What can you do when your church is tight on space and tighter on finances? If you're not in a position to consider expanding your ministry space, try taking these steps to maximize the space you have.

Step 1: List your space needs. On a floor plan of your building, write down what happens in each room during the various hours of the week. Is the present space adequate? If not, what size and kind of space is needed? Do the same for every church activity that happens away from church.

Project the space needs for each of these ministries—and any being planned—for five years from now. Designate the amount of space needed and any special requirements such as location, accessibility, and acoustics.

Step 2: Match groups to the right-size room. Many churches have at least one small class in a big room and one big class in a little room. Simply moving classes around can relieve space pressure. Perhaps you can change group sizes to fit your rooms. You can divide large classes or combine smaller classes and switch to a team-teaching approach.

Hosea 4:6 says a lack of knowledge can be destructive. Ignorance of the risks involved when taking on something as extensive as building or expanding a church site can be equally as damaging. Almost half of all church building projects will suffer delays or setbacks. Yet there's something even worse than temporary snags: building the wrong facility.

If you're like most church leaders, the cultural shifts and changing ministry practices prompt you to wonder what your own ministry should look like in five to ten years. How should these cultural shifts impact a facility design for the future? What will it take to build trust and acceptance of the project from the young adults in the church, many of whom will lead the church into the future?

Building the right space at the right time is the ultimate goal of every church building project. Once a church has tracked attendance information over time, (see the article, "Head Counts at Church" for tips on taking attendance), it can make an informed decision about the amount of space needed for ministry expansion. Armed with this hard data, you're ready to consider what kind of space to build.

David Evans, president of Mantel Teter Architects, offers three tips regarding how much space to build.

1. Think big. What is your vision? How much space will you need to support that vision? What ministries would you like to move into in the future? Having a clearly defined vision is imperative before adding ministry space.

How does a church figure out how much space they need to accommodate the people they have and the growth they're experiencing? "When we talk about expanding ministry space, what we're really trying to do is create space for people," says Jeff Otero, vice president and senior strategist for Strategic Dimensions, a facilities planning company.

According to Otero, you need to know where you've been. "Have good historical data on attendance," he says. "Many churches either don't track attendance numbers at all, or they do so in a very inaccurate way. Being able to evaluate accurate data is key to making good decisions on facility space."

Once upon a time, pre-engineered buildings were something you picked out of a catalog and ordered over the phone. Then, about four weeks later, the components arrived on your job site. Basically, you got a big tinker-toy set with an assembly manual. Some thought this method of construction was a dream; others equated it with a lack of imagination and creativity. Today, however, cookie-cutter construction is generally a thing of the past.

Leaders in the pre-engineered building industry have listened to their critics and have found ways to customize their products in order to expand their customer base. As the industry grows, the structures are getting bigger and better. They are not only popular in industrial areas but in residential and commercial areas, too. A friend's home, your supermarket, your office, or your church&all of them could be pre-engineered buildings.

When devastating floods hit Grand Forks, North Dakota, the basement and parts of the first floor of First Presbyterian Church's 90-year-old brick facility filled with flood water.

After the flood waters receded, church leaders assessed the damage. It soon became clear that the building was no longer usable. The congregation voted to sell the old 25,000 square-foot building and to construct a new 13,500 square-foot facility. In consultation with neighboring environmental groups as well as architects and engineers, First Presbyterian planned a new, energy-efficient church.

The congregation asked the builders to use insulated windows, extra building insulation, a ground-water heat pump to warm the church—even a few passive solar panels. "Any energy-efficient methods you use will save you money," says Pastor Gretchen Daneke-Graf. "But building this way is also a witness to environmental integrity, to stewardship of the environment. The stewardship issue was even more important to us than the cost savings."

Build to Save
If you want your church building to be energy-efficient, you must make that concern known to the builder, engineer, and/or architect that you work with, says Brian Rawlston, church project manager at Morton Buildings. Rawlston suggests that churches work with a builder who is familiar with churches and their unique needs because the energy-use patterns of churches are very different from those of other buildings. While a house or office requires relatively constant energy use during the week, a church's energy use tends to peak on Sundays and lessen dramatically during the rest of the week. A builder who understands this will be better able to design a church that operates at optimal energy efficiency.

As other congregations have discovered, making a church more energy efficient not only helps protect the environment; it also saves money. For example, when Georgetown Gospel Chapel in Seattle made its existing church buildings more energy-efficient, it cut $5,000 a year from its annual budget of $55,000. That money is now used for missions, a Christian camp, and enhanced community outreach (including a community garden).

When Samuel Taylor Coleridge penned "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and those famous words, "Water, water, everywhere," he obviously didn't have a church in mind. But he might as well have.

Water is everywhere. And it's trying to get into your church building, any way it can. Its favorite means are the Big Three—roof leaks, basement leaks, and condensation. And it will stop at nothing.

So, what can you do about it? Here are some practical suggestions for stemming the tide.

