By 2030, as many as 100,000 church buildings and billions of dollars of church-owned property are expected to be sold or repurposed throughout the U.S. — representing the loss of gathering places and even social services in communities nationwide. According to Mark Elsdon, author and editor of Gone for Good: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition (Eerdmans, 2024), the transfer of church property is both a critical issue and an opportunity for church and community leaders seeking to serve the common good. How do we face the issues and opportunities head-on and mission-minded?
This event was a book launch and conversation at Upper House with Mark Elsdon, Executive Director of Pres House and Co-Founder and Lead Builder of Rooted Good, who will address how church properties have been creatively redeployed to serve the common good.
Also joining were other book contributors—
– Kurt Paulsen (appearing in person), professor of urban planning in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at UW-Madison
– Joseph Daniels, Jr. (live via Zoom), lead pastor of the Emory Fellowship in Washington D.C.
– Coté Soerens (live via Zoom), social innovator at the Center for Transformative Neighborhoods at Trinity Christian College
You might be especially interested in this event if you are a Senior Pastor, Executive Pastor, Facilities Manager for a church, CFO/Treasurer, or city planning staff.
Well according to a recent Barnes study uh the share of practicing Christians has nearly dropped in half uh since 2000 and for the first time ever according to Gallup less than half of half of Americans say they are members of a church or any house of worship um that’s down from 70% in
1999 so the number of church goers uh in this country is shrinking raising really critical concerns uh that we need to address and that we’re going to actually um consider tonight so it’s in this environment uh they’ gone for good and you’ve had a chance to to Really to get
To know this book and I encourage you to um you’re going to hear from some contributors and we have a book table um it’s this book that really explores ways that churches are um transitioning and transforming their Church properties to serve their neighborhoods and tonight we’re going to
Hear from Mark ellon who’s the editor of this book and three contributors and I did mention The Book Table Jean is over there um we have books for a suggested donation both um gone for good which is the book we’re focusing on tonight Mark’s previous book uh entitled we
Aren’t broke uncovering hidden resources for Mission and ministry as well as a a table set up with rooted good materials uh that will talk uh that talk a lot and will help you think through church property transition so and a lot of other things as well so I invite you
To take a look at the the rooted uh good table as well and Mark can can can help with that after the program I have the utmost respect for Mark he’s just been a real pillar uh on this campus uh the the the campus ministry setting um he’s assembled an
Amazing uh group of contributors and they have really gotten to know each other as friends so I think that’s really great he might say a little bit more about how they met I’m also delighted that Erica Lou is here as well um Erica co-leads um pre house and um I
Know your fingertips are all over this book as well and um and and uh Mark and Erica together lead that that Ministry um and then I think Sophie’s here um their youngest daughter and then I think Emma is potentially dialed in from forom University so we’re just super excited
To welcome the whole family tonight well it’s my privilege now to introduce my colleague uh Jee Garren who will give us a little bit of the lay of the land for tonight and we’ll introduce Mark thanks John uh it’s really wonderful to see everybody here um I am
GNA just give you a little bit of Mark’s bio um but before I do I wanted to just give you a plan for the evening um after I introduce him Mark is going to share uh introduce the book to us all um give us some broad brushstrokes that way and
Then he’s going to be in charge of uh introducing our three other panelists each of them will have about 10 minutes for their presentations on their chapters and maybe other other parts of the book and after they’re done um I’ll come back up with Mark and Kurt and the
The panelists and we’ll have a a question and answer period so we’re hoping to Target that at about 7 we’ll we’ll regroup for the Q&A John’s going to be helping to take your questions out there and then uh for the folks online uh please be sending your questions
Through the chat function and I will be monitoring those and presenting those to the panelists as well so it is a real honor and privilege to introduce Mark ellon to you uh he’s the executive director of press house and press House Apartments he’s co-founder of rooted good which supports church leaders
Working on property development money and Mission alignment and social Enterprise he’s author as John said of the of another book we aren’t broke uncovering hidden resources for Mission and Ministry he’s got a BA in psychology from UC Berkeley he’s got a master in Divinity from Princeton Theological
Seminary and an MBA from ww’s business school here he’s an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA and he lives here in Madison with his family so like to invite you up Mark and we’re really looking forward to hearing from you thank you thanks so much thanks everyone for being
Here um greetings to those watching online on the live stream I’m honored humbled that you took time to get here especially in the icy roads that we have here in Madison and or have responded to my twisting your arm to show up but either way thanks thanks for being here
And a big thanks to everyone at Upper House um for hosting we’re doing quite the technological dance here tonight and uh so really grateful for you and uh and your Hospitality as anyone who has put a book together knows it is a labor of love and
The work of a community of people that’s particularly true in the case of this book and so before I go any further I want to first thank some of the key people that helped us arrive at this day first and foremost I’m incredibly grateful for the contributors to this
Book who have shared their insights their experience and many many gifts with me and the readers of the volume in addition to the words that they share on the pages of the book these authors are doing an incredible and important work around the country to bring about more
Good in the world and in my view the forward that Dr Willie James Jennings wrote for the book is actually worth the price of the book alone I’m humbled inspired and grateful for their partnership on this project I’m blessed to work for two organizations that are incredibly
Supportive of me as a person in this project press house here in Madison and rooted good which was mentioned a moment ago my board and staff team at press house provide the support and flexibility to make a project like this possible and I cannot overstate how vital my colleagues at rooted good have
Been in bringing this book about I’m grateful to the team at erman’s publishing for entertaining the idea for this book so soon after my first book we are broke was published and of course for guiding me through all of the process and the pages along the way and
A special thank to kot sorin who not only wrote an excellent chapter but also did the beautiful illustrations that are found throughout the book If you haven’t had a chance just take a look at it over there on the table and we’re really lucky to hear from her
Tonight finally I’m thankful for all the pastors church leaders and church buildings that have touched me and my family over the years 20 years from now some of them may be gone but the mark that they have left will remain and God has worked through you and for that I am
Grateful and in the end it is uh a joy to share my life um with my spouse and co-pastor Erica Lou and my daughters Emma and Sophie and I have to thank them for putting up with yes another book um in our life so so what is this book
About and why the title gone for good the question that keeps me up at night is this 20 years from now when we look around our neighborhoods and we realize that a third or more of our church properties are no longer churches what will we have lost or
Gained and what will the impact be on the spiritual and social fabric of our communities I wonder and worry about this in part because as I reach middle age and look back on my life I realized that churches and their buildings have played a huge role in shaping who I am
Today today not just in my spiritual life but in my or as my in my profession as a pastor but in big ways and small in the profound and the mundane anyone who knows me well knows that despite the fact that I am an ordained minister I’m full of critique
Skepticism sometimes it tips over IND cynicism about the church but there is no denying that churches have made me who I am today and changed the trajectory of my life many times even before I was born it’s likely that I got my surname from a tiny Church in a tiny village in
The Rolling Green Hills of northern England near the Scottish border the story goes like this in the early 18th century an orphan baby was left on the doorstep of St cuthbert’s Church in the village of ellon the vicer the pastor took the baby in and named him Cuthbert ellon after
The seventh century Saint who gave the church its namesake and after the village thus started the ellon line my family name was born out of Grace in a moment of need on the steps of a church my parents were born and raised in the Newcastle area of Northeast
England not far from the village of Elon when they immigrated to the United States from my father’s work they knew nobody so one of the first places they went to was church one Sunday morning after attending for a few months they decided to invite some of their Newfound acquaintances over to their home
