The Challenge of Portable Church
Do you LOVE leading a church in a temporary facility?
Actually, I’m sure there are some pastors who do, but even they would readily admit portable church provides many unique challenges.
My Portable Church Background
I’ve been a lead pastor for six years and prior served as a family ministry and student director for nearly four. That’s nearly a decade of professional Christianity, and most of these years have been spent in temporary facilities. Today, I lead a North Point Ministries campus location for Andy Stanley (Watermarke Church). We average roughly 5,000 people each week meeting in a school. We set up and tear down 40 classrooms, a gym and a cafeteria every week.
All that to say, like many of you, I’m intimately familiar with portable church.
Before we consider the opportunities and paths to portable success, let’s identify some of the issues. Because leading in a portable facility presents many challenges.
Portable Challenges
1. Identity: A permanent church in a temporary home.
For some reason, most Christian assume a real church should have a real building. At Watermarke, we have been a portable church in leased facilities for ALL six of my leadership years. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me they would like to try our church once we decide to build a building. I won’t tell you how I respond (because you might doubt my salvation)!
But it’s often the reality of portable church. It’s like the portable church is the Pinocchio of churches (can’t we just be a real church). It can create an identity crisis. But securing a permanent identity in a portable church is possible.
2. Ownership: Staff and volunteer leaders can struggle owning the mission without owning the facility.
It can be hard to convince people to volunteer in a portable church environment. Volunteers need to buy into the mission. And even though the mission is completely independent from a building, when you own a building people feel better owning the mission.
Also, people who give of their time and/or resources want to know they are making a good investment. A portable location can give the impression of a temporary church. For good reason, people are adverse to poor perceived investment. This dynamic can create a leadership gap and financial instability for portable churches.
3. Environments: Creating excellent experiences in non-optimal spaces.
A school is designed to execute education. Theaters are designed for movies. Ballrooms are meant for … balls, I guess. The point is executing ministry excellence in spaces not designed for ministry can be challenging. Some schools have great auditoriums, but still lack optimally designed children’s spaces. Theaters have great seating, but please don’t put my crawling baby on any of the floors! There is only so much a pipe-n-drape maze can cover! It’s a challenge.
4. People Resources: Expending volunteer resources in non-ministry facing areas.
This is one challenge that always frustrates me! It can take numerous (dozens and dozens) volunteers to set up and tear down a building. And every volunteer minute spent on transforming a building is a minute that COULD have been spent executing ministry. Of course, the set up and tear down teams can enjoy serving and develop great relationships, but I’d still rather have volunteers leading a third grade small group than setting up chairs. Odds are they can’t do both, because …
5. Exhaustion: Burning the midnight oil burns out volunteers.
Portable is exhausting! For everyone involved! By week two, it’s hard to get excited about pulling trailers from storage to a school at 5:00 a.m. Just thinking about it makes me too tired to write about it.
6. Availability vs. Expense: Your lease agreement can determine your ministry opportunities.
Not in every sense, but in many. If you want to offer a service on Wednesday night, you can’t unless you amend the lease (which is going to cost something). Need to get into the building a few hours early? That will cost you (if it’s possible). We are in a school, so working on our environments during school hours is not always an option. We struggle to prepare for our adult services, because during the week we have very limited access to the auditorium (it doubles as the school’s gym).
A portable church can feel trapped by their lease and building availability. And every opportunity doesn’t just come with a cost; it comes with a cost and facility limitation. That’s a challenge!
Loving Your Portable Church
When you are in the midst of set up and tear down every week, it’s easy to forget there are advantages and opportunities that come with the territory. They are not readily evident at 5:30 a.m. when trailers are being delivered or at 3:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon as the tear down process concludes, but they are there. And when we look close enough, they become evident.
Like most difficulties in life, though, the frustrations and challenges of portable church can mentally and physically outweigh the opportunities portable provides. So before you get too frustrated with your portable challenges, consider these opportunities:
1. Unchurched people are not adverse to portable church.
In fact, for the unchurched in our communities, portable church can be an advantage. Considering most people are either dechurched or at least have some context for church, offering a church experience in a very nontraditional church setting presents advantages. Where pews and stain glass windows may conjure up bad previous experiences, a school or theater is relatively neutral spiritual ground—and that’s a huge advantage.
I realize we often don’t consider it, but a church building can be a barrier to the very people you desire to reach most.
2. Flexible and nimble.
Portable facilities create a unique flexibility. For one, you are not building poor (kind of like house poor, but worse). A church building and its mortgage can easily hijack a budget. Considering the facility sits empty most of the week, dedicating significant money toward a building mortgage reduces our budget flexibility—all for a space used once or twice a week.
In tandem, portable facilities allow a church to be more nimble. If you outgrow a building, you are stuck, unless you happen to have expansion spaces and capital (who doesn’t have that, right?). If you decide to change directions, a portable context allows for a speedier change. If you grow, you can negotiate more space. If you decline, you aren’t stuck with a half-full building and full mortgage.
