The Pro Church Tools Show with Brady Shearer

The New Rules For Church Buildings (With Futuristic Examples)

Apr 30, 2019

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As church attendance continues to decline, ministries are beginning to confront a glaring problem with how we do church today. The problem? Our buildings are extremely expensive, they only get used once or twice per week, and they're often removed from the everyday life of our communities. Thankfully, there are churches working to solve this problem in innovative ways. And by the end of this video, you'll learn the new rules for church buildings and how your church can begin applying these principles immediately - whether your church is big, small, young, or old.

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What's In This Session?

Century Church: A United Methodist church plant meeting at Pike Road School in Pike Road, Alabama has grown to about 500 people - lead by their lead pastor Dr. Patrick M. Quinn. (2:11) Century is ready to build their own building - but, they've set out to create a church campus that will abandon the 20th Century church design formula in favor of directly addressing some of the factors that are contributing to decreases in church participation. (2:42)
If present trends continue, the percentage of the population that attends church in 2050 is estimated to be at almost half of 1990's attendance. (4:07)
Only 2 in 10 people in the U.S. under the age of 30 consider attending church "important". (4:36)
Over the last several years we have thought church attendance was dropping because of relevance. (5:10)
"The 20th Century model for building churches focused on the church buildings, whereas we believe that the future of the church is to focus on how to build the community first," says Quinn. (8:23)
Instead of creating a large church building that is surrounded by a sea of parking and only used once or twice a week, Century wants to create a campus that is vibrant throughout the week because: #1. It has buildings that cater to the entire community, #2. They are designed to be so welcoming and comfortable that people will simply want to hang out there. (10:20)
What most churches offer has become commoditized; this move towards community and meeting space cannot be commoditized by the Internet. (12:23)
Four basic principles can be applied to any church of any size. (15:49)
1. Community first, church second. (16:07)
2. Partnerships that matter. (17:58)
3. Incremental design. (19:44)
4. Sense of adventure and creativity. (22:26)
It is a fiscally responsible solution, it's a theologically smart solution, and it's a practical solution. (26:10)

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