By John H. Wright Jr., MAI, and Martin H. Aaron, MAI, SRA The role that religion plays in the midst of this pandemic is a philosophical matter. However, the role that religious facilities play is a decidedly practical matter — particularly for church mortgage lenders. Before the pandemic, 36% of Americans attended religious services weekly, […]
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released Commercial Buildings and Onsite Renewable Energy, a 15-page report summarizing data on the self-reported use of onsite renewable energy among a subset of U.S. commercial buildings. The information, including comparisons by building type, location and energy generated comes from the EPA’s ENERGY STAR® program, whose ENERGY STAR […]
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By Brittany Kuhn Worship facilities design and construction is going through a renaissance of sorts. In recent years, there’s been a growing yet prominent trend toward increasingly versatile spaces. Traditional single-worship venues are being transformed into (or sometimes replaced by) modern community hubs that present clean lines, promote larger gathering spaces and offer appealing multifunctional […]
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(above) Trinity Western University in Canada By Bill Strom, PhD, Seven weeks after the World Health Organization’s announcement that COVID-19 was a pandemic, I was fortunate to gather information from 781 people living in varying degrees of social isolation, in an effort to discover who is most at risk as the pandemic continues, and how […]
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Defining each one can help your church make a greater impact By Matt VanGent I learned to drive before smartphones with GPS were commonplace. If I wanted to go somewhere new, I needed to do a little homework first. Do you remember the routine? Find the address, look it up on a map (or later, […]
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One large Texas church proves the best church building outcomes are all of the above By RaeAnn Slaybaugh Having undergone a few previous building projects, Senior Pastor Dr. Jimmy Pritchard and his team knew exactly what (and who) they were looking for: the right partners. From the architect, to the A/V/L systems integrator, to the […]
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3 experts discuss lessons (already) learned during the coronavirus pandemic, and where we’re likely headed from here What were some key tenets of the church giving landscape prior to the coronavirus pandemic? How has it shifted since then? Aaron Dolton: Prior to the pandemic, churches already knew that online and mobile giving was vital to […]
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Many church leaders are facing a unique challenge in this new decade: how do you maintain giving when a global pandemic has church attendance at an all-time low? Because we live in the digital age, however, church members have access to more giving options than ever before. Technology — like automated clearing house [ACH] payments […]
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By Rodney C. James If you’ve ever lived and led through a renovation, expansion or building project in your church, you know how painful the process can be. But what if we viewed every project as a mission field opportunity? We all know building projects are noisy and inconvenient. There are piles of supplies everywhere […]
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By Kip Meadows Most churches are set up well to handle the day-to-day business aspects of their operations. Otherwise, the doors could not open and welcome the congregants. It is the rare individual congregation, however, who’s well-equipped to handle long-term funds, either endowment gifts or retirement accounts, for personnel or other longer-term capital accounts. Even […]
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