We are thankful to have the space that we do for our church to meet. It is functional and serves its purpose, but it is also limiting because we get that space once a week and then we rent a church office. Ideally, it would be great to spend that money for one space that we get all week long, but very few church plants get that. My buddies in North Raleigh, Central Raleigh, and surrounding areas do not have the luxury of just one space.
I hope and pray for that space because it gives a church lots of platforms for ministry. So, with that in mind, whenever I drive somewhere, I travel off the beaten path looking for space. Most places, when they find out that I represent a church, barely speak to me. They just say, "We don't rent to churches," or they just say that they don't have space that works for a church - even when I'm standing in front of one.
Why is this? Unfortunately in my town, churches have a high default rate. Meaning...churches don't fulfill their lease commitment and wind up leaving before the lease is up, or worse, they keep meeting even without paying and are eventually shut out. That was the case where we meet now. They had a church to keep meeting even though they didn't pay their rent. They were locked out. The owners didn't want to rent to us, but we offered to pay the first six months rent up front and they changed their mind.
Am I frustrated with the owners of these buildings? Nope. The situation is frustrating, but it has been created by churches over-reaching and over-committing. And because of that, churches have a poor reputation. If nothing else, I hope our church can reverse that. I know we have at least for our present owners, and as we continue to grow, I hope we can reverse that in the mind of someone else as well.
Folks, this is shameful. I try to give a break to the church before us. I don't know what happened there. I don't know what that pastor went through. For all I know, something completely out of their control may have caused them to default on their lease. But they did not have to keep meeting even when they weren't paying rent anymore. They could have attempted to work something out with the owners, or at least communicated with them, but they didn't. I can just imagine them showing up to set up for worship and finding the doors locked and keys changed. Didn't they figure that was going to happen?
The churches of this area, and I'm sure many other areas as well, have got to seek to be honorable with the people from which they rent. We should leave our spaces better than we find them, pay our rent on time, and seek the good of our landlords. If we find ourselves in a situation out of our control, we should be honest and up front with our landlords and seek to work with them with integrity
Gordon Duncan is the Pastor/Church Planter of Sovereign King Church in Garner, NC. He blogs daily at http://www.xanga.com/gordzilla7.
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