Chatting amiably after a worship service probably in a space like this they offered their invitation to a handful of couples would you like to come over next Saturday night to share a joint their invitation was met with silence maybe some Chuckles awkward looks my parents were confused by the
Lack of enthusiasm for this invitation is it us is it our accent it took a little while to figure out where the misunderstanding lay but eventually it dawned on them oh no not that kind of a joint a joint of roast beef and some Yorkshire pudding would you like to come over for
Dinner those friendships survive my parents offer of drugs at church and that congregation became a vital source of community and relationship for a young IM immigrant couple making a new life thousands of miles from home so that church and others like it um played pivotal roles in my life as I
Grew up during middle school I made my best friends at church and treed mud from the creek nearby throughout the entire building more than once during High School I would regularly bring half of my CrossCountry running team to the gym of another church for a rigorous game of basketball while we
Were supposed to be out on long runs a friend from yet another church invited me to go to on a youth group trip to ride our 10-speed bikes in the mountains of Colorado for a week sleeping in yes more churches every night I left that week and the follow-up
Trips each summer with an increasing love for cycling and for God I was taught about the faith and at least occasionally ended services at these churches but church was more than that it was a place to find friends to play basketball to get dirty to be reprimanded
Kindly later as I finished high school and went to college churches played a more formative role in my life and even my University experience in Berkeley California I became friends with people experiencing homelessness through a program my roommate and I started at a church my privilege was illuminated and challenged meeting people people
Attending churches in rural Dominican Republic M mountains of Ethiopia cities in France and black indigenous and immigrant churches throughout the United States and like so many I owe my married life and amazing children to a church Community because I met my future spouse Erica volunteering at a church meal for people experiencing food
Insecurity while training as a pastor in seminary Erica and I worked at a Taiwanese Presbyterian Church which afforded me the chance to see how churches play a special role in the social fabric of marginalized and immigrant communities Presbyterian churches have supported the independence of Taiwan for many decades engaging not just in the
Spiritual or Eternal but in the very present and pressing realities of living under occupation and threat in the United States immigrant churches serve as family community center language training support group Google search bar and so much more today I have the great privilege of serving at press house a campus ministry
And housing community literally just across the street right there across University Avenue the ministry has been around for almost 120 years during the campus protests of the 1960s that took place just steps from here on the University Library Mall student activists and 20-year-old National Guard troops left their resp
Respective signs and guns on the steps outside of press house young people from both sides of a conflict that they hadn’t started but were players in would come inside for coffee and a safe rest bite from the unrest outside I’ve spent countless nights sleeping on other Church floors during
Service Learning trips with college students all over the country and churches from all around Madison support our ministry by providing the only home-cooked meal that many students eat each week my life has been impacted by literally hundreds of churches while I imagine this is more than the average American
Churches and their buildings play a vital role in the social infrastructure of communities in every corner of the country even many who have never attended a worship service are often directly or indirectly touched by a church building so what happens when churches are gone as Eileen Lindner explains in the
Opening chapter of the book as many as a 100,000 Church buildings and billions of dollars of church-owned property could be sold or repurposed throughout the United States by 2030 that amounts to a quarter or a third or even 40% of the churches out there it’s difficult to get precise data
On exactly how many Church properties will be sold because nobody’s tracking it in any systematic way as John mentioned at the beginning researchers are making projections about the future of religious affiliation in the United States you may have seen the news about a new model by the Pew
Research Center that predicts if recent Trends continue Christians will make up fewer than half of the US population by 20170 or maybe even less there are of course new churches starting every year but as of 2019 we have entered into an era where more churches close each year than are
Opened now let me be clear I do not believe that God is going away God is Not declining some churches will grow new churches will be planted not all churches will close people still want to experience the Transcendent the Divine they still crave and thrive in caring
Community they still want to be involved in causes and activities that are larger than themselves and that change lives for the better but the reality is that fewer and fewer people want to experience those things in a Sunday morning worship service followed by Sunday school class which means there are too many
Church buildings with too much space than will be viable or needed in the future these buildings and properties will have to become something else or they’ll just sit empty and unused like the decline of the indoor shopping mall or the closure of Blockbuster Video rental stores when
Netflix came onto the scene churches are closing and property owned by Churches is changing at a speed and scale never seen before the data and my experience working with church leaders around the country from across the denominational spectrum is very clear we are facing a massive tsunami of church closure and
Property reuse rising up before us the transition is happening we are long past the days of revitalizing every Church in order to keep them all open and operating buildings that are too large or needing a huge renovation this transition is happening in every part of the country and across
All denominational and Theological lines again to reiterate I’m not saying that new churches won’t be pled or the church revitalization can happen you’ll hear a beautiful story from Reverend Joe Daniels in a few minutes about how developing affordable housing on Church land helped his congregation grow but broadly speaking throughout commities
Everywhere in the country and most certainly here in Madison Church properties are going to become something different on a massive scale whether we like it or not the wave is upon us and this transition in church property is a once in a many generation shift as that property is sold or
Becomes something else it won’t go back to being a church again in any foreseeable future so the question before us is this after the wave of sail and repurpose crashes upon the shore what will we be left with when the water flows back out to sea what will our neighborhoods look
Like after the wave has receded will Church property have further contributed to Injustice and the widening gap between rich and poor or will we have put our creativity and energy into New Uses that leave communities more connected more just and with new programs and support that bring light and life into people’s lives
If 40 out of 100 churches in a city are something else in 20 years what will be lost and what could be gained where will the local girl scout troop or neighborhood association meet where do people go when grieving yet another mass shooting millions of people meet lifelong friends and partners at
Churches get access to financial services not available to them through traditional banking or pick up food when bills are tight and where will we vote churches are not just vital spiritual resources in a community they provide vital social services that touch lives far beyond their parishioners in his chapter Robert joer
Writes about a series of studies that partners for sacred places conducted looking at what they called the halo effect of churches in a community they found almost 3.7 million people visited just 90 churches in one year only 9% of those visits were for worship 91% was for something
Else the study also found that on average each Church provided more than $4 million of economic value to its Community each year that’s the number of value created as they are now even in decline in aggregate what will replace churches on those properties that become something
Else I don’t want to look back 20 years from now and regret the huge loss of spiritual and social fabric that churches provide or have missed an opportunity to do new wonderful things with these properties I don’t want all the beautiful Church spaces that were built for community life to be replaced
By privately owned condo buildings making money for already wealthy people or to just stand empty with a fence around them while the stones crumble and Community groups can’t find anywhere to meet there’s a significant risk that widescale transition of church property will leave us with less support for the
Most vulnerable greater inequality fewer spiritual resources and other losses Church properties very well could end up gone for good Gone Forever leaving social or spiritual little social or spiritual good in their place but that doesn’t have to be the outcome the situation is not all doom
And gloom this is also a moment of extraordinary opportunity the Christian Chris story is one of death and resurrection of new life and a new future as daunting and deeply sad as this wave of transition is there’s also an incredible opportunity to think about the mission of the church in a more
Expansive manner to make greater use of church buildings and land to serve our neighborhoods and to extend the light of God’s grace in beautiful ways that are very very good I’ve had the blessing and privilege of being a part of a number of church property transitions that have led to
New and good things emerging many of you know the story of press house where we developed the Press house apartment student housing facility on a church-owned parking lot financed by Church investment funds we house residents in a sober living recovery Community provide wellness and health support we give out meals to students on
Campus who are food insecure and serve as a home away from home for thousands of college students each year we’ve given away about a million dollars in scholarships to to Residents in the last decade while weekly Sunday worship does remain Central to our mission we’ve gone much deeper and wider with our ministry
Transforming areas of students lives that previously were absent from the Adaptive reuse of our property transformed a dormant and waren campus ministry Center that was almost sold into a vibrant impactful and financially sustainable Ministry and through my work at rooted good I’ve watched churches around the country go through our good Futures
Accelerator course and come out on the other side with all kinds of incredible ideas for the use of their buildings and land that is extending their Ministry into the community in new and Powerful ways and generating new Revenue congregations are serving young entrepreneurs by converting Fellowship Halls into co-working spaces drawing
People into Community who would never attend a worship service they’re organizing Co-op grocery stores to address food deserts in their neighborhoods in a sustainable way they’re opening child care centers for teenage mothers they’re creating lawn care services bike shops music venues and fair trade stores or they’re building housing sometimes for students
Sometimes for seniors sometimes for lower income neighbors who’ve been priced out of the market one recently closed Church near Portland Oregon was just given to a coalition of Native American groups so that they can build tiny homes for indigenous women and children experiencing homelessness repurposing Church property
Is a chance to do something new it allows us to think differently to see more vividly to listen more deeply and love more fully it’s an opportunity to take the good news outside of the Sunday worship service the transition of church property is one of the largest issues
Facing the church today but it’s also one of our greatest opportunities yes churches buildings and property will be gone of this there is no doubt but more more than that I’m incredibly hopeful that new and good things will emerge and they will be gone for
Good so let me close my comments with a brief word about the book itself and how it came together with the 19 incredible contributors I don’t know about you but I’ve always loved the children’s tale about Stone Soup you know that story there’s many different versions that approach it from different cultural
Perspectives but in general the outline usually goes like this a group of Travelers three or four arrive in a village carrying only a cooking pot they set the pot on a fire in the middle middle of the village and fill it with water then they drop in a
Stone they begin cooking the stone soup at first the villagers sort of peer out the window and they’re like wondering what the heck is going on but then curiosity gets the better of them they come out to see what’s happening and they look in the pot and they see
There’s just a stone in it and they say well that that’s not going to taste very good so then they run back inside and they start to grab ingredients one by one they add something one brings some garlic another some greens another a carrot eventually almost everyone in the
Village has brought an ingredient and the soup smells amazing what started out as a stone in a pot has become this delectable soup through this collaborative contribution of the diversity of people and manyways this book is like a written version of stone soup I have personally brought very little to the
Project besides the stone the driving question I dropped that stone into the pot and the authors have contributed their incredible ingredients as you read the book you will find that while all the authors care deeply about churches only a few of them are theologians pastors or traditional church people you will hear
From property developers urban planners philanthropists real estate professionals and more and this is intentional I invited these people to contribute their unique ingredients to the soup that is this book because that’s exactly how this work is going to have to happen in the real world too a
Soup made up entirely of celery wouldn’t be particularly tasty but one that includes varied and complimentary ingredients can be Sublime I’m so grateful to be joined today by three of the contributors to gone for good I wish we could hear from all of them this evening but you’re
Going to want to go home at some point and I suppose that hearing from them all is actually why we wrote the book so we will hear first from Reverend Joe Daniels who is the lead pastor at emry fellowship and developer of the beacon Center in Washington DC emry Fellowship
Under Joe’s leadership completed a remarkably long complicated and hugely impactful affordable housing development on their Church land which has brought transformation to their neighborhood and their congregation their story gives me goosebumps every time I hear it then we’ll hear from coach sorin who recently moved from the Seattle area to Chicago
She is a social innovator at the center for transformative neighborhoods at Trinity Christian College kot is a community organizer with particular experience in how underrepresented communities make use of underutilize church buildings and land or could if they were given the chance finally we were here from a
Madison neighbor Kurt Paulson Kurt is a professor of urban planning here at W Madison and an expert in housing policy affordable housing zoning and related topics so I invite you to just sit in and listen to these great insights um that these practitioners researchers and authors have to offer
Thanks well it’s good to be with everyone tonight I hope everyone can hear me and see me it is an honor and privilege to be in your mist my name is Joe Daniels uh as Mark has said and congratulations to you mark uh we are really excited about this night and
About this day uh my chapter happens to be on Legacy uh Legacy is in fact a middle English word that means person delegated and I find that uh I have been amongst one of of 400 people at the Emory United Methodist Church effectively called The Emory Fellowship
Uh who has in fact been a person delegated just a a brief uh uh introduction of my story I uh Pastor a congregation that uh almost closed on two occasions and was almost sold on three occasions um and the only thing keeping us open was the rental of our
Fellowship hall from a private school across the street uh we were a church where the grass hadn’t been cut for six years where we were surrounded by Broken alcohol alol bottles and and beer cans mashed into the ground uh on Sunday mornings it was very very uh frequent
That we would smell urine on the steps find uh used syringes and used condoms in the stairwells of our church uh we were dump um and uh the threat of closure was very very real but our story is one a resurrection as Mark had indicated earlier uh and we went from 55
People in worship uh to uh over 400 people uh in the matter of uh 15 to 20 years I’ve been at Emory now for a little over 31 years uh an anomaly in the United Methodist Church but in that time and in that period of Resurrection we kept hearing a mission from the
Community that I need an affordable place to live I need an affordable place to live as a Congregation of 20 different nationalities predominantly black uh but Working Class People we also had to make some serious decision because we found ourselves in the midst of gentrification Downtown Development
Was pressing us on one side uh and then development uh Downtown Development in washingon DC the city we’re in was pressing us and then Downtown Development from Silver Spring Maryland which was a uh an emerging downtown area in Maryland just two miles north of us was pressing us from that point so we
Found found ourselves as a piece of meat in between two pieces of bread and we had to do something we had to decide are we going to move are we going to leave the city and go to the greener pastures and suburbs or are we going to settle
Here in the midst of this neighborhood in Northwest Washington DC uh where we had all types of urban blight around us are we going to make this thing work and are we going to survive as a church we began uh aist list in campaign in community and began listening to what
Our neighbors needed and wanted and what uh uh uh that Vision might be in in in context with vision that God was speaking through congregant uh and which God was speaking through the city and everything began to line up toward affordable housing we had already started housing people who were homeless
In our church uh we had established a transitional housing Ministry uh and people wanted to expand it and we began looking at property up and down Georgia Avenue where our church is located uh and every time we get close to settlement the deal would fall through
Until one of our members said why don’t we just build right here and none of us had ever thought about repurposing our property right where we were we didn’t even know that we could but but after doing some surveys and after doing some uh investigative reporting we quickly
Found out that we had uh a humongous space cuz we could build up and so we began the process of development we began to carry out Legacy and and as I as I indicated my chapter is uh Legacy can lead to life and we found that that
