The suggestion has been made that, in an effort to deal with our space problems, we start another church rather than acquiring land for more church buildings. Some churches do this when their attendance reaches a certain number. Some of the church members and leaders move to a new location and start a church with a new pastor. The revival I led in Korea last year was sponsored by four churches that followed this pattern. They were all church plants from one mother church.
Churches that adopt this policy usually do so in reaction to mega-churches and their imperial pastors. It’s a way to keep their churches small. One of the four churches I mentioned had already decided to start another church if they reached a point where they required a second Sunday worship service.
This growth strategy has merit but there are some problems with it. One major problem is that it is difficult to educate children effectively this way. Good children’s education requires facilities and personnel. The church therefore needs to be large enough to provide enough financial resources to hire staff members and build education facilities, and enough human resources to have a constant supply of teachers and helpers. If churches are kept small by splitting whenever they get big it’s very hard to provide adequate education for their children. Those four churches gave me the impression that they had not considered their children when they started new churches.
Because children’s training is one of the most important ministries of our church, we’ve decided to buy land and build educational facilities. When our church attendance reaches the full capacity of our current location even after our planned expansion, we may want to have another worship center in south Houston. However, it will not be another church. The house churches are local churches. It won’t be another church but another worship center.
We’ll have to do this when the Sunday attendance of the KSC reaches 1,200. At this point there won’t be any room to accommodate new believers. We could buy a much larger piece of land and build there. But it will be hard to find someone who can use our current facilities as effectively as we do now. We would probably end up selling our buildings at a bargain price, and that’s not an effective use of money.
In this case starting another worship center seems to be the best solution. If we have one in south Houston it will solve the space problems and would also make it easier to encourage nonbelievers who live in that area to attend Sunday worship services.
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