How was your church built? Was there loan money from a main office of your religion?
Who owns the property the church stands on? How does your church get paid for? Do the churches get loans from banks? Who builds the churches?
Please all Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t answer this. I have posted a question just for your religion previous to this you can find with this link:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ape4EqGzymMv0pqkWNvPsGfsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20080531060824AAQlyuy
This is for all the other religions.
I have also been calling different churches in this area and talking with the treasury depts. They are very helpful and informative and glad to answer my questions.
Some of the churches have volunteers to help with building or remodeling old buildings. They do contracting with professional builders also. The churches take out loans if needed from banks. All of them have building funds within the church to donate to. None so far have a main office that they get loans from so there haven’t been interest paid to a main office of their religion. Some have pledges like there was mention in some answers here. Not all. Nobody is fully committed to paying a pledge like a personal bill. If they can’t pay, they aren’t going to be sued for the money.
I’m looking forward to more answers here. And thank you for your answers as they are most helpful and informative.
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20 comments
JOYfilled on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Dear Serena,
My church (people, not a building) does not have a church building. We rent a room from the YMCA on Sunday mornings for $100 per Sunday + $100 per month for the children’s play room.
My pastor is very interested in preaching the Bible but not in the least bit interested in having a building fund. I started attending this non-denominational church 3 years ago on Mother’s Day and haven’t had any desire to go elsewhere since then.
For Wednesday night Bible study we meet at Panerra Bread and weekly Sunday night fellowship dinners rotate at member’s homes.
Edit:
I forgot to mention that my church has no loans to pay interest on. We take donations but do NOT pass an offering plate. Half of the excess above and beyond monthly expenses goes into our Mercy fund which is used for helping those in need.
For His glory,
JOYfilled
overweight doomsayer on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
The parishioners money,donations and such…..
Helen on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
We sold our old church building and property and pledged the rest of the money and took a loan from the bank.
Yes, churches get loans from the bank. Builders build the churches
Lady Astarte on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I have found a way to connect with the higher power without going to a special building to do it. God is everywhere…it is amazing news! So I suppose my church would be my home, my car, my backyard, my workplace….
Hope on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I attend a non-denominational church so we didn’t have a "main office" to have a loan from. What we did was started a building fund where people make a pledge (whether it be 5$ a month or 500$ a month) in faith that God would provide the money. The money in this building fund was saved up to build our church. We still have about 800,000 left on our mortgage, but the building fund contributions are still active and being brought in monthly, so gradually we’re paying it off.
Truth 6 Cult Cultist on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
We pay for it w/ tithe. It’s a old recreational center. We are saving to build a new church on the ranch and selling the other one. It’s a cowboy church.
GOD BLESS
Fireball226 on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
It was handled locally..
The ninja that knows stuff...... on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
our church bought the land actually.
funny enough it used to be a bar but now its a chruch.
to pay off, we collectd money from other churches
we have PYFA it’s like a union for Pentecostals united.
the whole pyfa organized money. and we get money from the gov
† King of Kings † SFCU on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
We prayed for two years before money was donated.
Searcher on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
In the churches I have been in, the first step is that the congregation makes a decision to build a facility. Sometimes it’s to renovate an older facility and bring it up to code and add an addition. Other times, because of various issues like a building is now too small to hold everyone, or property damage, a congregation will build a new facility.
After a lot of prayer and planning, the congregation typically will have what can be called a "pledge drive" where the people who attend pledge so much a month towards the down payment. The church will either apply for a bank loan and on faith, agree to pay so much a month.
The other alternative is that a congregation will pay as they go. They raise money for one section of the project (such as purchasing the land and the blueprints) and then when they raise more money, they will proceed with the next step.
A third option is a combination of the 2. The church will arrange a loan for part of the money needed, and when they pay off that loan, they borrow the next phase, and so on.
As far as who builds the buildings, sometimes it’s the church membership that does that actual work, other times they hire people or a construction firm to handle the building or a combination of both.
robbob on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
It depends on the religion and the denomination.
For mainstream Christian denominations, money for church buildings has to be processed through the relevant level of administration within the church. Most (if not all) mainstream churches will have a finance and property division where money is dispersed (or where expertise is provided if a loan is needed) according to the needs of the local congregation.
Usually, the regional level of the church provides permission and funding for new church buildings, and the local congregation pays back the regional church through collections and other income.
For example, (I suspect that) for Catholics, the diocese authorises financial decisions for new property to support the local parish (lower level).
For evangalical churhes, financial matters tend to be the responsibility of each congregation, so, often, a congregation will take out a loan from a bank and individual members of the church are directly responsible for repaying the loan.
Most times, mainstream churches will have formal regulations/protocols/contacts/info for financial matters that can be downloaded off their website.
e.g. http://www.adelaide.anglican.com.au/resourcesforparishes14.htm
I don’t know how it works for other religions though. I would imagine it would work roughly the same way.
jimi on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I don’t belong to a church so I have nothing in the way of giving.
Lilith D on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
My father built the church in my neighborhood with donations from future parishioners. There was no church in our area at the time. Some of the people helped my Dad, but he did 80% of it. It is a nondenominational church.
