When Your Congregation Needs a New Church, Consider Pre-Existing Buildings

Proper planning can be extremely helpful for families looking to buy a new house. Research about a location is a smart business move when opening a new storefront. Planning is also a key requirement when you’re looking into church buildings for sale. Buying a new space for a church is not a simple undertaking. It requires a certain amount of flexibility and time. Here’s how you do it.

The Top Three Considerations: Location, Size, and Visibility.

Now, anyone buying property anywhere would be wise to keep these three factors in consideration. However, the meaning behind each is a little different when referring to the building that will one day be a site of worship.

The goals of a church have one major motivation in common with the average storefront business: to bring more people in. Churches usually want to grow their congregations in the hopes of spreading their specific method of worship to more followers. But if they are too successful in this endeavor, their current building may become too small.

They have the option of looking for much larger church buildings for sale, or of finding a site that is perhaps not excessively large but can function as a satellite campus. When a church finds itself with more than 10,000 members, the trend is to have multiple sites for worship.

Location: Does It Ever Not Matter?

Recent surveys have determined that about one-fifth of Americans attend a church service at least several times each year. The popular times of course are those days of particularly significant holidays. This may seem to be of little consequence, however it truth is that without prior planning, the influx of church goers could cause some traffic mishaps in the community.

Church buildings for sale should be examined for ease of arrival. This means taking a look at the surrounding streets and plotting out the flow of traffic on an average day or night of peak attendance. Are there enough traffic lights and signs to direct cars? Is the building’s parking lot easily accessible from the street? Church buildings for sale might be beautiful and spacious inside, but if it’s hidden away on a sleepy side street the neighbors may not be too pleased with the extra traffic.

If You’re Moving Buildings, Is There Enough Room For Growth?

If the goal is to increase the size of the congregation, the new building must reflect this purpose. You’ll have to make the final call, as their is no exact algorithm predicting who will be at each church worship session. If the idea is to find churches for sale for use as a secondary site for a multisite church, then perhaps the new building does not need to account for a surplus. Just plan to have a modular building on site if the congregation grows faster than anticipated.

A modular building is simply a temporary building. Schools sometimes refer to these types of buildings as bungalows. If you’re unable to move right away, and yet more people keep coming in for every service, a modular building could help ease the pressure until the right building can be found.

How Visibility Can Help Your Goals.

Location matters in business. Visibility is another top concern. When there are church buildings for sale in the city, it makes things a bit easier in the planning department. However, don’t ignore your other option of non-church buildings. A big box store with a large parking lot may seem like the last place you would want to plant a church, but there are clear benefits such as plenty of interior space, high visibility in the community, and of course a well-maintained parking lot.

When you’re in need of a new building for your church, consider what your needs are. Was parking becoming a problem at the old location? Has the congregation grown considerably and you expect the numbers will keep climbing? Are you hoping to encourage new people to stop by for services? Answering these questions will make it easier to choose the perfect building for your new church.