Took place and it’s taking place in our midst that word legacy again means persons delegated but it also means persons delegated uh on a mission on a mission to do something and soon as as we uh pursued this we began uh discovering that our mission was in fact to provide
Aordable housing for people who were in The margins of society who were marginalized and disenfranchised who were poor who were homeless who were the Working Poor who were gradually yet consistently being displaced from the District of Colombia which is now one of the most expensive cities to live in and
So we began the process we began uh uh uh pursuing uh what it would take to to build uh new housing we had to go through historic preservation because our church sits on a very historic site we sit next to Fort Stevens which is the only Fort that a a sitting president
Visited during wartime Abraham Lincoln Fort Stevens at that time during Civil War was the only Fort that defended the White House on the Northern side of the city where our church is located uh and if the Confederate Army history uh uh uh tells us that past uh Fort Stevens history would have been
Rewritten as it as it uh history is told the Union Army was able to fight off uh the Confederate Army and and and we were able to maintain the Democracy that we have today in the midst of all of that we thought we had dealt with historic issues and historic preservation and
Wanting to build our site but we were landmarked as we were about to begin construction on the process on the project as we went through the project and fought uh The Landmark uh we began to learn that our mission of seeking to House people who were marginalized and
Disenfranchised was in fact a mission that history had covered up but that as we were fighting the historic preservation Landmark to try to stop our project we uncovered our church is on property that is is is is very very grounded very much grounded in American history in slavery
In racism and the like uh our property sits uh on what was known as vineger Hill uh which was a part of the Ford Stevens Community but was also considered uh an enclave for free uh blacks and runaway slave white folks begin the history of our church and of our property in 1833
When our church started uh in a red brick house but as we went further in history trying to get beyond the historical landmark placed upon us we discovered that our land had been owned from 1800 by a free black woman by the name of Elizabeth Proctor Thomas who is
Affectionally known as on Betty and we found out that what Aunt Betty was doing all the way back to 1800 prior to the Civil War which is where our Pro get our our property finds his history he was actually housing free blacks and runaway slaves she was essentially provid in
Affordable housing the free blacks to runaway slaves the people who were in The margins of society being displaced because they had no other place to live and so we stuck to our mission in the midst of all that we had people who were threatening us uh saying you need to
Just close we had other people saying you need to build market rate housing but we found ourselves as people grounded in a legacy persons delegated to carry out a mission that we would end up discovering had started some 250 plus years prior to us but a mission that we ended up
Finding ourselves tapping into that enabled us to get over the landmark to get over the challenges to stop our project and to open a 99 uh unit full F affordable $60 million affordable housing project for people being displaced from the city called The Beacon center today we are
Able to House people at 60% of the average median income which is fully affordable housing in a city where the average two-bedroom apartment is $3,400 a month we’ve been able to construct luxury apartments Luxury Apartments where the highest rent for a three-bedroom apartment is just 1,500 a
Month and where people who are living $70,000 or less a year families up to four are able to live affordably and are not being displaced suddenly around us around our church building are anywhere from 260 to 300 people who are now laughing and smiling kids running up and
Down the street tapping and smiling because our church had the audacity to live out Legacy to believe that our church could be repurposed and that we could in fact make a difference in our neighborhood and in our city and carve a different pathway for a church that was
About to close but now one that is looked at looked upon as a leader in the city around affordable housing Church repurposing and the revitalization of people’s lives I’m so honored and humbled to be able to write this chapter Legacy can lead to life I’m so humbled
And honored to be a part of this great project that Mark ellon is doing so great to be with everyone this evening good evening everybody uh my name is cot sens and um that um I I had of CH to listen to this story before that joh
Daniel just shared but it is so inspiring and I think it tells us um it’s also a really great example of a Congregation of a church of that was aware of the responsibility with uh the land they they own and they they they had at their
Also for the for their Community um my chapter uh on this book is um is titled who a building anyway um and it came that chapter came from myself having a a glimpse into the future a little bit um I um I used to live in Seattle in a red
Lin neighborhood uh called South Park and where I got to experience something quite um unique I would say um which was a neighborhood without the availability of affordable space to encourage community and when we have too much of something we assume that is always there which is what um my experience was of
Listening to people who are in church of in charge of church buildings and our denominational Executives it seems that there’s something about having had Le available to you for a long time that makes you un appreciate um the power and the responsibility uh that you have with the
With the church building um in the neighborhood when I was in South Park um the community was very Lively uh it was a um neighborhood of immigrants and of um low-income younger people and um it was very strictly engaged uh but it was clear that um for
All this um engagement and and energy to to build things um the built environments the buildings around in the neighborhood didn’t quite reflect uh who we were as as other people and didn’t really um provide much spaces for uh residents to do what they need to do which was um host meetings or
Uh make art um event or just gather with others to just connect um and um through this experience um it became apparent the that um that’s something that often gets missed uh among the nomination of Executives is that um churches and the church buildings are already part of a
Community no matter how congregations feed themselves uh no matter what beliefs they have with regards to how they engage the neighborhood around them they are part of that Community by by way of their property um so the way we use the way congregations use their building
That says more about who they are as neighbors as Christians than anything else um they could say verbally uh so that was clear uh to me in my neighborhood we had three Church buildings that were completely unaccessible to community one of them was sold um rather without much thought
Which created a huge loss for that community and in the space to to gather just youth programming and the other two um didn’t seem to understand um the value of that uh communial space in that neighborhood so it was they were also shut down and eventually sold uh also accessible for the community
Um because of this um being a Christian in the neighborhood um I engag in a number of place making uh opportunities or or projects um I I because we didn’t have access to this kind of space um I started projects that using whatever we
We had so I started a coffee shop in the neighborhood that created space for Community called resisten coffee um and we were able to do a number of different things with real estate in that neighborhood that open Real Estate or um neighborhood flourishing um but the the two main um
Takeaways I guess for this conversation uh would be those that um congregations and their buildings are part of the neighborhood and also are part of the narratives narratives of land use in that City when you are in a red line neighborhood um you can easily see how
Um um land has been used to um sometimes marginal further marginalized and further exploit certain communities in that City and denominations have a wide scope sometimes to plan where they’re going to invest um for facility ities and that also gets reflected back in the
Map of um a city where you can see the concentration of public space and many things by income and raise that is mirrored too by congregation so um in as as as congregations are um having to deal with what to do with their buildings um I thought um a good idea to
Propose two um poters as far as um way to think about this conversation one is um I found that um um the mission of the church um and who we understand ourselves to be in that Community matters a lot with with how we go about our buildings and to
Understand ourselves as a neighbor as a loving neighbor to a community um actually can instill a different kind of imagination for what you do with your building um in the chapter I’m referring to this way of thinking as a place-based ecclesiology basically how do you understand um your
Mission as a church not in the abstract or your own spiritual life but as the body of Christ who are we as a congregation in that Community um so when we take place as an organizing principle for Mission we can easily very completely see the effects of who we are
And how we worship and how we engage in the life of the community around us um So within a place-based mindset we begin to ask the question of how are we to be how are we to love our neighbors very literally that grounds the conversation and it Sparks the
