Ministry trumps maintenance: Southern California church could move, slash overhead by 74 percent

August 21, 2007 Redlands, California, United States …. [Elizabeth Lechleitner/ANN]

When the Seventh-day Adventist Crosswalk Church in Redlands, California moves at the end of October, it won't be for the first time. The 600-member church relocated several years ago when it outgrew an auditorium and established a full-fledged church in an industrial warehouse.

But if the church packs up this time, it hopes to conserve money, not space. Crosswalk, one of North America's larger Adventist churches, currently spends 57 percent, or $388,000, of its annual budget on rent and utilities.

Crosswalk leaders feel that percentage is too high — a common concern among some church leaders in the Los Angeles area. Tim Garrison, senior pastor of Moorpark Community Church, an Adventist church plant in Moorpark, California, says the state's high cost of living makes owning a church building financially unfeasible for a growing number of congregations.

To rein in expenses, Garrison's church rents storefront office space in downtown Moorpark and an auditorium in the city's Mesa Verde Middle School for Sabbath worship services. About 80 miles southeast, the 300-member Adventist church in Irvine, California, meets in the sanctuary of a local Lutheran church on Sabbath and rents office space for weekday needs.

“It's better to build your congregation before your church,” Garrison says, adding that once a congregation builds, buys or even rents a church structure full-time, its budget tends to grow, suffocating outreach and ministry capabilities.

“Too many of our resources that should forward the mission of Christ are tied up in real estate,” says Ohio-based Adventist Church researcher Monte Sahlin. “If we want to increase our outreach, we need to leave behind the notion that in order to have a church we must own a building.” This is particularly the case in urban areas, he says.

More than 1,000 people worship at Crosswalk Church each Sabbath. Church leadership can pay the bills, but have concluded that renting a building the church generally uses only on Saturday is not a judicious use of funds.

On June 30, Crosswalk senior pastor, Michael Knecht, announced during his sermon that the church will save about $288,000 on leasing costs each year if it rents just one day per week. That chunk of the budget can be better redirected to, as Knecht phrased it, “fruit production.”

For a church that prioritizes people, “the numbers don't make sense,” Knecht said during his address.

Knecht explained that Crosswalk's goal is to trim its operating costs to just 14 percent of its total budget, or to about $100,000. The church would funnel the money saved to sustainable ministries in the church, community and overseas, such as the church's project to provide fresh well water, maternity care and polio relief for people in Gimbi, Ethiopia.

“The time for building concrete … monuments to God is perhaps over,” wrote one Crosswalk church member on a feedback forum on the church's Web site. “Storing our treasure in heaven through supporting others is the best investment strategy a church can make,” the message stated.

But not all Crosswalk church members agree high rent amounts to money squandering. Some members believe renting a permanent location is an invaluable investment that grounds church members in the community.

Laura Hertel, director of finances for Crosswalk, says the church draws hundreds of non-members each Sabbath — mainly through word of mouth and the church's prominence in the neighborhood. She says some members worry visitor tallies will plummet if Crosswalk moves to a low profile location.

The church's current lease expires at the end of November and Hertel says while no location is finalized, church leadership is weighing several options, including meeting at the University of Redlands.

Crosswalk leadership, a team of seven paid staff members, three of whom are pastors, say much of the feedback they've gotten from church members is positive. However, Hertel says some members worry the weekly setting up and tearing down costs of a portable church may ultimately prove more expensive than staying at Crosswalk's current location.

But it hasn't been the case at the 75-member Moorpark Community Church, Garrison says, where about half the budget goes straight to community outreach, a rate he says no other church he has pastored at could remotely match. “After you've paid the rent, there's usually very little left.”

Beyond budget concerns, some Crosswalk members fear a portable church can't provide a welcoming atmosphere. “I don't want to feel like a visitor in someone else's church every week,” commented another member on the Web site.

Cheryl Lake, a member of Crosswalk's senior leadership team, says church staff has decided it won't move to any location that would require it to compromise its worship style or community involvement.

Garrison says a church can both cut costs and maintain community presence, but that some church members “just don't take you seriously until you have a building.” Such people, he says, “aren't likely to walk into a church like ours.” Those who are likely to show up, he has found, are community members who find portable churches “less threatening” than traditional churches.

“People who've grown up Adventist don't realize just how hard it is for the average person out there to step into a church. Having a portable church breaks down some of those barriers — you lose the sense that the church is exclusive, members-only club,” Garrison says.

Kyle Fiess, vice president of marketing for Sacramento-based Maranatha Volunteers International, an organization that builds churches around the world, says while owning a church is ideal, an active congregation renting a hall or school gymnasium if far preferable to a stagnant congregation worshipping inside a stain-glassed, steepled church.

“A permanent house of worship can serve as a witness to the community,” Fiess says, “and community presence is measured by what we do, not necessarily by the building where we worship.”

Copyright (c) 2007 by Adventist News Network.