GOING FORWARD CHANGE is the trend and FLEXIBLITY is the goal!

This post is offered to bring attention to the impact the pandemic of 2020 is having on The Church, and the decisions Church leaders are making in response.  Specifically, the response they are making about buildings, building processes, and the economic hardships that can accompany them.

The undisputed #1 trend for 2021 is CHANGE!

Because of recent events, change is not only expected but embrace by church leaders and followers alike.

Most leaders have re-evaluated their mission, methodologies, and resources. Strategic leaders are addressing changes to finances, facilities, and functionality.  Many have concluded they got caught flat footed and feel exposed in at least one of these areas.

The #2 trend is FLEXABILITY!

The pandemic has accelerated and exasperated everything in the Church.  Strategic leaders responded with innovative thinking.  Thus, one could say that The Churches response has been nothing short of amazing!

The mission is still the mission!  It will not change!  But the methodologies will and must change. Going forward Flex will be a verb of the church!  Churches that consistently innovate to new and effective methods will sustain advancements on mission.

Budgets and Buildings must be positioned for leadership to flex to new effective methods with as little constraint as possible.  But how does a building become a flexible tool?  Strategic leaders are demanding their facilities be as “innovatable” as the methods they envision in the future!

In 2020 the church attendance pendulum has swung from almost exclusively in-person meeting to almost exclusively digital meeting.  In 2021, the pendulum will settle nicely.  Strategic leaders will identify the most Kingdom-advancing practices of both and embrace them.  As Cary Nieuwhof says, “the era of set it and forget it strategy are over! Agility is far less exhausting than decline is.”

Here are 8 ways church facilities can flex to your newest and most effective methods:

Flex #1 – Be Transformed

Imagine how effective a church could be if they magically transformed any space into multiple uses – day to day, week to week, season to season, year to year!

The Transformers (toys and movie characters) for example made instant changes to be most effective where they are right now.  At one point they are robots and at another point they are a car, plane, gun, or animal.  They became whatever was necessary to win a new way.

Think worship center, to ESL classrooms to coffee house to business incubators…whatever your space needs to be to advance mission.

Flex #2 – Rightsizing Facilities

Imagine designing a smaller facility – having less or no debt, less maintenance expenses, but more uses!

In one form of rightsizing, large regional churches are trying to figure out what to do with space left vacant by new ministry models that attracted people to more and smaller community-centric facilities.  In another form of rightsizing, church architects and designers have learned the lessons and are designing spaces that are appropriately sized using extreme functionality.  More churches over build than under build – yet more square feet do not equal more ministry capacity.

Flex #3 – Save Money Now

Imagine redirecting scarce resources to mission rather than a building campaign!

The math gets easy now – smaller facilities are a lot less expensive to build, buildout or renovate.  Which means less capital funding up front, less leadership capital spent, and less lead time to launch.  Reaching the community quicker.

Flex #4 – Save money Later

Imagine the exponential savings in maintenance costs that could be made with a smaller, more effective facility over the course of the next 40+ years!

Tim Cool of Smart Church Solutions shares that, because of ongoing maintenance expense, the real cost of a facility usually will cost about 4x the amount it took build it.  Smaller FlexSpace facilities are the gift that keeps on giving.  A smaller footprint with simpler infrastructure will keep ongoing maintenance expenses lower for decades into the future.

Flex #5 – Trend Resistant

Imagine seeing a community need you can meet and being able to respond quickly, effectively, and with few speed bumps!

A Strategically led church is likely not doing ministry today the way they did 10, 5, or even just 3 years ago – pandemic or not! Do not let your future ministry innovation be held captive by the facility you have designed.

Flex #6 – Take it to the people!

Imagine being able to take the power of your worship room to an adjacent space, or outside, or across town.  We’re talking speakers, video, LED wall, control center, etc.

The days of “build it and they will come” are history (if it was ever true).  FlexSpace Design allows a room outfitted with great AVL gear for worship to be pulled and taken off-site into the community. The same thing goes for Hospitality and children’s ministry gear – perfect tools to be used across town or in the next room.

