March 2, 2015
Building Creativity
By Jennifer Johnson According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, churches spent close to $9 billion on new construction in 2002 and $3.5 billion in 2013. (Thanks, Great Recession.) Organizations analyzing church spending report congregations that own or rent existing buildings spend 20-30 percent or more of their budgets on loan payments, maintenance, and related expenses. For most churches in the U.S., buildings are necessary for building ministry, and the process isn”t cheap. I”m not interested in the tired debate about whether a church should have a nice building that costs a lot of money when so many