Imagination um and allows a congregation to um really engaged and love look outside of of ourselves and look at the people uh in our neighborhood who also have imagination and plans and priorities uh that can actually be really um listened to and and and integrated into an imagination of what to do with
These buildings how are we to reframe or reshape this space to serve the priorities and needs and visions and dreams uh of this community and more importantly the dreams that God may have for this neighborhood as far as um the as far as access to food Access to
Health Access to housing access to Friendship access to nourishing uh nourishing relationship um so uh that is one piece of it then the second uh framework that I found really useful for uh to respark a different kind of imagination is uh to really understand the restorative
Role that land can have um in a city and in a community land has been used uh for wealth creation in this country and it has not been usually accessible uh to people of marginalized groups or other races we have a we don’t have a neutral history of land ownership in this
Country and um as the body of Christ we really need to wrestle with both how we have benefited from that history in the amount of land that we have but also how is this an opportunity to Redal The Narrative of land ownership um and that
Is of course a big question and and and and for congregations too U what to know what Frameworks are out there that could be helpful to this conversation um may be useful to put a few examples um one of the um Frameworks that I presented my is is Equitable
Development as um a way of thinking Beyond um includes um access to housing but also is it basically thinks about the flourishing of a place in its economics access to housing access to healthy food access to play access to spending time with your neighbors and developing relationships that will
Sustain you um how are these neighbor neighborhoods and the in their built environment sustaining the life of a community in Equitable ways um so I I use these two concepts place-based ecology and Equitable development to invite both congregations and the nominations to think strategically around how they can
Utilize the real estate for um the restoration of people in land in neighborhood um so I put some examples there um I my story is the story of what um a group of Christians did without access to buildings um but with that kind of imagination we were able to do um U
Place making um projects such as resisten sh coffee which was a project uh by South Park for South Park um in it became a space that created a platform for Community for um for uh Food business businesses for artists um and eventually that Community creation uh resulted in um as doing some listening
And organizing uh for um Community Based groups to be able to buy um a quarter of a block in Seattle which has a really really aggressive real estate market uh so that um purchase of that land was help stabilize the commercial real estate and also by the community time to
Think how they wanted to shape the future of the neighborhood um and in addition to that uh my neighborhood as many across the United States uh was uh um decimated by highways by in the 60s and 50s many highways were built through Redline neighborhoods um and there is a home
Been Across the Nation uh to um restore from highways to Boulevard um we were able to m iiz funding for a community envisioning to hopefully maybe beovision this this highway but to reclaim 40 acres of land for Equitable development so um all of these projects were possible really following a imagination
That um was um put loving one’s neighbor very literally at the center of um of our vision and visioning and um and having a having a um an understanding of land as a means both that can be a means to both oppress or a means to restore and liberate and so that
Is that is my story thank you kot and Joe um my name is Kurt bson I’m a professor here of urban planning and I mostly do housing and so uh part of how I got involved in this process was Mark uh invited me for conversation said he
Was writing a book about this and I had one of those aha moments which is realizing that these type of property transitions were talking about they happen all the time anyway uh in cities whether we’re talking about disinvestment and blight or gentrification whether we’re talking about uh nimes and sprawl and traffic
This is kind of the bread and butter of urban planning um but I felt completely ignorant about the whole process that churches were going through this process and as soon as he explained it to me it made sense right and so for a lot of churches involved in this Urban
Property transition for some of them it’s being imposed upon them either because the neighborhood they’re living in is changing or because their congregation is losing numbers but I think what you also see a lot in the book is that there’s a lot of churches that are really rethinking how can we
Use this property that we have often times high value property in a strategic location not just to preserve the the religious the church you use of the property but to do some uh social good and so this this opportunity of of perhaps thousands of churches going through this process is really exciting
I would say for urban planners uh for a couple of reasons that I talk about in the chapter but one of which is that it’s very rare particularly in strategic and downtown location that you have property owners who are really interested in Social Mission and community services and social good not
Just in maximizing uh economic return and so that’s really exciting uh but it’s also pretty scary because uh for many cities uh this is just one more thing that they have to think about that’s going to change and transition and if you’re not ready for it it’s going to happen anyway so most
Of what chapter is really trying to speak to urban planning world and saying you need to pay attention to this both because it’s going to happen thousands of churches are going to close and what happens to those properties but also because this is a huge potential with willing land owners and
Property developers to work collaboratively to do things like affordable housing or Community serving space or a homeless shelter or food pantries and so uh what I do in the chapter is I basically do kind of five main reasons uh why Church properties are somewhat unique that we need to all
Think about as cities and and local government so uh moving very quickly because if I start talking about zoning right you haven’t had enough coffee yet Phil’s going to fall asleep right there so one of the reasons why a lot of these Church property transitions are somewhat unique does deal with the underlying
Zoning so there’s a federal zoning law called the religious land use and institutionalized persons act or Rel loopa which gives churches and other religious groups certain protections from Municipal zoning ordinances this is one of the reasons why a lot of churches are located in residential neighborhoods this is good how however
Once a church wants to transition its use such as building affordable housing or uh even developing a homeless shelter that’s a change in land use that requires a resoning process a public planning process the Neighbors come out people write letters to the editor city council has long meetings people post on
Next door right so the religious land use is protected but the commercial land use is not right I’m I’m I’m following a story of a city in oair a church in oair wants to use its old Sunday school room for apartments for homeless veterans well that’s a commercial land use the
Neighbors love having a church nearby veterans experiencing homelessness not so much right so once a church decides they’re going to do something different with their property either maintaining the religious land use or transitioning uh you’re entering into the public planning process the commercial real estate business and that
Is messy and that is complicated and any Goodwill you might have had might go out the window when the neighbors see that you’re going to be developing high density affordable housing uh near the single family neighborhood right so the second reason is churches have unique architecture often times uh Gothic style
Or stained glass windows that contributes to a neighborhood sense of place people like to drive by and look at these things it also makes them really hard to do adaptive reuse of historic structures so sometimes churches want to tear the building down and to build something new now you have
Real problem with the neighbors and the sense of place and I don’t even have to mention the case on the upper west side with the celebrities uh if you read your New York Times you’ll see that there’s a church wanting to do this um and the celebrities want to maintain the church
But of course an old historic building is really expensive to maintain so even if you wanted to maintain it you need additional Revenue sources so the third reason we should think about this is that most churches are actually located in pretty strategic Urban locations either along arterials downtown on
Corners so as planners we salivate because this is the type of Prime Property for kind of Transit accessibility uh sent placemaking where you can do higher density right the fourth reason cities should think about this is that churches are not experts in real estate zoning or property development right so they’re very
Unfamiliar with the process there’s cases in the book and cases we know of where churches go through this internal discernment we want to do this they’re really happy it’s great then you get into the public process and oh my goodness the meetings plan commission is going to alter your building facade the neighbors
