It’s exciting to watch your congregation grow! However, a rapid increase in church attendance poses a unique problem—a lack of space.
If your current facilities are no longer accommodating your congregation comfortably, you’ve probably considered either adding another church service or expanding your church facilities. Before you take action, it’s important to explore the benefits and disadvantages of each option to make the best choice for your ministry.
To help you discover which decision suits your congregation, here’s a detailed pros and cons list for each option.
Pros of Adding an Extra Service
Offering more meeting times comes with its fair share of advantages. Here are a few:
Maximizes Your Existing Space
When your worship space begins to reach capacity during your weekly service time, you can be confident that your children’s ministry spaces, parking lot, café, and other gathering spaces are full, too.
When you add another service, you maximize the space that already exists in your church. You can essentially double your seating, parking spaces, nursery capacity, and more with minimal effort.
Saves Money
One of the most significant benefits of adding an extra service is the money you’ll save on construction costs. If you’re currently on a tight budget or focusing your funds in other areas, adding a second or third service is likely the best decision.
If you’re interested in expanding or renovating your church in the future, but you need more time to fundraise, holding additional services can also serve as a temporary solution until you can afford expansion.
Offers Variety
Sometimes, adding an extra church service allows you to add a fresh feel to your services.
Perhaps you’d like to have an adult service earlier in the morning and a kid-friendly meeting later in the day. Maybe you’d like to offer an early morning service and an evening service. Or perhaps you’d like to provide a service with traditional music, like hymns, and a service with contemporary music.
Regardless of your preferences, additional services allow you to offer different styles of worship, which may attract newcomers to your congregation.
Cons of Adding an Extra Service
When you add a new church service, you may experience the following frustrations.
Fatigues Staff
Even though hosting a new church service is exciting, it’s a considerable amount of added work for the church employees.
Your staff will need to be available for the extra hours of each additional service and the weekly planning and preparation time involved. And depending on how your employees are paid, you may need to increase the budget for salaries.
Before you decide to add another service, have an open discussion with your team to avoid fatigue or burnout.
Hinders Community
Even though adding an extra service may solve a logistical problem, it can strain relationships within the church. Since all the members of your congregation won’t see each other weekly, there may be a minimized sense of community and unity.
Pros of Adding a New Facility
There are tons of advantages to expanding your church building. Here are just a few:
Increases Your Ministry Capacity
When you add more space to your church, you automatically expand your capacity for ministry.
Perhaps you’ll be able to reach more children with a brand-new youth space. Maybe you’ll be able to host more community events in a large, multipurpose room. Or, you’ll be able to foster community with a large fellowship area and coffee shop.
Even if you’re simply expanding your sanctuary and adding new lighting, audio, and visual elements, you’ll increase the number of people you can reach.
Improves Safety
Unfortunately, adding an extra service can’t overcome safety obstacles. If your campus is overcrowded, outdated, or dangerous, it’s time to consider church renovation.
If capacity is your only safety issue, then adding an extra service may provide a temporary solution. However, when the service becomes full, you’ll be back where you started. Church remodeling and expansion is the best long-term solution to update your campus and solve your capacity issues.
Maintains Community
As we mentioned earlier, adding an extra service can impact the tight-knit church community you’ve worked so hard to form.
However, when you expand your church facilities to accommodate one weekly worship service, you can celebrate as an entire community under one roof!
Attracts Newcomers
New construction is always eye-catching and exciting. If you invest in renovating your church facilities, the neighborhood and community are likely to notice, which helps attract new people to your church.
Renovations can also help bring people back to your church who haven’t visited in a while. For example, perhaps a family stopped coming because they had a baby, and your church didn’t have adequate nursery space. Or maybe another family started attending a new church with improved visual elements for an elderly grandparent with poor eyesight.
When you add helpful new features to your church in addition to extra space, you’re likely to attract many prior members of your congregation back.
Cons of Adding a New Facility
There aren’t many disadvantages to adding new space to your worship facility. However, there is one crucial factor to consider.
Costs Money
Construction can be expensive, which is why you may be hesitant to invest in church expansion.
However, if you’re confident that it’s time to update your worship facility, there are plenty of financing options available. If you need help with budgeting and fundraising for your church construction project, our team is happy to help!
Partner with Churches by Daniels to Expand Your Ministry
If you’re ready to expand your church facilities to accommodate your growing ministry, our team at Churches by Daniels would love to hear from you.
Since 1980, we’ve helped pastors all over the country fulfill their ministry vision by building beautiful, functional church facilities. As your partner in ministry, we’re committed to doing what it takes to watch your church thrive.Contact our knowledgeable, friendly team to schedule a consultation!
