Photo: Edwin.11A regular reader named Eric M. Jones, from Southbridge, Mass., writes in with a question worth considering: what should be done with the growing inventory of churches that no longer can afford their facilities?
To be clear, I am basically atheist.
I live in a town with an overabundance of churches. Now the churches are broke and heating the things for services uses more money than the collections. At least two of the huge Catholic churches need millions in refurbishment and can’t possibly support themselves. The biggest, Notre Dame, is an amazing structure built with white marble blocks bought military surplus — the stones were to be used for headstones for people killed in the Spanish-American war. It is in the U.S. national Register of Historic Places.
Sacred Heart is hardly less significant. The German stained glass is priceless.
Recently people around the country have been rediscovering that Louis Comfort Tiffany made the church windows, and they are being sold to make other things (lampshades?).
BIG QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: How best to use the hollowed halls? This is a common problem, and there should be a number of good answers. Some European churches have turned into techno-dance-nightclubs. Probably wouldn’t work here.
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Turn them over to their neighborhoods and let them decide on any use for the building they like — only one condition: the property must go BACK ON THE TAX ROLLS
My favorite ex church http://www.restaurantgrace.com/ A beautiful place to have a drink or relaxing meal in Portland Maine.
There is also a former church that serves as a home for teen moms in Houlton, Maine.
Pray for guidance and inspiration on how to resolve this problem.
The LDS church was in a similar situation over a century ago and received inspiration to implement the law of tithing. Since then the church has been able to accommodate its rapid growth quite well.
Here’s one recent article on the subject: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/faith/115533374.html
I would love to buy an old church (at least one that looked like an imposing house of worship, not just a building that has been blessed) to turn into (1) my house, (2) a club, or (3) a business place.
How best to use them? Turn into war memorials with exhibits as to the horror and suffering their beliefs have caused? Auction off, give proceeds to local schools. Turn into soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Any of those ought to be a step in the right direction.
If god cannot get people to donate to their own church, with all the tax free breaks they get, then I do not see why we should subsidize them further.
Great ideas, Michael. I have always thought it was ridiculous for a country to have hundreds of thousands of churches, nearly always empty, while having hundreds of thousands of homeless people. What a rotten sense of priorities ! Sell them to those immensely prosperous mega-churches, who will then make their ‘conversions’ to homeless shelters & soup kitchens. None of this at tax-payer expense.
I remember hearing many times in my youth that the church is not the building, but the people within. Therefore I feel that once hallowed out, any use should be fair game for the structure. As someone already suggested, one of the best restaurants in our town resides in a former church building.
I once attended a church that was no more than a call center floor emptied of all cubical walls, desks, and other office trappings. Seems to me the reverse could work – certainly in the fellowship hall areas if not the sanctuary.
Some churches run day care centers during the week. I see no reason why that purpose couldn’t be continued. I supposed the joke here is, “turn them into bingo parlors.”
No, the joke here is “who the hell would bring their child (especially a boy) to a church-run day care center”?
Indeed. Also in the netherlands churches are converted into buildings for other purposes. Arnhem(one bridge to far) has one converted to a musichall(eusebius church) and another one into an apartmentbuilding. http://Www.koelekerk.nl. possibly a nice example of cradle2cradle.
Take a look at One Church 100 Uses http://bit.ly/igNO5N