CHURCHES Face FORECLOSURE - What Meaneth This?

sermonindex Mar 21, 2012

MORE CHURCHES face FORECLOSURE
-by Electa Draper, The Denver Post.

A congregation losing its house of worship, once a rare event, is
now common in Colorado — part of a national trend of record
foreclosures on churches.

The real-estate information company CoStar Group looked at five
years of distressed church sales and found only a handful of
foreclosures nationwide prior to 2008, when the number jumped to
24. In 2009, the figure was 67.

CoStar Group spokeswoman Angela Brown said the market saw
a big spike in 2010 with 135 churches sold after a lender-initiated
foreclosure. In 2011, there were 138 such sales.

The states with the highest percentages of forced church sales
often were those with some of the worst home-foreclosure rates,
including California, Florida and Michigan.

In Colorado, church real-estate specialist Todd Whittaker, president
of Service Realty Inc. in Denver, says church foreclosures occur
with some regularity now... Other congregations are trying to sell
their buildings before it comes to that.

"We're pretty active, but it's because churches are struggling,"
Whittaker said. "Their offerings are way down. Churches need to
sell. We have 10 church listings in the Denver area, when normally
we have seven or eight, and they are moving slowly. Banks are
nervous about lending to churches right now... I don't see an end
to this any time soon."

sermonindex Mar 21, 2012

plenty of living rooms, old storefronts and forest glades, be encouraged.

sermonindex Mar 21, 2012

...."plenty of living rooms, old storefronts and forest glades, be encouraged."..Hezwelling

This fits in with the current thread about house churches....but more-so on the profit driven success idea about what the church is supposed to be and do.

So, the idea of taking the Gospel to the unreached, or laying your life down for Jesus any any variety of ways, is replaced by a bigger success, and the more people, and the bigger the building, the more Blessed everyone is.

Then the house church buys some land....and builds a church BUILDING...then a larger one and a larger one and a larger one...until the gears roll out a huge overhead, and Mortgages, and salaries, while the vision to the world and of His Christ is buried deep beneath the foundation of the New indoor Basketball court [ also used for volley-ball ], and forgotten while lounging in those silky padded seats arranged Colosseum style in our brand new SANCTUARY..[ "hey..did you see the new smoke machine behind the Drum booth?...It is cool...and it reminds me of god speaking...Wow"

Meaning: we become inbred so easy, and it becomes all about our success, and our comfort....and losing Jesus in the process is much easier, and much less painful.

Could it be that this is just God's way to say.....Keep you eyes on Jesus...and His simple no nonsense Gospel...and learn to fear Him, and love Him...and you won't be entangled in the world...even if your church is.

The economy crashed, and took the money driven gospels down with her. Here is a vision I had about it. 2003

http://brideinthewilderness.blogspot.com/2012/03/end-of-american-dream.html#comment-form

H

hulsey Mar 21, 2012

A lot of churches are paying the price for the prosperity in the 90's and the philosophy of 'if you build it bigger they will come'.

sermonindex Mar 21, 2012

"A lot of churches are paying the price for the prosperity in the 90's and the philosophy of 'if you build it bigger they will come."..Hulsey

Amen Hulsey: I had forgotten about the "SEEKER FRIENDLY" movement, along with "SERVAVT EVANGELISM"..tied into the Prosperity Gospel..[ which has seeped into every mainline Church..].....all centered around attracting and entertaining CROWDS!.....and growth.

People came to be blessed...preachers became entertainers...the music became world class......I went to a AOG church 5 years ago or so...and the preacher had a 80 inch Flat-screen behind him, with a movie...skillfully done...that directly and in real time visualized his sermon...complete with bible verses, action people and nature scenes as he spoke....he had a mouse-clicker in his hand..and read a script that indicated the next scene.

You buy the sermons and the whole kit...and is it slick. "Anybody know where Jesus went?'

Once, in a mega-church in the 90's, I went to a meeting that was billed for the youth..all ages . They began with teenage rock-style music...rockin'out heavy metal style...and then...... they brought in the dancers....tight nubile young ladies wearing skin-tight leotards doing some Greek swan song thing....I am a normal man...but this was sensual...I'll leave it at that....real carnal.

Then....the real entertainment began...the skateboarders and roller derby and mini-bike masters....and a huge 25 foot slide where about 10 or so riders performed their circus acts.......really....and then the service ended...with much applause of course.....

The Lord gave me a vision of this kind of thing several years ago...... http://brideinthewilderness.blogspot.com/2012/03/my-babies-in-dungeonjesus-weeps.html#comment-form

L

Lysa Mar 21, 2012

Brothertom wrote:
Then the house church buys some land....and builds a church BUILDING...then a larger one and a larger one and a larger one...until the gears roll out a huge overhead, and Mortgages, and salaries,

This is true for those in it to make a profit (instead of a prophet), if you get my drift. I was saved in a church that was originally a house; they told the Lord they didn’t have a church and they Lord told them to have the tenets move, knock out the inside walls and have church there and we also had an outside toilet until 1981!! And in Dayton, Oh on Third St they had another house given to them and they knocked the walls out on that one too. And in Middleton Oh, they met in a basement.