Roof Leaks: Moisture from Above
Roof leaks are not limited to a certain kind of roof. Many folks are convinced that a shingle cover over their flat roof will cure all of their problems. Generally, shingle roofs do offer less maintenance than flat roofs, but they too can have problems, particularly if they are not installed properly.

The best insurance against roof leaks is to hire a quality contractor to install your roof. Warranties are nice if the contractor can fix the problem. But if you have a frustrating leak that just won't quit and your building is constantly getting wet (and you have to explain the problem to your board each month, and your congregation begins to make jokes about the flowing baptismal font, and so on), then those warranties just won't impress. A quality contractor should install the right materials in the right manner, which will reduce the chances of developing a leak later on.

Since the 12th century, Christian church buildings and steeples have been practically inseparable. Noted British architect, mathematician, and astronomer Sir Thomas Wren, who was commissioned to rebuild many churches destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, placed special emphasis on steeples and spires. His designs continue to be embraced, resulting in churches that are as beautiful as they are useful.

Steeples have long been used as means of communication. Steeple bells ring to tell the neighborhood, town, or village that services are beginning (or ending), or that an important announcement will soon be made. And on April 18, 1775, two lanterns displayed in the steeple of Boston's Christ Church, also known as the Old North Church, warned Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British were attacking by sea.

Today, steeples remain an icon of American churches. But choosing a steeple for a church building, or even deciding to have one, is far from a simple decision. Fortunately, manufacturers and providers of steeples understand their church clients, and offer a wide variety of steeple products that will last many years.

Each year our sister publication, Your Church magazine, publishes an annual Church Buyer's Guide. Check out the free, electronic PDF of our "Facility" section from the 2010 Church Buyer's Guide here.

You can see a digital version of the entire 2010 Church Buyer's Guide too!

This decade-old neo--Gothic Anglican megachurch is layered with stone walls, a thick tower that hoists a cross, and half-oval windows in the shape universally known as "church window." While its original building plan called for theater seating—the sanctuary seats about 3,000—the church instead opted for pews.

"When we built it, there was a lot of movement towards the warehouse look, with black ceilings," says Dana Blackwood, Church of the Apostles' director of facilities. "The church leadership understood that that look was going to fade. People wanted to have a sense of tradition, something that looked like a church."

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The closing scene from "Field of Dreams" inspires us to believe our grandest dreams. The small town farmer obeyed the voice that said, "If you build it…they will come." Ignoring conventional wisdom he converted valuable farming acreage into a baseball field—following the instruction of the whispering voice. And the movie ends with cars arriving from all over that would cover the cost of building the baseball field—and they lived happily ever after.

You can improve your church outreach, use advertising, even get your church members motivated to bring their friends, yet if you don't manage your parking lot well, your impact will be limited. The good news is parking lot management is not rocket science; all you need to do is apply the five keys to a well-run parking lot:

Wondering what you can do to make your existing church building more environmentally friendly? Here are 25 ideas you can use today.

Architect Steve Fridsma talks about the value of incorporating environmental design for churches.

Facility financing and operational maintenance are typically among the largest budget line items for churches, after staffing. In today's cost-cutting climate, churches are looking for ways to reduce expenses in this area. Building environmental features into church facilities may be one significant way to accomplish this.

When I was a newly minted pastor's wife I was puzzled by what appeared to be an unexplainable correlation between long-time members' retirement from their jobs and their retirement from church involvement. Now that I am on the cusp of fitting into the "senior citizen" category, I have discovered at least one reason why retirees sometimes seem to diminish their ministry within the church: lack of accessibility to the sanctuary.

The distinction between secular and sacred space continues to blur as a small but growing number of churches meet in movie theaters and consider eschewing traditional church buildings altogether.

We needn't go much further than I Chronicles 17:1-4 to capture the heart of the challenges facing pastors today as it relates to building a new facility. If you recall King David's conversation with Nathan the prophet, "Behold I am dwelling in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant is under a tent." David was feeling guilty that he was living in a better constructed and more comfortable place than the "ark of the covenant." Nathan advised David, go with your heart. Today we would tell pastors, follow the vision that the Lord has given you. There was a small problem for David, however; the Lord instructed Nathan later that night to tell David NOT to build a new house for the Lord.

"... And the wise man built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, yet it did not fall, because it had a foundation on the rock." Matthew 7:24

Though it is obvious that Jesus was making a spiritual analogy here, a comparison may still be made to the vitally important issue of selecting the right property for a church to build upon. The following guidelines will be helpful as you begin the property selection process.

BuildingForMinistry.com, a collaborative partnership between Christianity Today International and the Cornerstone Knowledge Network, offers a variety of tools and resources to help church leaders with their thinking regarding ministry space.

One of the ways the site desires to help is through electronic training resources. For a low cost, church leaders can purchase these resources and use them as they work through facilities-related matters with staff members, board members, committee members, and volunteers.

Here are resources that BuildingForMinistry.com offers; watch the site in 2010 as new ones get added: