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A Simple Church Facility Strategy

Orginally published on Thursday, February 05, 2009 at 8:40 AM
by Todd Rhoades


David McDaniel has a very interesting post on building and facility strategy... He gives his input on when a church should build, and when they should not. He also gives some alternatives to building a new facility. One of the questions most people ask is... 'when should we build'? Many have used the 75% capacity (or I've also heard 80%) rule... (you won't grow after your worship center has reached XX% seating capacity.) David shatters this with a new thought:

As your crowd increases, maximize your capacity by utilizing multiple services in your current auditorium. Do this until your Seat Turns (total weekend adults in worship divided by auditorium seat capacity) is 2.0 or more. For example, you have an auditorium capacity of 400. Your 11am service has 300 and your 9am service has 200. Your Seat Turns are (300+200)/400 = 1.25. You haven’t grown in 6 months. You listen to church growth people who say that, at 75%, your auditorium is functionally full. That’s why you aren’t growing. You start a capital campaign to go buy land. YOU’RE DEAD WRONG. Exciting churches have standing room only at their 11am services. Make your church more irresistible and consider as many as 4 services on Sunday. An attendance pattern for a church that has 3 services (a 9am, an 11am, and a 6pm service) might be 60%, 110%, and 60% respectively. That’s 2.3 seat turns.

Hmmm... I like that... 'exciting churches have SRO at their main service'...

David also shares some other thoughts/strategies.

What do you think?  When should your church build?

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Todd


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