of Shane. We have already been in the school for a couple of years and have had no problems. I'm sure we pay rent and the district likes the money. Also it's kind of a win on Gods part. The liberals have had a field day with it in the past, but it came down to a public building that was used for other functions outside of school stuff and they can't be bias. Also we do not interfere in the school thing, so God gets to have His word preached in a public school regardless of the liberals. Kind of cool don't you think.

Love in Christ

Teri

[gepeto]

If you want, you can go to www.fcc.com and click on the site. This is Family Community Church here in San Jose. They have experienced huge growth and you can ask Pastor Bill for help. The glue that they use is to have small groups to bond everybody together. I don't know if this will help but you should check it out.

[Enoch&Elijah]

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