The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Churches - Habit 2

The Second area that Ron Gladden says limits the growth of our churches is the Facility. He asserts that a clean, well presented functional facility is essential. He suggests that your church should be up to the standard of presentation of the homes of people you are trying to attract.
His major focus in the chapter focuses not on the building, but on the car park. In the '70 & '80's people came to church on the average of 4 people per car. Today people come two people to a car. This means that our number of car parking spots are the greatest limiting factor on our growth. He says if we don't make room for them to park at our church they wont. (makes sense, doesn't it!)
Looking at Rosny's situation - 31 parking spaces - 20 years ago we would have had a comfortable 120 attenders every Sabbath. Now we have about 60. The numbers work perfectly!
Gladden gives three suggestions for parking limited churches.
1. Buy surrounding houses, knock them down and pave them over.
2. Build a new church with a bigger car park.
3. Plant a church - thus hiving off 1/3 of your members making room for new people.
Rosny is moving down track 3. It is exciting to see that we will grow just by making room for new people to park their cars!

For part 1 of this series click here