Don’t Let Your Church Building Kill Your Church

The church in North America is getting smaller.

No, I don’t think we’re going to say goodbye to the megachurch any time soon – at least I hope not. By all indications, the biggest churches will become even bigger.

But, according to many church trend-watchers like Ed Stetzer, even megachurch leaders are understanding the need for multiple smaller venues instead of bigger and bigger megabuildings.

The era of the mega-church-building, even as megachurches keep growing, may be over.

This is just part of an overall societal trend towards more personalization. The one-size-fits-all era is gone.

For instance, in the last few decades we’ve gone from the big three TV networks, to hundreds of cable channels, to online TV and movie queues tailored to each person’s specific watching habits. The same has happened in radio, automobiles, musical genres, books… you name it.

I think this tendency towards smaller, bistro-style niche tastes leaves the church in North America with a choice.

Fight the tendency towards smaller and lose out, or do Small Church really well and lead the culture into a better way.

As an example, I used to hate my Small Church building. I blamed our church’s lack of numerical growth on a lack of vision by the founders. They built too small a building on too small a plot of land. (As it turns out, the lack of growth had several other factors, including my own mistakes, as I reference in this podcast I did with Carey Nieuwhof.)

I don’t get mad at my small building now. Well, not as often as I used to, anyway. Now there are some days when I’m actually grateful I have less facility to maintain. Keep reading