Church Family,
First, I want to thank everyone that filled out one of the polls last Sunday. We appreciate your thoughts and your honesty. We had scheduled a town hall meeting for this Sunday night, April 7. However, we want the building committee to have time to review, process, and discuss the comments expressed in the poll. Due to busy/conflicting schedules, we will not be able to meet this week. Therefore, we are going to postpone the town hall meeting until after Easter. I will let you know as soon as we set a new date.
Now, if you will indulge me for a few moments, I want to share some thoughts in regards to some of the comments and common misconceptions about building. I want to make sure everyone in our church sees the big picture and is processing with the same information. I had breakfast last week with a gentlemen who works for the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. The heart of our conversation was centered around churches building Family Life Centers (FLC). I want to share with you some of his thoughts as well as the results of research done by the State Convention. I hope you will take time to read through this and click the links (all research done by Arkansas Baptist State Convention) I am attaching so you can see the research for yourself. I thought it was interesting when I told the man we were thinking of building a FLC that he said the first thing he does when church's talk to him is try to convince them to not build a FLC. This comes from a man who has served on staff at a church as Recreational Pastor for several years.
Let's begin with a general misconception about buildings. One of the most famous quotes from "Field of Dreams" is, "If you build it, he will come." Some believe the same is true of church buildings. If we build it, people will come. People do not come to church because of buildings. They come because of relationships. The gentleman I had breakfast with shared with me that research shows why people attend a church. The answer is relationships. One poll even discovered that only 2% of people attend a church because of the pastor. I thought that was funny and humbling. People come to church because they are invited by a friend or have a relative that attends that church. It is about relationships. If we want to reach our community, a building will not do that. If we want to reach our community, we have to be serious about building relationships with people and sharing the Gospel with them. In addition, the gentleman shared with me that if a church is growing at a 3% rate before a building, then that same church will grow at a 3% rate after the building is completed. Us being intentional about building relationships to share the Gospel is what grows a church. That does not change with or without a building.
I want to dovetail another thought with that. While buildings do not stimulate growth, a building can cap/prevent growth (click here point #1). Any building/space has a limit it can hold. We even have fire codes that set a limit to the number of people who can occupy a space. In our culture, we have personal space bubbles that we don't want others to invade. Because of that, research proves that only a certain number of people will comfortably occupy a shared space. Whenever that space is 80% full, then growth will not continue to happen in that space. Here is a link to show the statistics. Currently, our nursery is running at 80% capacity. Statistics prove that if we do not create more room for our children, then we are going to cap/prevent any more growth in that area. I'm glad that an overwhelming majority who filled out a poll agreed that we need to remodel our children's area. I want to be very clear. Remodeling the children's area does not mean growth will happen (paragraph above), but if we do not remodel, then we are resigning ourselves to no further growth in that area.
A misconception about building a FLC is that it will attract young families. I had a conversation with a pastor-friend about a month ago. He served in a church several years ago that was considering building a FLC. He contacted the Southern Baptist Convention to inquire further. They told him that FLCs do not attract young families, and here is why. Young families can't utilize the space because they work all day, and then they attend their children's extracurricular activities at night. As a parent of four children, I can attest to that. Our kids are always at practice or having games at night. The only way to use the FLC to attract younger families is to have ministries for young families (read earlier paragraph about relationships attract people). Click here to see research. To do this effectively, a church must hire a recreational pastor at least one year in advance (point #3 on research). Honestly, our church does not have the resources to hire someone at this point. We could, but that would mean we have to let another staff member go or reduce some staff to part-time. In other words, we would begin a ministry at the cost of other growing ministries. You can also click here to see a checklist before building a FLC. I could only say "yes" to a couple of the questions.
My final thought in regards to misconceptions is the idea of building something and then creating ministries for it. That concept is completely backwards, and that is what we would be doing with a FLC. Let me give you an example. I am not a carpenter, and I don't have tools to be a carpenter. How do you think my wife would respond if one day I told her I wanted to begin doing carpentry work? I want us to take a loan from the bank so I can build an elaborate shop and equip it with the tools I need to be a carpenter. If you know Shannon, you know she would roll her eyes at me and then laugh. Why? Because it doesn't make sense. If I was a carpenter, then it would make sense. Now, let's apply that to church life. Why would we build an elaborate building for ministries we don't even have? It doesn't make sense. We need to make sure our buildings are designed, equipped, and utilized for the ministries we already have. The right way to move forward for a church is to create ministries and then build a building to make those ministries more effective. Isn't that what was done for our current building? Why would we do something different now?
Here is one other link that is a good read.
I knew from the beginning this would be a painful process for our church, and that is why I mentioned so much about us coming to the Lord in prayer. I urge you to continue to seek His face in this matter. Let me remind us all that our personal desires do not matter. We need to be obedient to the Lord and honor Him. That means more than our final decision. This includes our conversations and attitudes as we work through the process as well.
In Christ,
Mark Smith, Pastor of FBC Jacksonville, AR
