Hey Element Church! You can read post #1 about this HERE. I’ve been wanting to blog about this for some time now and thought that now was a good time. The #1 question we received when we started Element Church from other Christians was “Do you have a building yet?” That bothered me. Are we not REALLY a church until we have a building? Why was that the most asked question? Why is it every churches goal to have a building? To be honest, it was my goal when we started NOT to move to a permanant location this quickly, but due to post #1 and some other things I think it plays into answering the question “To build or not to build…” Here is #2
2. Have you exhausted all options? I’ll be honest, I’m stinkin’ jealous of church plants that get to use movie theaters that seat 800 people with 60 foot screens, and church plants that meet in high school fine arts auditoriums that are state of the art and seat 1200 people. We are in a unique church plant situation. While we are one of the largest communities in Wyoming, we are VERY small compared to other metropolitan areas around the country where many church plants take place. With a smaller area comes less meeting options.
Once we started filling up two services the search was on for a new meeting facility. The idea of a permanent place was our LAST option. We looked at going back to the Holiday Inn. We looked at doing a video venue in the theater. We tried a third service. We tried and tried and tried to get into the school system, with no avail. We considered the civic center. Some things that were available just wouldn’t have worked for what we felt we needed to be as a church. The fact that we needed new space but NOTHING was available to remain portable and true to who Element was, opened the door for us to look into permanent locations.
I’ve heard of so many churches that USED to do outreach, USED to be in the community, USED to (fill in blank) UNTIL they got a building. I DON’T WANT THAT! I’ve said from the very first Unplugged “We WILL NOT be about a building!” And I stand by that. Having a building MUST ENABLE us to do more outside the church, not keep us more in it. If it doesn’t it is a waste of every stinkin’ cent. I LOVE the fact that we are still in town. There is nothing wrong with having a building outside of town, but I felt strongly that was not for us. We needed to be in the city. Down the road that may change (coming in another post) but for now we need to be.
When asking the question of whether to build I think we ask “Have we exhausted all options?”
Following Christ,
Jeff










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