Form Follows Mission
Buildings Are Temporary
Your building is barely a speck on the line of eternity. It will fall down. It will leak. The carpet will wear out, door handles will break, windows will crack, stair handrails will accumulate nasty greasy human hand crud, cracks will appear in the sidewalk, paint will peel, ‘stuff’ will get jammed into every nook and cranny, and old bits of tape will remain stuck to the walls… Sound familiar? It should! This is a common worldwide condition brought on by sin. Everything is falling apart around us! We hope our buildings won’t fall down any time soon; but in the light of eternity, they will last only a moment. Your building is a faint speck on the long, uninterrupted line of eternity.
“But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.”
Matthew 6:20
The Church is Eternal
“…as also Christ is the head of the church – he himself being the savior of the body.” Ephesians 5:23
It is common to refer to a building as, “The Church”, but a “Church” is not a building at all. How utterly shortsighted and un-biblical! The church is the bride of Christ, the people who love Jesus, worship Him, and repeat His love and forgiveness to each other and the world. God has assigned his church to accomplish his eternal purposes. A biblical church isn’t a speck on the line of eternity, it is on the line. Your church matters for time and eternity!
Temporal Buildings for Eternal Purposes
Similarly, to the extent that your building helps you accomplish God’s purposes, it will matter. Your building is a speck, but it can be an important tool to help your church make a difference "for the line" of eternity. It can also be a stumbling block that can prevent you accomplishing everything God has for you. To the extent your building helps or hinders your eternal impact, your building matters (or doesn’t) for eternity.
“I also know that whatever God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away from it. God has made it this way, so that men will fear him. Whatever exists now has already been, and whatever will be has already been; for God will seek to do again what has occurred in the past.”
Ecclesiastes 3:14,15
Therefore, our primary task must be to wrap the design of your building around the mission God has for your church. Form Follows Mission! If this building is God’s work, that work will endure forever. So buildings don’t matter. And yet they can be eternally important.
"For no one can lay any foundation other than what is being laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each builder’s work will be plainly seen, for the Day will make it clear, because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test what kind of work each has done. If what someone has built survives, he will receive a reward. If someone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as through fire."
1 Corinthians 3:11-15
Know Your Mission!
When it comes to buildings, churches often suffer from schizophrenia. We care about our buildings but simultaneously disdain them. We rely on them every day yet wish we didn’t need them. We say to our friends, “meet me at the church”, but we know it isn’t the “Church”! We spend loads of money on them, but are embarrassed that we aren’t spending more on missions. Churches can be deeply conflicted about buildings because we are God’s temple, not the building.
"Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple."
1 Corinthians 3:16
This phenomenon is rooted in the disconnect between temporal and eternal. The Church matters for eternity, but your building is a temporal thing. Ultimately it is a ‘thing’ that doesn’t last, but that ‘thing’ could be critically important to accomplishing your eternal mission. If that sense of schizophrenia sounds familiar, your building is probably not well connected to your mission. And it’s probably holding you back from doing the ministry that God has called you to.
Before you embark on this journey you need to get over that confusion and know exactly what your mission is as a church and what your building can (and can’t) do to help you accomplish that mission. A new building can help you fit more people. But it can’t love those people as Christ loves the church. Your building can feature engaging spaces that people look forward to using, but it can’t fix your leadership problems. Your architect can design a welcoming entrance that attracts neighbors from the community. But it’s up to you to greet them with a smile and show them hospitality.
A Mission Statement describes your “why” and “how”. You need to have a clear sense of why your particular church exists. And you need to be able to express that in writing.
Early Concept Rendering for Summit Community Church
Example Mission Statement: Reaching Up, Reaching In, Reaching Out
We’re big fans of Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Church”. It can be a great resource to help you clarify the unique mission that God has for your church. In fact, if you don’t have a well-defined sense of purpose expressed in a mission statement that your congregation is working together to accomplish, your building project will go badly. If you don’t get this part right, a building can’t help to you. In fact, we can virtually guarantee that the building process will take you someplace you didn’t want to be, and leave you with a building you didn’t need or want. You’ll be much poorer and have little of eternal value to show for your earthly investment.
Now that we’ve beat that drum (one worth beating), let’s consider how that impacts the building process. If your church has a mission, then your building project should support that mission. So we want to help you define a mission statement for your project that clearly supports your God-given mission as a church. Then, as long as we never lose sight of that mission. If your church doesn’t have a mission statement already, now would be a good time to develop one.
Your God-given mission for this building should be wrapped around your God-given mission as a church. Resolve never to lose sight of that mission. If your church doesn’t have a mission statement already, now would be a good time to develop one.
If you don’t get this part right, your building won't be any help to you. In fact, we can virtually guarantee that the building process will take you someplace you didn’t want to be, and leave you with a building you didn’t need or want. You’ll be much poorer and have little of eternal value to show for your earthly investment.
Field of Dreams Syndrome
“If you build it they will come.” It would be easy to tell you that this isn’t true, but it is. If you build a new facility, more people will probably be interested to see what you’re all about, ‘kick the tires’ so to speak. We have seen this phenomenon consistently. But, to extend the metaphor, if your tires are flat, they won’t stay! Construction without vision will neither grow your church nor glorify Christ.
Have a Vision!
A Vision Statement is forward focused and aspirational. God has a roadmap for your church, a spiritual journey with a spiritual reward, and he wants to take your congregation down the right path. He doesn’t want to hide that from you. A Vision Statement describes the future you are trusting God for. It might look something like this.
Example Vision Statement: Our vision is to build a church where people are inspired to authentic worship, excited to build meaningful lasting friendships, and actively engaging with people in our culture who desperately need to experience God’s love.
Being clear about your mission and vision is critically important to a successful project.
A Spiritual Pro-Forma
In the business world we use the term “pro-forma”. A pro-forma is a financial projection that models anticipated results of an investment. A good business person always thinks in terms of investment vs. profit, or risk vs. reward. Developers don’t build hotels to improve the skyline; they do it to make money.
“The one who had received five talents went off right away and put his money to work and gained five more.”
Matthew 25:16
They are so focused on this goal that they invest incredible time, effort, and money into ‘running the numbers’, producing a pro-forma that simulates financial scenarios and projects results into the future. The wise investor considers his situation carefully and observes trends closely. Ultimately, he considers the risk, measures the potential reward, and only then takes action.
Similarly, we as Christians are called to, “count the cost” and be wise stewards of the resources God entrusts to us. Therefore, your building program should have a spiritual goal with eternal rewards. If you’re going to accomplish your mission, it stands to reason that it should be clearly stated and consistent with your church’s overall mission. It might read something like…
We often encounter churches that are focused on demographics and numbers to the exclusion and neglect of the movement of God in and through their church. This can lead to an unhealthy focus on human-centric numbers. Attendance can stroke the ego and make you feel better (or worse) about yourself. We pray that God increases your numbers! But we want those numbers to increase because it will add to the multitude of worshippers praising Him in Heaven.
Example Project Mission Statement: Our building project will help us accomplish our God-given mission of ‘Reaching Up, Reaching In, and Reaching Out’ by increasing our worship capacity, providing space that will enhance our fellowship, and broadcasting a welcoming image to our community.
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”
John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad
Meet The Principals
