How often is your facility used?

[Mike Schutz]

How often is your church facility used?

[Jonathan Long]

Soon (in the next week or two) our church building will be completed! We'll be moving from the school building where we currently meet into the new building which is located across the street...!!!

The original idea was for the new building to be used as much as possible, not with "church" related events only, but with activities that will draw in our neighbors... I'm sure that won't happen overnight, so it will take some time for us to get our act together and organize. So hopefully my answer will change in the next few months!

Jon

[Charlene Clevenger]

The staff is at the church Tuesday through Friday. A church member tutors math students Tuesday and Thursday nights. We have Bible studies on Wednesday morning and evening. There's almost always something going on on Saturday. We have our SS and worship on Sunday morning and another church uses the facility on Sunday afternoon. It's a pretty busy place, considering we run under 100 in worship.

[David Pettigrew]

We have church related activities on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, as well as many weekends.

[Jay Stiegelmeyer]

I voted "other, please explain" since our church does not have a facility. We meet in a house.

[David Pettigrew]

I voted "other, please explain" since our church does not have a facility. We meet in a house.

So that would be 7 days a week then, right?

[Jay Stiegelmeyer]

So that would be 7 days a week then, right?

Yeah, I debated between those two options, but I decided to go with 'other' because our church doesn't really have a facility nor do we need to own one.

[Ryan Scott]

During the school year we have a preschool using the facilities M-F. In addition we currently have four social service/recovery groups using the building on three evening each week. We also have Sunday activities. There is no regular Saturday use - perhaps the building needs a sabbath too?

[John Reilly]

I voted "other, please explain" since our church does not have a facility. We meet in a house.

Exciting to know an "Acts 2" contemporary church. Awesome. Bless you as You Serve Him.

[Billy Cox]

How often is your church facility used?

I don't know...but it seems pretty active on Sunday mornings. :smilies1722:

[Marg Shurtliff]

I checked 6 days a week because we have a nursery school that rents 5 days a week in the school year periods . At the moment its just 1 , sometimes 2 days a week . Unless you count the pastor being there most mornings and some afternoons but I don't think that was the intent of this poll .
Should have read the other posts before I did the poll . It should have been 7 days a week as I forgot the spanish church ( non Nazarene ) that rents Sat evenings and Sunday afternoons .

[Greg Farra]

We have a Daycare that's open 5 days a week, plus Jr. NBA and YMCA uses the facilities a lot of Saturdays, but not all year.

[David Graham]

This survey is presently being conducted accross my denomination to determine whether or not we are optimising the financial investment of our congregations.
It is, I think, long overdue, and should be at the fore front of our thinking whenever we go into a building programme. In our parish, we have four church campuses which contain 7 church buildings (i.e. Worship Sanctuaries and Halls) In terms of financial value we would have close to 2 million dollars of capital tied up in these assets, and for two of the out lying congregations who only use their facilities once a week, I don't believe that this level of utilisation justifies having so much money tied up in their facilities. Another congregation uses their facilities twice a week while the church in town uses their facilities four times a week.

According to our rule book all of our properties are held for the churches by our Synod Property trust, which means that if we cannot optimise the use of these facilities, the Synod could quite rightly sell them and use the money elsewhere unless we could justify keeping them by way of a fuller utilisation plan.

Thus the challenge falls back to the members of each congregation to come up with new ways of ministry using the properties that they have.
Personally, I think it's great that we're doing this, and it might just be the catalyst we need to reach more people for Christ in our various communities.

On the other hand, some people have suggested that we consider not having buildings at all, but that we "do church" in our homes and in a more community oriented setting.... e.g. A local Cafe, the local park or even the local hotel. In the post Christian era that characterises much of the western society, maybe this is a debate we need to have, for some have suggested that our church buildings actually detach us from the wider community. In addition, there are the words of Jesus who said: "Where your heart is, there also will your treasure be"! I therefore hope that we treasure people more than buildings!

Blessings,
Dave

[Billy Cox]

This survey is presently being conducted accross my denomination to determine whether or not we are optimising the financial investment of our congregations.