You’re going to be like Joe is talking about suddenly a building that wasn’t historic the neighbors want it designated as historic right that would never happen in Madison would it sorry let the reader understand um but so churches want to accomplish mission-driven goals with property transitions but they don’t have the
Expertise on staff and so that’s one area where I argue that cities and City Planning departments Community Development departments can have a tremendous impact on this process by providing technical assistance upfront assistance if you will a lot of handholding through the process because if you don’t do this process well it can
Really go poorly the book is filled with examples of processes that worked really well but also some processes that didn’t work as well and so again where else you going to find most a property owner who’s want to do community services and affordable housing as opposed to often times as a
Planner trying to drag a developer along to do affordable housing or even to put in a some uh park space is often times like pulling teeth but churches need support and the fifth reason is again as as Co and Joe have mentioned churches are often times providers of a lot of
Community services infrastructure Social Services whether from the Girl Scouts to feeding the homeless so I would always say to cities if you’re not planning for helping churches to maintain that Civic infastructure you better be prepared for who’s going to have to provide that when those churches are gone okay so that
Cities need to really think about this proactively uh one of the easy ways to do it is just to convene uh a work group or task force of cities uh maybe some that have gone through the process maybe some that are considering it and help walk them through both what the public
Planning process would look like you know what is rezoning how do you meet with the city planning staff how does the architecture and and building review process work all the way to just creating a pure Learning Community where churches can work together the second of course is in larger cities perhaps a
Dedicated staff team providing assistance providing uh special access to perhaps pre-development funds or Community Development block grant funds particularly to maintain the social service component of any future building transition and the third thing I say in the chapter is that city planners should look at uh churches and where they’re going to
Redevelop right because uh Tyler krup kesi in in one of the chapters writes about this issue that a lot of churches again are zoned the underlying zoning is residential because they’re in neighborhoods well if you’re not preemptively thinking about what are the infrastructure and Redevelopment needs on those Parcels if they redevelop then
What you’re going to end up with is a caseby casee ad hoc process where every church has to try to go through a resoning process which is messy and complicated and all the Neighbors show up so and then the fourth thing that’s not in my chapter but I would encourage
You to read Nadia Mayan’s chapter uh she’s also an urban planning professor at at roders my alma moer out in in New Jersey um she talks about how city planners in San Diego worked with some of the churches and the denominations to really kind of think about what are some of the
Barriers to development of affordable housing in San Diego and so they have this great case study of What’s called the yig right you’ve heard of nimi not in my backyard this is yby yes in God’s Backyard where they work together with City Planning staff to create a new
Ordinance that says that in if you’re in a Transit oriented Development Area right within proximity of a transit station churches that want to redevelop affordable housing have an elimination of parking requirements right and this really adds to the cost of building if you have to build parking this is a real
Way to kind of give you extra uh points in the development process Seattle has something similar an automatic density uh up zoning bonus uh if you build affordable housing near Transit on a church-based property so uh there’s a lot in this book that I also encourage any church that’s thinking about this at
All read read the chapter by Philip Burns uh Jill Shook and Andre White because they are real estate development Consultants they created this really specialized firm in Southern California that’s fantastic and what they do is they will work with churches and they have on staff a planner who helps them
With site Planning and Development approval and entitlement they have Jill who’s worked with churches so she can really help them with the the community engagement the congregational engagement the the kind of theological wrestling with the issue and then Andre is a a finance and development specialist helps them put together a real estate
Development deal churches can get taken advantage of the by this process they can find the process frustrating and quit they can also not maximize the value of what they think they can do on the land because they meet with a developer first and the developer is going to try to steer them
Towards their practice and their issues and so any church that’s considering this you have to be prepared once you go through a process like this you’re in the public planning and real estate development process you better have a team on your side who knows what they’re doing and has a
Fiduciary responsibility to you like an owner’s W if you if you’re familiar with commercial real estate right and so this is a tremendously exciting process for a lot of churches but we don’t want them to be naive right and so once you do this you’re in this kind of urban planning
World and hopefully you can meet with all of my former students and planning students around the world who are urban planners and they say yes we will work with you we will help you because together this represents a tremendous opportunity to create real good uh with church properties so thank
You um so I thought uh kot I’d like to start with a question for you to start us off um we here at Upper House are doing a theme this spring on being a good neighbor and you mentioned that a couple times in your presentation and in
Your chapter and it struck me that almost every chapter ends with some sort of encouragement of building relationships of trust with people who are very different than yourself or or your group um so I wonder if you could share a little bit of maybe some suggestions of mechanisms that you’ve
Used to build those relationships and then maybe also some questions around this particular uh use of property in space like what are some good questions to start those conversations and those relationships thank you um yeah it as it happens with most um with the most within the Christian
Tradition I feel that uh the most impactful things are the simples the simplest of uh ones that you can you can do um being a good neighbor often means paying attention in a very um generous curious way um so engaging in in what we call often faithful presence being able to
Communicate that you are there without an agenda except for being present and listening and bearing witness to the life of this community um that is incredibly powerful um being consistent making sure that people can know where to find you um ask a lot of questions um engage in conversation um do simple
Things with people um if you are a parent and you have kids in at in the school just lean more into that uh share life together with people um in any way you can and this sounds very simple but as you know many of us continue to experience in our society
Today um there isn’t much of that there isn’t much the space for real connection um between neighbors today this and I think this is it it’s always been powerful but I think if you look at the non lat crisis uh and other um and other psychological problems that
People are experiencing I think this generation particular we’re becoming incredbly aware of how power um bearing witness and faithful presence with people in real places can be um the posture of um the posture that we learned from and I’m speaking from the Christian tradition that Christian so
These are the gifts from our tradition um the posture of of of Jesus emptying himself to make room for his friends for the life of his friend is something that when it comes to real estate in particular it’s a good pointer uh to listen for the purpose of actually
Listening and putting our our own ideas and priorities on the side for a moment to open space for imagination and to open space for experiences and uses that might be different than what we were thinking about before um but allowing rule for discernment of the spirit um
With people um that would be um that the what I would recommend anybody to engage in attention as a spiritual practice in the context of a real place with real people um that can be incredibly powerful great thank you and I forgot to say that we are going to move to
Questions from the inperson crowd John uh Terell has a mic so as he’s preparing or if you have any questions uh let him know J you were nodding a bit there did you have anything you wanted to add to that relationship question before we move on uh I simply agree with cot I
Believe relationships are the key to everything that we’ve been talking about tonight um it’s through relationships that we find out what people need it’s through relationships that God speaks vision and so unless we engage people in community um we will not know what to do properly with the
Property that we have with the assets oh may I say one more thing of course um my friend deam hares who is a genius of um he what years ago uh he came to visit me in my neighborhood and he’s the one who told me host parties part part party host parties Community
Celebration because when people are partying they tell the truth if you if you invite people to a formal meeting about the property you’re going to get a different kind of conversation and information than if you actually host parties and invite any to share um around questions that
