Ray Bowman - When Not to Build: An Architects Unconventional Wisdom for the Growing Church

Also by Ray Bowman and Eddy Hall

When Not to Borrow: Unconventional Financial Wisdom
to Set Your Church Free

Other Books by Eddy Hall

When Theres No Burning Bush: Following Your Passions
to Discover Gods Call (with Gary Morsch)

Praying with the Anabaptists: The Secret of Bearing Fruit
(with Marlene Kropf)

1992, 2000 by Eddy Hall

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2011

Ebook corrections 08.27.2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-58558-052-1

Portions of this book originally appeared in Leadership, The Leadership Guide to ChurchSupplies, The Clergy Journal, and The Preachers Magazine.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

To
James N. Posey
who brought us together
and without whom this book
would not have been written

Contents

by Charles Arn

Let me share a puzzle with you. Its a puzzle that stumped me for years. I knew there had to be an answer but each time I tried to solve it, I became more and more frustrated. Only recently did I experience the aha! that comes with a solution, and then it was only when someone more enlightened than I showed me the answer.

Here are the instructions. Connect the nine dots below using only four straight lines without lifting your pencil from the paper. Simple, right? Try it.

If you have seen the puzzle before and have been shown the secret solution, its easy. If you are seeing it for the first time, you probably wonder how, or whether, it can be solved. Heres a secret that can help you solve the problem. Its the same secret Ray Bowman has used in his wide experience of consulting with churches and the one he brings so insightfully to this book. The secret is: Dont look for the obvious solution.

Still stuck? So are a lot of pastors of growing churches when it comes to accommodating the increasing number of people coming to their church. The obvious answer is to build. The wrong answer, for most, is to build.

Can such a paradox be true? Yes. And it wont be the first time.

Jesus, of course, used paradoxes to communicate many insights into the Christian faith:

If your enemy is hungry, give him food.
To be rich, give away your possessions.
To gain your life, lose it.

As I have observed how, when, where, and why churches grow across North America, the paradoxes of growth have also fascinated me:

To attract more people, raise membership requirements.
To grow a group, divide it.
To accommodate your growth in attendance, dont build.

Ray Bowman takes this latter paradox of church growth and explains why it is so. This unusual and perceptive book will bring you the aha! experience that will turn night into day, frustration into insight.

The secret: Dont look for the obvious solution.

Oh, yes, the puzzle.

Try it with your friends sometime. Try it on a pastor or lay leader who is considering building a new sanctuary or educational wing. Then give him a copy of this book for the secret solution.

Charles Arn, President
Church Growth, Inc.
Monrovia, California

Preface to
the Second Edition

When Paul Engle, our editor at Baker Books, first suggested we update and expand When Not to Build, we werent sure a new edition was needed. The book was based on principles that we believed were biblical and timeless. Reader responses and continued strong sales made clear that the books message remained just as relevant as when it had first appeared.

But several changes convinced us that the time for a new edition had come. In the years since the first edition, Eddy Hall and three others have joined Ray Bowman on the church consulting team. Each team member has brought his own experience and perspectives to the consulting work, expanding what the team can offer churches. In the eight years since the first edition was published, all five of us have learned a great deal from our work with churches.

Drawing on these recent experiences, this edition includes four new chapters5, 9, 10, and 11plus a new self-test and an additional appendix. We have also updated the original text. For example, this edition uses todays interest rates to compare the cost of building for cash versus that of borrowing to build. We wanted to add enough valuable new information that owners of the first edition would find it worth their while to replace it with this one. At the same time, we didnt want to make the book so big that the price would hinder churches from getting copies for all the board and committee members involved in their strategic planning.

We have witnessed another encouraging change since WhenNot to Build was first published: Churches are more open to its message. Multiple worship services and multiple sessions of Christian education are now standard operating procedure in growing churches. Resistance to converting single-use space to multiple-use space is decreasing. More churches are using these principles, whether theyve read the book or not, to get out of debt and stay out of debt, even through a major building program. In all of this, more churches are becoming less focused on buildings and more focused on ministry.

Maybe someday a book like this will no longer be needed, not because the ideas have become outdated, but because concepts considered radical when they were first published have become so universally practiced that no one needs to read a book about them anymore. It will just be the way things are done.

Whether that fantasy will come true, we dont know. But we do know that if your growing church will apply the principles in this book, over time you are likely to save hundreds of thousands or, in some cases, millions of dollars in construction, interest, and building maintenance expense, dollars that will be freed up for ministry. No less important, your staff and lay leaders will avoid the terrible waste of time and energy that would be consumed by unnecessary building programs and they can invest that time and energy in doing the real work of the church.

Every time we work with a congregation and watch them take tangible steps to decrease the time, money, and energy they have to devote to bricks and mortar so they can release these resources for strengthening and expanding the ministries of the church, we find it exciting. May this excitement come to your church next.

Fifteen Questions before You Begin

Sunday mornings your worship space is filled to 90 percent capacity. The older teen and young married classes have standing room only. The fellowship hall can no longer seat everyone at once during your potluck dinners. Obviously its time to build.