Hayley J on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
We just built a new church building – we’ve been in it for one year now.
How it was paid for – I don’t think the main office of my synod (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America aka the ELCA) paid for any of it but I’m not sure. Ever since we orginally bought the property a decade ago, we’ve had a capital campaign every year to help fund it. Some of the money came from the congregation – particularly the traditional Lutheran members who were raised to think giving money to the church is the honorable thing to do. We also got a chunk of money when we sold our old church building. Then we took a loan out from a bank.
The property our new building stands own is owned by our church – I don’t think it is owned by the synod – just our church. We hired some builders to build it and many members of the church came forward to help contribute – one man’s son is a carpenter, and he built the baptismal font, the altar, the pulpit, the bell tables (for the bell choir), the kneeler and other things. One member works with a flooring company and was able to get us flooring for a discount price. It was a group effort.
Peace!
worker4IAM <'>< on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
The Building I attend took out a loan from a bank.
There were several Contractors who donated their time to build.
There had to be some paid contractors for Electric and plumbing.
The Church itself owns the Property and building.
Some kind of indefinite trust was set up.
RescuedByTheLamb on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I can only speak for the church I attend and the sister churches that are off shoots from us.
Our church and the off shoots were all built by members’ donations and the same for the property they sit on. It would not be honoring to God to have His people in debt. People prayed and God answered their prayers for the funds. The men in our church did the majority of the building. When finished, no debt!
Our pastor and the board are excellent planners and we are working on a five year plan to do the necessary repairs and remodeling for our 100th anniversary. So far everything is working according to plan … praise God for godly men who oversee our church building and the saints in it.
niente on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
The members of the church own the church….however, if there should be a break up…….then our organization gets the church.
We started 40 years ago.
Rented a room downstairs in our local library.
Then rented an apartment where we held services 2 X week.
Saved enough money to buy one 3-family house and a 2 2-family houses and a single family house one next to the other. Knocked one house down and build a church……took out a loan…. and paid it with income from the 5 apartments we had. Three years ago we needed a bigger church…….we knocked down the old church and one of the 2-family houses and built another church…..we took a loan out with the local bank for over a million dollars.
We sent out letter to local business….did not get any help.
We fasted and prayed…..the Lord sent new people in the church and we are doing fine with God’s help.
There are contractors that build only churches.
We pay the loan from the offerings we get each week.
No……we do not get any help from the main office.
We need to send them 10% of our received offering every month.
THEAmericanPatriot on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Our church, originally built in 1963 out grew itself. In 1995 we started selling bonds…not just to members/attendees of the church, but to outside people as well. We added a new sanctuary, 1st & 2nd floor classrooms, etc. It is almost paid for since being completed in 1997. We have a building drive (Together We Build) getting ready to start an external ‘family life center’ once the present mortgage is paid. This money is coming from mostly pledges. This is all with out help from the Southern Baptist Convention.
The bond company couldn’t keep up printing the bonds we were selling them so quickly.
Rebuke "HE" for Jesus on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I go to an older church that has been paid for for quite some time now.
When it was first built it was built with a loan and mortgage from a local bank.
I am sure that the congregation owns the deed to it. I expect that it is similar to a corporation deed although it is not a corporation.
It is a little Baptist church. What I am sure of is that some larger Baptist organization did not loan the money for the church and does not keep the title to the property. it belongs to the congregation.
Buck on March 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I can give you some terrible stories on how not to do it.
In one case a church I was a member of decided God wanted them to relocate. I felt this was correct and the way things progressed it was clear that we were following what God wanted. But then when it came to the financing "man" took over from God. In the early stages a program to finance was undertaken that called on ever member to make pledges on what they would give above normal giving toward the construction of the new building. They enlisted teams to go to members homes to discuss this. The error was that this was the first time that many members ever got a visit from anyone in the church. Some were furious because they felt visits should have been made all along not just when they wanted some money from them. Then there was a big delay wait to get a preacher (they had an interim during the beginning) because the group of retired builders they wanted would not even put them on their list unless they had standing pastor. They wanted to use this group because they were free labor. I told the church,"God will provide the funds. We must be doing this on faith. He told us to build not a preacher." (Don’t miss understand here. I am all for saving when you can and getting the most from God’s funds. But I felt He was blessing this because we were responding in His timing. I also said,"It would not matter if we make huge errors in the funding if it takes twice the money He will provide it if we do it in His timing. If we don’t it will cost much more." Mostly this fell on deaf ears. Well I ended up leaving this church soon after. I saw a little latter that some one had placed a small sign on the property that read "look what God is doing" right next to it was a huge sign "FUNDED BY AUSTIN BANK". I wondered why did God need a bank to get His work done. The truth is He does not. They ended up getting their pastor (2years later) and they put on the builders list (another 2 years). But this was too long so they did not use the retired builders after all. Guess how much labor and materials had gone up in 4 years? And they had so many problems. The building cost way more then they ever thought possible.
They forgot one thing. All things are possible with God. They thought they were in control and knew the best way. I guess they got their answer.