It seems like this would be a tricky calculation to make. Some on this thread have pointed to the fact that they have staff in the building most of the week, but I don't count that as 'building utilization'. In terms of square footage used, a church's staff uses only a small fraction of the space that an average church has at its disposal.


On the other hand, some people have suggested that we consider not having buildings at all, but that we "do church" in our homes and in a more community oriented setting.... e.g. A local Cafe, the local park or even the local hotel. In the post Christian era that characterises much of the western society, maybe this is a debate we need to have, for some have suggested that our church buildings actually detach us from the wider community. In addition, there are the words of Jesus who said: "Where your heart is, there also will your treasure be"! I therefore hope that we treasure people more than buildings!

As long as we collectively believe that bigger is better, churches will need venues where they call the shots. You just can't mob a Starbuck's or Denny's with 40 to 50 families unless most or all of the people are paying customers. When one thinks beyond church buildings, there really aren't that many indoor public spaces with the capacity of the average sanctuary.

[Dennis M. Scott]

Ours is a shared facility which we have chosen to not control. We had the option of owning, but decided to let our compassionate ministry own it, and we rent from them. It is used by about twenty different groups now, and all seven days. I don't think there is a single day when it is not used by multiple groups - most of which are recovery groups and agencies assisting homeless.

I just received an email from a long time friend wanting to know if my church was a "regular" church, or a specialized ministry. I told him "yes."

[Jay Stiegelmeyer]

As long as we collectively believe that bigger is better, churches will need venues where they call the shots. You just can't mob a Starbuck's or Denny's with 40 to 50 families unless most or all of the people are paying customers. When one thinks beyond church buildings, there really aren't that many indoor public spaces with the capacity of the average sanctuary.

I am not buying the notion that we all collectively agree that bigger is better. Count me as one who is not in the "bigger is better" camp.

[Billy Cox]

I am not buying the notion that we all collectively agree that bigger is better. Count me as one who is not in the "bigger is better" camp.

Fair enough... Allow me to rephrase. Denominationally speaking, we believe that bigger is better.

[Jay Stiegelmeyer]

Fair enough... Allow me to rephrase. Denominationally speaking, we believe that bigger is better.

I'm still not sure I am buying that. Do you mean there is a general perception that bigger is better? I can certainly agree with that.

[David Pettigrew]

Fair enough... Allow me to rephrase. Denominationally speaking, we believe that bigger is better.

Jerry Porter just told us at district assembly to all go home and start churches wherever we can with whomever we can and don't worry about how we count them.

[Rich Schmidt]

As of this moment, I'm the only person who checked the "2 days per week" option. That's because right now it's just Sunday mornings and Thursday evenings. But we did have a lunch hour group meeting on Tuesdays (took a summer break about a month ago) and soon will have a women's group meeting twice a week. So we might move from 2 to 4 or 5 pretty soon.

For a month this summer it was used 7 days a week, because we were hosting the men's overnight shelter. We had 8-20 guys sleeping in our place each night. (To keep us legal in terms of building & fire codes, the shelter moves every month, from one church to the next.)

[Billy Cox]

Jerry Porter just told us at district assembly to all go home and start churches wherever we can with whomever we can and don't worry about how we count them.

I respect the sentiment behind that directive, but it strikes me as a "can't we all just get along" statement - a desperate and sincere plea but devoid of any practical handles.

[Rich Schmidt]

I respect the sentiment behind that directive, but it strikes me as a "can't we all just get along" statement - a desperate and sincere plea but devoid of any practical handles.

I have no idea what you mean by this, Billy.

[Ian Gentles]

Baptist church we attend is used six days a week, and possibly seven for weddings.

[Cynthia Prentice]

Five congregations use our church. In addition to our congregation there are, 2 Spanish speaking congregations, 1 Egyptian congregation, and a Kenyan congregations...we have also housed a program run by Tarrant County Juvenile Department for high risk repeat offenders...and the girl scouts use the building. It is used almost every day.

[Billy Cox]

I have no idea what you mean by this, Billy.

The directive to, "go home and start churches wherever you can with whomever you can and don't worry about how you count them" is a James 2:16 directive. "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed." Do you understand what that means?