Flex #7 – Engage more and different people

Imagine creating spaces that attract people of different cultures, different interests, or having different needs!

Think of the different people-groups within 10 minutes of your facility:  Cultures with unique meeting needs, athletes, schools, civic interests, etc.  When a church facility is designed (to flex to your community) with a community centric focus in mind, you expand your capacity to be all things to all people so that by all means (or uses) you might save some.

Flex #8 – Show me the money!

Imagine adding another 10-20% on to your budget simply by making your facility available for outside groups!

Even the church needs revenue. FlexSpace Designs in a church allow you to transform all spaces making them available for revenue generating purposes.

Is the buildout of that new commercial space going to flex to your ministry methods for the next 20-40 years?  Consider FlexSpace – the intersection of a permanent facility with portable flexibility!

If these points ring a bell with you – connect with one of our FlexSpace Design experts here. We’d love to hear your story and partner with you!

By Portable Church Industries: After working with multisite churches for over 25 years, we have seen churches launch campuses a lot of different ways.  We have found there are generally 5 main ways to do it  – and they all come with a list of pros and cons.

*Watch the entirety of the vlog for a deeper dive into each of these bullet points.

To start, we believe the best way for the multisite church to grow and thrive is to have some balance of these 5 methods of campuses. We LOVE launching churches portably, but we know each option carries it’s own advantages!

1. Greenbuild

This is when a church buys a piece of land and then goes to work dreaming, designing, and eventually building. This includes going through the lengthy and labor-intensive process of vision casting, raising money, and getting loans.

• Pros include: The pros of this method are that you get exactly what you want. It’s your vision, your DNA and your design all the way through. The final product is a  24/7 presence being established in a specific community.
• Cons include: By far this is the most time consuming and most expensive way to launch. A new building could turn out to become a lid that can cap your growth – too big or too small, it is what it is and it could be a VERY expensive mistake if you get it wrong. The time it takes to go through this process sacrifices real-time dynamic growth.

2. Buying Commercial

Because of the way our economy is shifting, more big-box stores are closing and becoming available to the church (as well as other businesses).

• Pros include: There are a ton of great locations out there, and typically located in prime spots with excellent accessibility and visibility.  The shell is already built and usually accommodates the zoning requirements for church ministry.  They provide a great established building and they can be built out in a manner that makes sense for a church.
• Cons include: The main con is that, just like a green build above,  if you buy a commercial building, while you do have it 24/7, most churches will outgrow that facility.

3. Leasing Commercial

Leasing a commercial property for 5-10 years with good net terms.

• Pros include: If you get the right terms, the landlord could end up taking care of the big details… the roof, parking lot, HVAC, shell structure, some of the mechanicals, and more.  At the end of the terms, the church has an opportunity to evaluate the facility all over again – stay if it still fits or leaves if it doesn’t.   No permanent lid!
• Cons include: Same as buying a commercial property, you may outgrow the facility. If that happens and you have to move, you have to leave the buildout investment behind.

4. Mergers

This redemption process in the church where (typically) older exhausted churches get resources and renewed vision from a healthy, growing, and vibrant church.

• Pros include: Existing structures with existing presence. An opportunity to pour in new resources to impact facilities or ministry in an established community.  The church is refreshed and refueled to serve the community it is already in.
• Cons include: Mergers takes time, patience, and often leadership capital. It is a dynamic process where trust needs to be built and things need to be handled carefully between two long-standing entities. There can be hard costs (money) and soft costs (people) associated with mergers.

5. Portably

Renting week to week the venue that you hold your service in.

• Pros include: This can be done with great excellence! Portability can also accelerate the growth process of your church. But some of the greatest pros for multisite churches are the time and money savings.
• We are going to do a much deeper dive into this in a coming blog post including the cons. This is proving to be a huge key to unlocking the possibilities for multisite churches with an aggressive multiplication goal.

All of these methods and much more are talked about in greater detail in our new resource The Kryptonite of Multisite Momentum.

The video also highlights other resources available for church leaders as they are navigating this decision. Such as our eBook that talks about choosing the right facility as well as a Facility Cost Comparison Matrix.