Were to the soul like what Crucible are you on right now or do you remember the day you were born it’s the little conversations like that that will lead a lot more imagination in the long run Jesus was the best partyer and church people need to learn how to
Party to that um yeah I think uh I’m going to start with one that just came in um in part because I think get it uh maybe directed to you mark But others um relates to a couple other chapters that people didn’t hear about so this one is
I’m curious about the future of churches in Rural and small towns how might their buildings and properties be creatively used for good and I would add to that maybe if you could comment on the two chapters six and seven um about indigenous groups and uh what’s going on there as well
Right yeah so there is a chapter on um on the rural Church setting um I think it’s important to recognize that a lot of what we talk about with regard to development um most specifically and kurd here have discussed is many times more applicable in an urban setting um
But there is a lot of interesting stuff going on um to explore ways that uh rural churches can think differently about their property too um one of the most exciting that’s talked about in um Jenny’s chapter on that is Partnerships with health care providers so you have a situation where you have healthcare
Providers that want to get into a community um but they don’t really have enough um need to kind of build a permanent Health Care Facility in that Community but they need to get in maybe it’s two or three times a week um for a few hours uh to to provide some um
Health Care um and then you have churches that have space well there you go right you can connect uh the space that churches have um with the need that the healthcare providers have and then you have an opportunity to really re-engage a community um uh through those Services some rural churches have
Actually um been if they’re near a highway or Interstate have been um looking at putting in um electric vehicle charging stations um just simply as a form of hospitality and a form of generating revenue and of just sort of reusing their property in a different way so th those are really some interest
There are some interesting ideas um out there around uh around rural churches your other question is um was around indigenous land so uh I’ve told some people that I I don’t think I would have actually put this book out had we not been able to out of a couple chapters on
The question of indigenous land um and the reason for that is that especially when we’re in a situation where we might be thinking about monetizing or sort of drawing Financial value out of property or incredibly increasing the financial value of property it’s really important I believe to recognize that the land
That essentially every church is on in the United States was at some point stolen from uh people that lived on that land prior to the church being on that land and so as at least at a minimum recognizing that and keeping that in mind and thinking through what the
Implications of that are if we’re going to do multi-million dollar property developments on that land and sometimes I will ask uh congregations who are thinking about what are we going to do with this property or denomination that’s closed to church why not just give it back I mean do we really need
That all do we really need to sell it all for dollars could we not simply return some of it um uh to uh First Nations people and let them use it and the example I gave earlier um where that did just happen a few weeks ago actually
In the Portland area is a beautiful example of uh of a denomination turning over a piece of church land to a coalition of indigenous organizations to put tiny homes on it um to address the need that they see in their community and so I think that I highly recommend
People read those chapters they’re hard chapters they will get right to the core of some deep theological and ethical issues um but I I think we can’t have this conversation without uh that element being explored they are two of my favorite chapters so thank you for that um
There’s a a group of related sort of um online questions here uh all the basically relate to how to get churches who are resistant or maybe not even aware but maybe more even resistant to to doing something like this with their properties and so that’s kind of what is
The most basic thing that uh needs to be conveyed to those congregations and then a little more specifically how would one approach like a church executive team if you had an idea about this or how to encourage a church to do this um and then a related question who needs to be
Around the table for some of those conversations and maybe cot or Joe if you had maybe some experiences with some people within your own congregations who were resistant or you know groups like that so I don’t know if who’d like to field that question what do you think Joe any
Thoughts was everybody on board right away Joe um in our situation you know our church was about to Pro was about to fall in we had uh two fires in a 16mon period we had to do something um was everybody on board with doing what we were talking about doing
No I think there was fear as to how do we how do we afford the where we gonna find the money um how this going to happen all of those different questions that that that needed to be answered um and you know the faith Journey Begins
Right uh but uh I I I I think that that that’s all a part of the process and we need to be prepared to be able to deal with all of that as we move forward one of the questions I like to ask um congregation leaders when they’re
Thinking about this is a sort of Legacy question and so I like to ask people to just Envision returning to their Church’s land 50 years from now which has probably in most cases passed the life of most of the people in that conver conversation and to think just what’s
Happening there like what’s come back 50 years from now what’s happening on that land because we at this moment are stewards of this land and of these buildings and we have an opportunity to shape what will be there 50 years from now um and I think sometimes that helps
Just to reframe a little bit this isn’t just about today or tomorrow or even really just about us this is about a stewardship of this gift that um that in some ways we we have and that God has sort of allowed us to make use of for
Some period of time and um we have a really amazing opportunity and responsibility to think about what that might look like down the road great I think we have a question here in uh yeah thank you uh this is fantastic love the book and project Joe
You were getting Isaiah 61 uh in my mind with the you know restoring streets to dwell in so that’s beautiful but my question is specific to this context Madison so sorry for those outside of it since we’re here in the room in Madison and I’ve see you know Architects and
Lawyers and accountants and engineers and then co-founder of rooted good I’m C and you know ww planner planning professors what’s happening here that you guys are aware of related to efforts to um intentionally proactively redevelop repurpose uh Church buildings is there movement on that front talk about that some whoever
Can yeah so as you’re aware a number of churches in Madison have already gone through the process a number of them are at various stages in the process and I would say um one of the things I I can guarantee you is that City Planning and City Community Development staff are
Aware of this issue people like Julie Spears in the city are already connecting with some Churches so the first thing I would do is if someone asked me about a church I would I would I would send them to Julie Spears in the community development department and I’d
Say go talk to Peter Tan an architect uh who’s sitting in the room right or if you’re interested in senior housing an Michaels there and right so there’s uh I don’t know if anything formal but I’d say we’re kind of ahead of the game because um our city planning staff is
Aware of this issue and is deeply committed and of course you know that part of the challenge is you’re probably familiar with Peter B B and the uh Lutheran Church right in the Square that’s um going to redevelop their property for ground level church and and Ministry space and service to the
Homeless but then affordable housing and and above um you one one actually really exciting thing that is happen happened in Madison very recently which you might be able speak more to Kurt is the update to the comprehensive plan so an interim update to the comprehensive plan a sort
Of a fiveyear update that just went through at theend in the end of December I believe city council approved actually does uh now allow for or make room for um a slightly higher density development on church and other uh properties like churches um it’s different than zoning
And it’s sort of beyond my understanding of all those layers but um but it it’s a result of this so some conversations happened over the summer with City Planning staff and with the plan commission um I did some testifying at a meeting and we you know tried to just
Raise this issue basically just to open up possibilities it doesn’t guarantee anything but it makes more possible um in uh in in the Madison area so that’s exciting and and the city staff is very much aware of the fact that again you can’t force a private land owner to
Build affordable Housing and Community Development but boy you have an opportunity to really partner with churches um eventually there’ll be some funds I think available for kind of pre-development because one of the things the book talks about is if you’re a church you’re thinking about doing property development the pre-development
Phase can be $150,000 of hiring Architects engineers and you know most churches don’t have that upfront have you found that the city staff I mean I know Julie spear is pretty well like sympathetic I mean it’s supportive so far in the conversations and interactions locally yes thanks and