What do you suppose a person already operating at 110% will do with that? I'll give you a hint, it's between these two quotation marks: " ".

[Billy Cox]

As of this moment, I'm the only person who checked the "2 days per week" option.

Don't feel bad. Most people count 'facility use' as two or three gathered even if the ratio is one person per thousand square feet of space. It's the only explanation for seven-day-a-week churches that are almost always empty.

[Glenn Harris]

I voted other because that varies depending on the time of year and other circumstances as well as the Church and education wing in one building and the family life center in another building.

We hold services in the church on Sunday AM/PM and Wednesday evening. The youth group meets in the Family Life center on Sunday evening, and Friday evening as well as frequent events. We have prayer groups meeting on Tuesday morning, Thursday morning and on Sunday morning. During sports season Victory Sports holds basketball events there twice a week. The quizzers meet there, we have four church based "organizations" that meet there weekly, we rent the facility out to three other organizations on a weekly basis, we are considered the go to church for weddings (many of the local churches that don't have big enough facilities to host a large wedding send their brides to us to rent the facility), the two local funeral homes will frequently contact us about the use of the church for large funerals of families that aren't associated with a particular church or their church can't accomodate it, and when you add in emphasis events, homecomings, concerts, revivals and other assorted events plus our office is staffed 5 days a week (8 to 12) our facilities are rarely empty except at night. Our facility management is based on two simple concepts, (does it provide a positive interaction with the community and does it reflect postively on our witness as a church and as a congregation) If it meets those two criteria we try to accomidate, if it doesn't we respectfully decline.

[Rich Schmidt]

The directive to, "go home and start churches wherever you can with whomever you can and don't worry about how you count them" is a James 2:16 directive. "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed." Do you understand what that means?

What do you suppose a person already operating at 110% will do with that? I'll give you a hint, it's between these two quotation marks: " ".

Ah. Now I understand what you were saying. I respectfully disagree. Or at least, I don't hear it that way at all. But then, I started the church I now pastor, we've given birth to a daughter church, and I meet monthly with a small group of NewStart/ReStart pastors. His charge feels very permission-giving to me.

[Billy Cox]

Ah. Now I understand what you were saying. I respectfully disagree. Or at least, I don't hear it that way at all. But then, I started the church I now pastor, we've given birth to a daughter church, and I meet monthly with a small group of NewStart/ReStart pastors. His charge feels very permission-giving to me.

That's why I said that I appreciated the sentiment behind the statement.

[Norayr Hajian]

We operate a daycare in our church, Monday to Friday, we have music practice on Tuesday night, Bible Study on Wednesday night, a meeting at least one or two Thursday nights/month, a youth group on Friday's, and a free clothing ministry two Saturday's/month. Oh, and we go there on Sunday morning's for worship! So, all in all, I'd say we are using our facility fairly well.

[Kazimiera Fraley]

Our Building is used Every other Monday, and then Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays (oops I picked 4 days a week forgetting to count Sunday). Oh and Saturdays we have AA in the building. But our congregation only uses it Mondays and Sundays most weeks, we have 5 different congregations in our building who all use the building in varying degrees.

[Shea Zellweger]

Our Building is used Every other Monday, and then Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays (oops I picked 4 days a week forgetting to count Sunday). Oh and Saturdays we have AA in the building. But our congregation only uses it Mondays and Sundays most weeks, we have 5 different congregations in our building who all use the building in varying degrees.

Ah, don't forget the Saturday morning prayer once a month :). I picked "every day," though I was also counting the activities of the other congregations, and your time at the office.

[Susan Unger]

We have a Christian Counseling group that uses our building 5 days a week. There's many church activities that occur on Saturdays and then of course there is Sunday AM services.

[John Kennedy]

We have a Day Care that operates 5 days a week and a Seventh Dad Adventist congregation (Cambodian) that rents the facility on Saturday. We used to have an Anglican congregation that rented from us on Sunday, but they found other space closer to most of their parishioners.
Since the church is situated on a large plot of ground, probably between 1 1/2 and 2 acres, we provide space and water (not a small item in SoCal) for a community garden.