Why the best church buildings are used every day of the week, not just two
Adapted from Chapter 16 of Equipped, “The Ripple Effect: How Good Stewardship Serves Others”
Is Your Church a Well or a Temple?
In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. He speaks with her and offers her living water. She goes back to town and tells everyone what happened, and the town comes out to see Jesus for themselves.
I’ve come to think of wells versus temples as a defining concept for how we think about our church facilities. Temples and churches are often used only a couple of days a week. A well, on the other hand, is used every day. And it’s a great place to meet people in the real world.
The question for us today is simple, and a little uncomfortable: How can our church facilities function as wells for our community, rather than temples that sit locked and quiet most of the week?
Your Building Is a Community Asset
Here’s a number I’ve repeated for years: next to the NFL and its stadiums, churches may be the most underused major facility owners in the country. Most church buildings sit empty for the majority of the week despite being substantial community assets, capable of hosting meetings, programs, and gatherings for the neighborhoods around them. Most church facilities are used less than 20 percent of available hours.
What Could Happen in the Other 80 Percent?
Think about what could happen in that other 80 percent: community gardens, HOA and recovery-group meetings, kitchen rentals, concerts and arts events, youth sports, blood drives, food pantries, or shared space for a new congregation still finding its feet. None of that requires a new building. It requires a decision to see the building you already have differently.
Your Facility Is Telling a Story
But utilization is only part of the picture. Your facility is also telling a story, whether you intend it to or not. I believe there are four dimensions to that story: design, vibe, condition, and function.
Design: What Story Does Your Building Tell?
Design is about more than aesthetics. It’s a statement to your community. I’ve watched church plants make this mistake more than once: they locate wisely, in the heart of their target neighborhood, then build the cheapest possible metal building to save money. What story does that tell the family who just spent $500,000 on a house nearby?
Vibe: What Does Your Building Feel Like?
Vibe is the feeling people experience the moment they walk in, and it needs to be intentional and consistent with who you are, whether that’s liturgical and reverent or contemporary and casual.
Condition: What Are You No Longer Seeing?
Condition is the story regular attenders stop noticing. We walk right past the grass growing through the parking lot cracks, the duct tape on the lobby carpet, the stained ceiling tile. Guests don’t. Your first-time visitors, especially those who don’t yet believe, are comparing your facility to every consumer experience they had that week, the barista who got their order right, the restaurant with the nice restrooms. Like it or not, your competition isn’t the church down the street.
Function: Does Your Building Work?
And function is whether the building actually works for the people trying to use it: Can a first-time guest find their kid’s classroom without asking three people for directions? Is the lobby a place to connect, or a cattle chute between services?
Walk Through Your Facility With Fresh Eyes
Take a few minutes this week and walk your own facility with fresh eyes. Or better yet, ask someone outside your congregation to do a “secret worshipper” visit and tell you honestly what story your building is telling before anyone says a word.
What Would It Take to Become a Well?
“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
A building used once a week can’t do that nearly as well as a building used every day. The question worth sitting with is this one: is your church, right now, more of a well or a temple? And what would it take to become more of a well?