They made do with what the Lord gave them. They NEVER sought to build anything new until the Lord said to and until then they saved so they could pay cash. Bro Herman, the pastor, said, “I’m not having a building fund and I’ve been a good steward of what the Lord has given us over the years so we are paying cash.” The building cost in 1981 $185,000.

To God be all the glory and I praise His name that He allowed me to be part of that ministry so that I could see the right way to do it and share it with others.

Meaning: we become inbred so easy, and it becomes all about our success, and our comfort....and losing Jesus in the process is much easier, and much less painful.

Bro Tom, this is so true. Our church never got any bigger because the Lord told the pastor and his wife starting out that they would be a helping station to heal the sick, deliver and set free those in captivity to the enemy and then they would return to their home churches. And that is exactly what happened.

AND some people will buck at this but God told them not to have a membership roll, that He would keep track of who “joined” them!!

Could it be that this is just God's way to say.....Keep you eyes on Jesus...and His simple no nonsense Gospel...and learn to fear Him, and love Him...and you won't be entangled in the world.

Yes, it can be that simple.

God bless,
Lisa

R

roadsign Mar 21, 2012

the philosophy of 'if you build it bigger they will come'.

Yes, there was the day when you could put up a church anywhere and people would come. But not so anymore.!

I see church closures with increasing frequency in Canada too - especially the mainline churches. Actually these are simply dying for lack of reproduction. I have attended some decommissioning services – in order to write a report for the newspaper. It’s an experience in itself.

You know, it’s not hard to stand far back and talk all about the judgment of God, idolatrous habits, and so forth. I have sensed clergy neglect over a long period of time – unfed people. And liberal theology has been a terrible killer!

But when I talk to these people and hear their stories they are not thinking about all that. They tell me how their grandparents donated the land, their relatives and community poured their lives into the church and congregation, their parents got baptized, married there, buried, etc. These buildings have shaped their identities for generations. I don’t think evangelicals can fully appreciate their sense of loss because evangelicalism is not as old.

What I find most tragic is that when parishioners express to me their loss of identity, they seem to have no awareness of a wonderful identity they could have in Jesus Christ – who can never be lost to them.

P

pilgrim777 Mar 22, 2012

What I find most tragic is that when parishioners express to me their loss of identity, they seem to have no awareness of a wonderful identity they could have in Jesus Christ – who can never be lost to them.

I think that is what God will be doing. Helping people find their real identity in Him. He will use the coming adversity to show people where their real identity is.

Fortunately, there will never be foreclosure on the true House of God.

Pilgrim

O

onemite Mar 22, 2012

Praise God who brings all things together for the good of those who love him and called according to his purposes! He will use this to purge out everything that man has built- every vision, every idea, everything. We are not simply talking about buildings here.

sermonindex Mar 24, 2012

"plenty of living rooms, old storefronts and forest glades, be encouraged."

Amen Neil. Real cheap store fronts to rent in the hood too and many gang infested parks that could use a weekly meeting if you feel courage in the Holy Spirit to invade their turf..

J

jimp Mar 24, 2012

hi, people that think that churches are money pits do not understand that most churches are two weeks from bankruptsy. we had a storm in la. after katrina and the electric co. had a hard time getting things started up quickly and our home church had to give offerings to a number of local bodies to keep them going.we are not an organization but an organism that is alive in Christ.jimp

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roadsign Mar 24, 2012

most churches are two weeks from bankruptcy

So long as the money exists “eternally” there is no sense of this fragile finitude. It’s also worth noting that a vibrant spirit-filled church assembly is no more than one generation away from spiritual bankruptcy - regardless of its bank account or worship habits. Churches with money can survive for generations without seeing this - until the members are all dying off.

Diane

K

KingJimmy Mar 24, 2012

Why should we be surprised that churches are going through foreclosure? Many of her own members are with their personal homes. The way many churches have handled their finances corporately are no different than how many are handling it individually. Be careful to avoid being a cynic. Many of you who have a mortgage are just a couple pay checks away from foreclosure yourselves.

Many churches may have built massive sanctuaries with a "build it and they will come" mentality. But many of you built big and bought a larger house than you could reasonably afford as well. And you did it for equally as carnal reasons. Which is why many of you took out a 30 year mortgage in order to finance your dream home. If you had to take a 30 year mortgage out in order to afford a home, let's be real, you bought too much home, and should have settled for something less.

And I don't say this in any way to be mean. I'm just trying to bring us back to reality. I say it with the perspective of somebody who works for one of the largest banks in the nation, crunching the finances of people who are facing foreclosure, if somehow I might help them save their homes.

And as a side note, it is interesting to see how the church I go to has done since the economic downturn. Our numbers are up across the board. Not only is the Lord adding to our church, but giving is up, and we have recently launched a second campus about 20 miles away. We initially took a loan out for $500,000 to finance it initially. The saints were so generous in their giving that we paid for it in less than a month (or annual intake is only 4 million dollars by the way). We have it as our goal now to pay down all of our church debt within 2 years, so we can dedicate all of that extra money to world missions. Oh yeah... we also scraped together an additional 50 grand to fund a massive church planting effort in a third world country in the past month too.

It's amazing to see how God gives the increase, and that the oil never runs out.