We are getting much more audacious about building products. 30 years ago it seemed daring to spend a few thousand pounds on carpeting a church and replacing pews with chairs. Now we see a project in Edinburgh costing nearly £6 million. To compare the number of zeros and those sums tells its own story.
While the expenditure has increased, the range of initiatives has also grown. Some churches have been built above shops; other churches meet in converted warehouses; a few have been designed in partnership with the local council or a local school.
But the end is the same in each case: to provide a church building which is fitted to gospel living and proclaiming in the time & place that we live.
(But) we can actually resent the need to spend money on bricks and mortar when the church is really about growing the Lord’s people. Anglican church buildings don’t belong to their members, so improving them can seem a bit like spending money on the house which you don’t own. Isn’t it better stewardship not to waste money like that? Buildings belonging to Free Church congregations may legally be owned by their members, but even so, shouldn’t we give that money to world mission instead?
Building for the Gospel is a book written to people with these kinds of questions
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