PAUL COOK

My stomach is queasy. $187,000 invoice for seven more 3-phase rooftop HVAC units. None of our church contributors gets to celebrate a heart swelling gospel win on this one. It’s just one more reality of ownership for a 44,000 square foot church building. 

I don’t resent the time and money invested in church facilities, just like I wouldn’t resent the work required to have a personal home. Buildings generally have a significant role to play in the North American church context. The local church is like the importance of a strong, healthy family. It helps to have a home! Inside that home, we have order, raise up respectable people, celebrate newcomers to the family, enjoy the comfort of being known and knowing…. We do life together, and we contribute to the wider world because inside the home, we have developed a bond of love and good character. So, it is commendable to have an excellent facility as part of our stewardship of ministry to a church family. 

However, families don’t live all their life at home. And for church families, the church building and institutional involvement is not our end-zone for the gospel—Christ is the end zone. People’s lives are not transformed by buildings; they are impacted by passionate believers. We don’t justify avoiding our wider Kingdom roles in the outside world just because we have a big load to carry with our church housework. Volunteer roles that support the local church are a baseline commitment for responsible family members, but it’s not our real job. 

A young man I mentor is leaving his lucrative role in the tech industry to become a teacher. The pay is far less than half. In his thirties, he has realized that his ultimate calling was most expressed in his twenties when he served as a missionary-teacher in China. His God-given superpower is his relational style and ability to make learners. When he is around, young people find their way and find Jesus. Now, he is also able to coach his 10-year-old daughter on a community softball team. Ask him why! “The school children and neighborhood families need God-hearted influence.” He comes to church, has a small group, his kids do Sunday School, but teaching is his role outside the church house! In the truest sense, he is a missionary! He will likely see more people that need Jesus in one day than we see in most church buildings all week. Oh—and he gets paid to do it! 

If the building is the end zone, we are in trouble! How many can we seat? For us, maybe 2,500 people in multiple services in a metro of 7 million – That math won’t cut it. Jesus said, “Go,” so we can’t just say, “Come.” Besides, what are church leaders in impoverished or financially depressed areas of the world supposed to do to acquire a cost-prohibitive site? Raise funds in affluent areas and pour money into their dark abyss of need? How is the gospel to quickly, globally expand? Just buildings? That’s not how Jesus set this up. 

Alan Hirsch shared in his book Forgotten Ways that China and the Early Church are clear examples of explosive growth in the number of believers in relatively short periods of time without our expected real estate requirement. In both situations, there were no formal organizational structures, no professional ministers, no institutional training, no worship bands, no budgets, no youth ministries, no Sunday School, NO BUILDINGS, and they both existed as illegal organizations under persecution and threat of death. 

God was the first one to leave the house when the veil of the temple was ripped. Jesus warned the disciples not to get too enamored with the temple. He tried shifting the mindset of Nicodemus in advance of the physical and spiritual dismantling of his Jerusalem-centric, temple-bound way of life. At Pentecost, the Spirit took up residence in the hearts of people, so the gospel could be mobile and relational. Jesus even demonstrated a missional model—He was always meeting and eating in homes. They accused Him of being a glutton, winebibber, and a friend of sinners. Maybe shift to that missional format before we get too overfocused on the activity inside of our facilities. Unfortunately, spiritual leaders can feel subtle pressure to measure their worth by what they can build from an institutional perspective. Young leaders who are doing a great job reaching people in their community can feel unvalidated unless they become a church planting pastor with church service times at some site. The religious elite of Jesus’ day sure loved the temple, but Jesus just leaned into relationships and went out in the community. He came “eating and drinking.” 

There is a relational pathway for leaders in small settings to courageously thrive in their efforts to impact the world without inordinately mimicking larger well-funded churches. These soul-winning champions don’t have to have big budgets or buildings to make a community impact. It is impossible to fully achieve institutionally what God intended to be accomplished relationally.  

My pastor friend, Jonathan Perry, was prompted by his son, Grant, to begin a ministry based in downtown Toledo, Ohio. They refurbished an 18,000 square foot historic building on a low budget, faith move and began Rustbelt Coffee. The huge 6,000 square foot coffee shop portion soon became a gathering place for business leaders, non-profits, and government people. The energy in this collaborative space has spawned ministries to the underserved in the community, and Rustbelt is like a poster child for the betterment of their city. The space is also rented to a healthy partner church on the weekend. Part of the space is a cool throwback barbershop called Billy Sunday’s. People are buzzing all over it, AND it all makes money! Before Rustbelt, the Perrys hardly knew any pastors in the city, let alone government and businesspeople. Now, they serve on countless boards, lead efforts for non-profits, pastors and business leaders, and the community. They know and are known by thousands of people. Jonathan and Grant will tell you, “We did more impactful ministry and met more people within 3 years of opening that coffee shop than we did in 30 years of ministry on our suburban church property.” Maybe we should think like the Perrys? 

Many of the people we are trying to reach have dismissed the church for various reasons from suspicions to prejudice to worldview. Subsequently, the church property becomes a barrier more than an invitation for them. We need other ways to reach outside of our church homes.  

Our local church was forced by financial necessity to think creatively about our property. 

After fighting an uphill battle with the debt, we worked with a developer to build apartments on four acres, and the windfall from that effort put us over the top and debt free. People from the apartments attend church. We started a childcare center in partnership with Lionheart, a ministry whose vision is to take over the industry for Christ by using church property. Now, 130 families are in and out of our building every weekday, and dozens have made our church home. It makes money. We also lease our space to four other churches who have become more like partners—we share big events, a conference, First Wednesday worship, and other community efforts. Our building is very busy. Partnership money covers the whole cost of maintaining our property and our entire church staff! We aren’t that smart, really—God led us here. By thinking outside of our own church family needs, we have become more impactful and more financially viable. 

Now, our church family is experimenting with micro-church, a decentralized system of making disciples, raising up leaders, and reaching people who are less likely to come to our building. My wife, Julie, and I feel called to be micro-church missionaries to our Lionheart Childcare families. Our building will be the hub for all sorts of missional work by fostering micro-church leaders. It is too long a subject to tackle in this article, but here are a few of the books that are schooling our direction: Saturate by Jeff Vanderstelt, Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch, Starfish & The Spirit by Rob Wegner. These concepts are catching fire in the North American church and are an elegant solution for disciple-making that doesn’t lean on facilities. 

The church has left the building. Sunday services aren’t the only play in our playbook. Healthy church families leave their house on mission. Better buildings or our preferred slot on a church team are not the apex of ministry. Individually, our most vital gospel work is relational, not institutional. Go make friends. Meet and eat. A loving lifestyle is what Jesus designed for making disciples. Each of us are individual missionaries outside our church building. 

   ***This article was originally published in the 2024 Destiny Magazine, Spring Edition.***

Paul Cook, and his wife Julie, have served in ministry for over 40 years. Paul is a Bible practitioner, teacher, leadership developer, mentor, organizational coach, entrepreneur, clinician and artist. Paul and Julie have served as senior pastors at Central Church in Plano, Texas since 2011.