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I was among a group of businessmen this morning, taking on the conversation about the economy.\u00a0 One of the guys in the group of 13 asked, \u201cHow much church debt is represented in this room?\u201d\u00a0 And as each of these men, who are heavily involved in their churches and also very generous givers, tallied up the amount, it exceeded 55 million dollars.<\/p>\n
Let me say that one more time.\u00a0 In a group of 13 businessmen, they are attending churches that have in excess of 55 million dollars in debt.<\/strong> Does anyone but me see this as precarious?<\/p>\n In the interest of full disclosure, let me also say that I have built buildings, raised money, and yes, I have led the church to incur debt.\u00a0 It has been my position in the past (though that is in a state of flux at the moment) that debt to build a building that appreciates and increases in value, and allows you to reach more people could be considered an investment.<\/p>\n That argument aside, let me say to all the young pastors and church planters out there meeting in schools, theaters, rented facilities, lodges, bars, don\u2019t be so quick to think that if you had a really cool building financed at 9% by the local bank for thirty years, all of a sudden the answer to your problems would have arrived.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the movie, Field of Dreams, the famous saying has worked its way into our cultural mindset.\u00a0 And it goes this way, \u201cBuild it and they will come.\u201d<\/p>\n Trust me, as a guy who\u2019s been at this for awhile.\u00a0 Buildings only matter to pastors, staff, and those of us who feel like we need buildings to validate our worth.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll be quick to say, that I\u2019m not sure all church debt is bad.\u00a0 I know many godly men who have built beautiful facilities and I don\u2019t question their judgment for one second.\u00a0 But I will say, I do firmly believe that what has been normative in the past will be the exception in the future. Before you build think about how to raise the money to build, because the people have it. <\/strong> Maybe I need to cast a more compelling vision.\u00a0 Maybe, dare I say, I need to be more creative.\u00a0 Bottom line, I can save you a lot of grief and misery.\u00a0 At the end of the day a facility is wonderful.\u00a0 But it is a tool, not a trophy.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t validate your ministry.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make you more spiritual.\u00a0 What we should be measuring rather than the square footage of our buildings and the size and sophistication of our staffs, and the budgets allotted to our video equipment, is life change. <\/strong><\/p>\n Are people\u2019s lives being radically changed by the good news of Jesus Christ?\u00a0 Are marriages being put back together?\u00a0 Are fathers falling in love with their wives with a deep passion equal to that which Christ loved His church? Have we raised enough kids who we are training to be adults to step into society and lead the way to a better place for us all?<\/p>\n If right now you are thinking about building, and you\u2019ve called one of those fund-raising companies, think about it.\u00a0 Push pause. <\/strong> Hey, call me. Email me.\u00a0 I\u2019d be willing to share my experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was among a group of businessmen this morning, taking on the conversation about the economy.\u00a0 One of the guys in the group of 13 asked, \u201cHow much church debt is represented in this room?\u201d\u00a0 And as each of these men, who are heavily involved in their churches and also very generous givers, tallied up … Continue reading “This is a Message to All Church Planters, Young Pastors, and All the Rest of You Bemoaning That You Have a Crappy Building”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3002"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=3002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nShould we have big buildings?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Football does, baseball does, and those are trivial matters when you think about the eternal issues we deal with in the American church.\u00a0 But should we go into so much debt that we are in bondage to institutions that have no interest in our success other than us paying our loan payment?<\/strong><\/p>\n