The finance committee fretted in the fluorescent glow of the church conference room as the foreboding Times New Roman type glared up at us from the expense reports. Glasses were readjusted, ties were loosened, and coughs were expelled as the reality of the numbers set in. Finally, one agitated member broke the squeamish silence, “We have to do something! Can you imagine if we lost the building?!” I sighed and smiled, drawing a few surprised stares. I had imagined it, and it sounded wonderful.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus famously said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” and churches are no exception. Though they seldom receive as much attention, church budgets speak a lot more powerfully than mission statements. For example, plenty of churches pontificate about “reaching the world for Christ” but only give a pittance to international missions. Others claim to be “a light to the community,” but their budgets show only a fraction of a percent going to local hunger and poverty. If churches’ mission statements had to match our financial statements, there would be a lot more church signs that just say, “Hey, our building’s pretty cool, right?”

And there’s the root of the problem. On every church budget I’ve ever seen, the two largest items (sometimes in excess of 90%) are always staff salaries and building expenses. The staff salaries are typically justified. After all, ministers and support staff sacrifice income-generating hours to serve the church, and they need help offsetting that. My concern is more with the building expenses, particularly the debt incurred in construction.

Drive through any American neighborhood on a weekday, and you will encounter dozens of empty shells— holy-looking buildings that sit vacant as their Sunday-only occupants are spread throughout the city. Education wings, gyms, and state-of-the-art youth centers are silent. Bibles wait unopened in pews. Unattended air hockey tables hum longingly. Coffeemakers sit idle. And the electricity bill climbs steadily upward. This is the reality of most churches —sparsely populated six days a week—, and most are in a scramble to pay the bills on empty buildings. Outreach is supplanted by fundraising, and the building becomes a treasure to be guarded instead of a resource to be utilized. It’s hard for a church to stay a church under such conditions.

If we judged them by the standards applied to other nonprofits, churches would be some of America’s least financially efficient, and much of this is due to the buildings. You see, a few decades back, we bought into a faulty myth. We believed new facilities would get the neighbors’ interest, and we moved bible studies out of homes and restaurants into our fancy new education wings. Worship services needed to be cutting edge, so we installed sound systems and lighting arrays that would make U2 feel right at home. (Although, in fairness, all those upgrades are still cheaper to install and maintain than a pipe organ.) We thought our flashy new buildings and programs would lead to growth in numbers, and a growth in numbers would lead to financial stability, and financial stability would lead to doing more good beyond our freshly-painted walls, but we were wrong on all counts. We were irresponsible stewards, and it’s starting to show. For so many churches now, these buildings are not blessings.
They’re liabilities.
They’re sources of debt.
They’re wholly unmanageable.
But there’s still hope.

I served a church in North Carolina that was empty most days of the week, so they converted unused classroom space into a clothes closet and partnered with a nearby sister church to house a food pantry.
They use the space well.

The church I served in Tampa, though struggling financially, realized they had excess space and volunteered unused rooms to local nonprofits. Portions of the building became warehouses of furniture and clothing for those who couldn’t afford them, and the sanctuary housed large weekday meetings, speakers, and events.
They use the space well.

When I went to Washington D.C. for a conference a year ago, I saw historic churches leasing their space to likeminded nonprofit organizations, all of whom became partners for bettering the neighborhood. In some cases, the churches even sold their buildings outright with the understanding they could still meet there on Sundays.
They use the space well.

Currently, I attend four churches in Jacksonville, three of which were started within the last decade. These three churches want to get the most out of their funding, so they rent space or meet outside rather than building a building. The fourth church inherited a historic building that predates the vast majority of the current members, so they utilize it constantly. They house a school, rent out their parking lot to neighboring businesses, offer space to an array of nonprofits, host regular dinners for homeless guests, and provide office and kitchen space to a campus ministry. Perhaps most impressive, this church always looks for new ways to utilize their facility, never sitting idle just because their financial obligations are met.
They use the space well.

If we’re going to keep these buildings around, if we’re going to keep sinking money into them, then we must start utilizing the space effectively. We can start by asking some tough questions:
Does our budget match our mission?
How can we use this space throughout the week?
Have we adequately equipped our staff to manage the property while also meeting the needs of the congregation?
Are there other partners in the community who could use this space?

Or is it time to sell?