12 Theses on Church Buildings

by Marc Sims

I

The church is not a building but a people—but the church is a people who must gather. Thus, for a church to exist, it must have a location to gather in. And since meeting outdoors limits the gathering (weather, sound, distractions, etc.), this usually means some kind of building. More pragmatically, as many young church plants can testify, often the wider community won’t take you very seriously until you have a building to meet in.

II

The health of a church is not necessarily connected with the quality of its building. A healthy, growing church can meet in a basement, and a dead, apostate church can gather (as many do) in ornate cathedrals.

III

Conversely, beauty and artful design are not inherently signs of compromise; simplicity and frugality are not necessarily signs of maturity. Heretics can sit in metal-folding chairs; saints can sit in hand-carved pews.

IV

The kind of building will be determined by the size of the congregation (how much space do we need?), and the financial standing …