provide utility

Brad Abare is posting on Church Marketing Sucks about his recent trip to Haiti, and gleaning tips for church marketing. In his first post, he writes about providing utility.

Electricity in Haiti is scarce. The government rotates the power grid so that you get about two hours of electricity in the middle of the night. This means days and evenings are without power unless you are wealthy enough to own a generator (few do). Businesses are also affected by this and very few of them have generators. The two churches we worked with did have generators and they could afford to run them once a day for a couple hours, sometimes longer if a service was in progress to amplify the sound. An auxiliary benefit to churches being one of the only places in town with electricity is that people will bring their cell phones and line them up along the walls to charge their batteries.

Most western churches are not the only places in town with electricity, but we can provide "utility" for our communities.

The first thing that comes to mind is third place. We're a little higher up Maslow's hierarchy of needs than Haiti, but there is a drought of social spaces in most of our neighborhoods. What if there was a cool, comfortable, WiFi zone in town that offered, but did not obligate, the purchase of coffee, etc? Revolutionary.

And what about those in your community who are somewhere in the middle? Maybe your facility isn't the only place with heat in the winter, but how many of those other places open their doors to the homeless? Maybe your building isn't the only building in town with a kitchen, but how many other kitchens are feeding low-income, single moms?

James 2:15-16//If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Wildesign's construction project

Wildesign's got our own building project going on. That's right, we're not only hearers of the word, but doers also. They're talking about work space and war rooms and conference tables. I think we should put in a social/third place space. Full coffee bar - the works. (I'll have a petition out later this week if you want to take sides.)

Don's happy with the hole in the wall. I think it looks kind of like ET's hospital quarters.

That's right, the coffee pot is still running. The chocolate buffet has been moved for safety reasons.

Pretty.

is your building selfish?

An article on The Christian Post this morning quotes Pastor Erwin McManus on why the Church in America is in a state of decline:

My primary assessment would be because American Christians tend to be incredibly self-indulgent so they see the church as a place there for them to meet their needs and to express faith in a way that is meaningful for them. There is almost no genuine compassion or urgency about serving and reaching people who don't know Christ.

*Nervous laughter* Ouch.

But you also have to consider that while the United Methodist Church is at its lowest membership rate since 1930, and the Lutheran World Federation reported a slip in western membership, McManus has led his church from 300 to over 3000 members in his 10 years as lead pastor. Maybe he's on to something.

Is there compassion - even urgency - for service and outreach in your church? I could probably walk around your building and tell you. Not because I take to judging books by their covers, but because - as Kevin Ford discusses in Transforming Church - your building is a natural extension of the core of your ministry. Whether you've ever thought about it or not.

For example, when my husband and I visited West Side Christian in Springfield over Christmas the first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable I felt in their lobby. But the second thing I noticed was that their welcome center had been transformed into an African village. It didn't take long to figure out that they had made a commitment to bring Christmas 07 to a small, poor community in Africa. That was cool, and that they took the time and resources to put that together demonstrated that they're serious about it.

If your building is in a community, it's part of that community. Is your facility serving your community, or sucking the life out of it? Is there room in your building for your Church body to serve the community? When a visitor walks into your lobby, what does she learn about your ministry?

If you don't have a third place space, you can't offer an escape for students or parents who work at home. If you don't have a kitchen, you can't feed the homeless. If everything in your lobby talks about you, you won't have anything to talk to a globally-minded, anti-Christian millennial about.

McManus continued,

I think the bottom line really is our own spiritual narcissism. There are methods and you can talk about style, structure and music, but in the end it really comes down to your heart and what you care about.

building for the next generation

You know that times are changing. You know that the age of digital is dawning. You know that your mission field is getting younger and more jaded. You know that they have very little Christian background, that they're naturally cynical about Christianity, and that they don't trust and respect your ministry like they should. You know music most defines them and media most affects them.

You've been paying attention.

This morning, I watched Granger Community Church's Christmas worship service, and was reminded of an article I read yesterday in Church Solutions.

Danielle Maheux contributed an article called The Art of Worship. She writes about creating beauty, being excellent, and being relevant. That last bit is where technology comes in, and is what GCC's presentation of the nativity reminded me of.

Maheux quotes Matt Card of Clark ProMedia extensively as he discusses entertainment vs. communication, and discovering a target audience. Then he comments,

Too many people think they should decide how the building should look and feel, and then they shove their worship arts to fit within that box.

If you have a vision and a mission statement, you probably know your audience. As you consider design or redesign for your worship space (the most important space in your facility to the unchurched), start thinking about media about the time you start thinking about how many chairs you'll need.

It's okay to engage people.

by the mouth of two or three witnesses ...

I keep telling you to do more with the third place space in your church building. Mr. Mike Trent is backing me up.

Most churches today have fallen in love with the idea of a café in their church, but few have understood the investment and return on investment. It’s our responsibility as leaders to use what we’ve been given to unlock this potential. Intentional third places have amazing and unlimited ability to connect people, develop leaders, and fund ministries. And the return on investment is internal, external and eternal.

He wrote an article recently for Church Solutions called Blended Services, which you can read here.