That’s what I would encourage to any city is even start a conversation within your planning community development staff like what are the opportunities here and who wants to work on this even if it’s just not official but you know use their expertise to help I do think it’s a little bit new to
Them the scale of it so I think what where we’ve been is sort of a trickle of a church here in a church there and I think what we’re talking about now is that it’s going to be 20 churches and 30 you know it’s going to be numbers of
Churches not just one here one there and therefore the process and the pace and the methodology is going to have to be a little bit different because if every one of them goes through two three year it’s just going to be too slow right so that I think is shifting a
Little bit but yes I found them to be quite open and uh around this conversation um this is a question for all of you guys um um the the question um that um I think your name is um Kurt Kurt sorry Kurt um um you brought up
Funding as an issue and I’m I’m uh very curious yeah where does a church Urban church or whatnot come up with the funding for this and um you know I noticed um that sometimes they get funding from local community groups it seems like if they’re loow income they
Might get funding from the government what conditions come with the funding and what do churches do with regards to the conditions put on them yeah so how long do we have okay so what if you look at Patrick um dugger’s chapter there are many denominations that do have a church
And building Loan Fund or have assistance from the denomination for kind of some of the initial feasibility studies the initial planning Grant but often times a low-income church that’s thinking about this doesn’t have any money up front so that’s why they go to the the developer right away and the
Developer says oh I will do this on spec not realizing of course that they will then capture a large part of that development fee on the back end that’s why the the chapter with by Phil and and and Andre about development advisory they do the same they’re a development
Advisory company they do it on SPC so they will start doing the Consulting with a church all the way to the community discernment the congregational discernment but also feasibility studies architecture engineering City Planning feasibility and they will do that on spec so that they get paid then when the
Project closes on the development deal that’s often hard to ask a lot of professionals to kind of give their professional work on spec and maybe get paid later and maybe not right so one of the things they talk about is either cities or denominations or philanthropies can create these kind of
Pre-development advisory Services just to help churches go through the initial process of what does the rezoning look like what is the soils what is the sewer and water capacity in terms of feasibility uh does that I hope that answers your question but that’s the issue right because the church that
Doesn’t have the money is either not going to do the process or they’re going to do it poorly by just quickly going to to a developer who will promise them a lot but also then extract a high fee oh the conditions tied to the money yeah if you take any government money at
All you are tied to federal fair housing law which is a good thing right but there’s a case study in the book of a church that sold their land for limited amount of money they thought that their resident their members would be the ones
To get uh the housing but no you have to use a lottery and have to have a fair housing process so once you take government money which is good you you do it comes with all the public reporting the fair housing requirements and so just to be clear churches can
Accept government money for development projects it it doesn’t violate church and state and there are many cases where a city could enter into a development partnership agreement with the church right Tiff land concessions property baits all these as part of the development deal that doesn’t violate church and state but that’s where
Helping having a development adviser really is helpful because you got to know what you’re doing because there’s layers of financing each with their own strings okay thank you I think we’re going to see one more could I add to that can I add to that real quick one
Online and then I’ll I’ll close with the I I add to that oh Joe yeah did you want to add to that I I just wanted to add to that real quick I wanted to stress that um Money Follows Mission and if we if we stick to
Mission money will follow and if we organize I think there’s there’s a great great great opportunity through Community organizing if church is engage in community organizing back to the relationship piece that cot was talking about a little while ago um in in organizing community and organizing
Around uh what it is that a community wants to see built you can leverage dollars from various uh uh parts of the three sectors that make up every Community private sector government sector public sector and and there’s an opportunity to attract predevelopment monies in that um monies that will not
Be penalized uh I use the word penel Heist uh monies that will not be lost at the end of the deal because of an arrangement with a developer at the beginning I think that’s very very important for um churches to embrace that opportunity the other piece real
Quick is this is an opportunity and and and mark touches uh on this somewhat uh uh in his in his first book we aren’t broke but this is a great opportunity for denominations of of across the board who have all of this money sitting in in investment accounts uh generating
Interest and the like this is a great opportunity to set up um pre-development funding for congregations that show they have legitimate prog projects that can transform community so that churches can go readily to uh an investment Fund in which to be able to get funds to do predevelopment
Okay yeah thank you um exciting great conversation but I’m not a developer I’m not an architect I’m not an urban planner I’m a theologian so the conversation also makes me sad to a certain degree and I’m just curious before we turn all sanctuaries in our cities into community centers is there
Um something like a question where we share sanctuaries where we develop multifaith spaces and maybe that’s a way to go I I mean the trend the numbers are clear but from more from a theolog theological spiritual perspective um are there other ways to use um the church’s that are no longer attended Sunday
Mornings is is that something that came up in develop uh um designing uh putting the book book together in your conversations so just curious um what you do with that it’s a great question and I I also think as I mentioned at the beginning recognizing some of the sadness is totally
Appropriate I mean this is not there’s great opportunity but there is there is some some lament there you know for some of these changes for sure sure Joe you look like you got something to say though so yeah I I just I think it’s a great opportunity to turn what made me
Sadness into glad um you know what we did in in our space is you know we we maintained our Sanctuary we we maintained our Sanctuary we we knocked out the walls on the side because because part of what we needed was more space for worshippers so we went from a
Three 300 seat Sanctuary to a 500 seat Sanctuary but what we did was we knocked out all the pews on the on the on the on the main level we maintained pews in the balcony but we knocked out all the pews on the main level we have chairs and we
Created a multi-purpose space for our Sanctuary which honors the sanctity of the space of the worship space but it also opens the worship space to the opportunity to do different things so we’ve had we’ve had concerts there we’ve had plays um we’ve had motivational speakers come we’ve had graduations
We’ve had all the things that that really represent uh uh the broad aspect of worshiping uh that a community brings that that is that is not just uh centered in in in what we understand the sacred being uh but that expands the sacred into community in some creative ways so so
Yeah there’s a sadness to it but there is a gladness to it if we really open space the community and be creative in that space uh in ways that worship God and that encourage community may I say something to against and I was gonna give you the last word
Cot this will be the last oh that’s the but um we have um feel as as as religious people um we do have a mission to um present an alternative to the profit teering and exploitation of land PE people and environment we have a mission to restore and that involves to
Connect deeply with our tradition of the of the world as God created in the world as God created it everybody has what they need to th Drive survive to have um to have relationship this is where it’s important for us to open up to discern
What are the roles of the spaces that we Steward that we hold not just for the I guess what I’m trying to say that there is not a prescription for what the space will be that the utilization of the space needs to be discerned with Community with god with the congregation
And the EXs of places for worship for connection for um meditation for centering there are not for production those spaces are important in the life of our community um so I love that you saiding like not everything can be a community center it shouldn’t be whatever that
Space is going to be needs to truly follow what the dreams of God and the community are and we need to discern that in prayer it we need to desend it with the seriousness that it requires some will need to be affordable housing because that is what’s needed in the
Community but it is it doesn’t take away the opportunity to create more space for connection for connection with with God for connection with one another and so we’re still the church we have a to play in in society so in nourishing uh personhood in in society thank you thank you all so
Much this was just a little conversation thank you