Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.
by Nick Bonner
This white paper is an attempt to build on my two previous white papers regarding solutions for the church that are specific to real estate. All three are directed at reimaging the future of the Church in the US during this pivotal moment, which researchers have described as “the greatest opportunity for evangelism and discipleship in US history.”
The average church in a US city spends half of its finances on a building it only fully utilizes 5% of the week. We need to significantly reduce church infrastructure costs and streamline their efficiencies to meet this challenge. In my spare time, I have spent the last four years researching, ideating, and building a real estate model that will be a catalytic positive disruption for the church. The five areas below are the hurdles I have personally found inhibiting that change. They are significant but surmountable, which reminds me of a Confucius quote that my grandfather used to motivate his successful real estate career: “He who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Perhaps this paper will serve as one small stone.
Lenders Need a New Box
With 80% of churches in plateau or decline even before COVID and >60% of church revenues anticipated to go away, church lenders are going to need to adapt if they want to have clients to loan to.,, The vast majority of church lenders are chartered to only loan to nonprofits, and/or they can only lend to a church directly. They are going to need to pivot to be able to lend to for-profits and mixed-use developments that are not owned by a church. I have spoken with the top leaders at many of the largest church lending institutions in the country, and they all agree. Thankfully, a number of them are working on a solution, but it will take time. Most traditional commercial real estate lenders don’t understand the strength of the diversity of a church revenue stream, and as a result, they won’t lend to churches. They, too, could benefit from adapting to this new paradigm. There are a handful of denominations and foundations that have funds to help with this, but sadly, the denominations are limited to only work with their own churches. Like the counter parts, their lending criterion is also stuck with the nonprofit-only model. The unfortunate result of these existing approaches is that developers looking to come alongside the church to help create sustainable solutions with diversified income streams are seen as “neither fish nor fowl.” They fall outside of the box of the vast majority of lenders. Lending to mixed-use sustainable developments that include churches along with a variety of other synergistic income streams will help lenders diversify their portfolios and will open the door to an entirely new field of lending.
We Need More Operators
We can’t expect pastors to do everything. As with every organization, we need to get the right people in the right roles. We need savvy businesspeople with proven operational track records to come alongside the church and innovate new models—real estate syndicators, developers, asset managers, property managers, preschool owners, coworking operators, coffee shops, gyms, etc. Although more consultants in this space would be helpful, the largest deficit I have seen is in the category of “doers.” The Leonardo de Vinci quote comes to mind: “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
We Need More Investors Who Know Who They are in Christ, Have an Eternal Perspective, and Are Willing to Take Calculated Risks
I have volunteered with a Christian foundation and led our impact investments for nearly a decade. During that time, I have been inspired by the conversation around impact investing and concessionary impact investing. This past year, I went behind the scenes to understand the faith driven entrepreneurs’ perspective, and what I discovered is that there are a lot more people that like to talk about concessionary impact investing than those who are actually willing to do it. I’ve sat in the trenches with dozens of God-inspired, faith-driven entrepreneurs putting their careers on the line, and it is heart wrenching to see no one there to catch them when they take their leap. What our collective experience indicates is that the impact investments that investors are willing to make are most often either traditional investments with a Christian label on them or a software start-up with a very high multiple. Very few Christian investors are willing to innovate outside of the software space. For as far as we have come from the two-pocket, houseboat, dualistic mentality, we have a very long way to go. To address this problem, Tim Keller’s talk at last year’s FDI conference could not have been more on-point. It is a heart issue that, at its core, is about where we place our identity. Two quotes struck me in my own heart: “If your success or your money is your identity then you will not be generous” (this applies to both time and money by the way), and “Identity is received, not achieved.”
The predominant precedent for philanthropy is:
1. Make all the money you can; make a name for yourself, and only once you reach your personal level of comfort and security, then
2. Give out of your abundance.
Where is the faith in that? How is that any different than how an atheist lives? Can this really even be defined as generosity? God has called us to help those alongside us while we are running the race, not after we have crossed the finish line and circle back for a victory lap in our own glory.
But wait, how do we keep score or know if we are winning if it is not entirely about the numbers? Studying the difference between outputs and outcomes could help answer that, but it also begs the question: “If keeping score is really what it is about, then why should we even consider disadvantaging ourselves to help others at all?” We need to come to a place in our search for significance where we can honestly be at peace with Count Nikolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf’s advice, “Preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten.” As Christians, our success is defined in a “Who” and not a “What.”
As soon as most investors hear the word “church” with regard to an investment conversation, they often have an aversion, for a variety of reasons often very personal to the investor. The Church—and its influence on us all—is deeply personal, and no other business concept on the planet could conjure up such a cocktail of emotional, philosophical, theological, ecumenical, and economical conversation. It could have been a well-meaning but poorly thought out “church parking lot deal,” as Henry Kaestner often refers to, or it could be that they have some personal gripe with God or the organized church they need to sort out. Either way, it needs to change. Worldwide, Christians hold $150 trillion in assets that needs to be stewarded better, of which $80-$100 trillion is investible.,
Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying here. Concessionary and/or innovative impact investments do not make you a Christian. The Gospel is clear that salvation is Jesus + nothing. What I am saying is, as Christians, we are already justified in God’s eyes, so we ought to be the most risk-inclined people on the planet! We need not concern ourselves with impressing anyone else. Let us also not forget that there is the opportunity of eternal rewards at the Bema Seat before which we will one day stand. Scripture speaks clearly to this in Rom 14:10-12, 2 Cor 5:10, 1 Cor 9:4-27, 2 Tim 2:5, 2 Tim 4:8, James 1:12, 1 Peter 5:4, 1 Peter 1:17, and Heb 4:1. Put differently, as Christians, we have nothing to lose and eternity to gain. If we think of the <60 years we will spend investing in temporal things on this earth in light of eternity, it should give us a whole new perspective and motivation. C.S. Lewis observed that, “If you read through history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”
Leadership over Comfort
Often, the people most gifted and able to affect change in the areas above are the ones most aloof. Many Christians have elected to focus their time and attention on the counterfeit inheritance of the privilege they have received instead of our true inheritance from the Gospel. In so doing, they have traded their Gospel freedom for a license to do whatever they want with the life and resources God has entrusted them. Many go unchecked because those around them or under their authority don’t feel the freedom to push back out of fear of losing a relationship or a job. Navigating the extensive vacation and entertainment schedules of the Christian elite is one thing, but the premium placed on doing things the way they have always been done simply because that is the way they have always been done is quite another. The way forward is not denial.
Eliminate Apathy Toward the Institution of the Church
The way forward is not throwing the baby out with the bathwater either. Apathy towards the US church is a very serious problem. In my previous papers, I addressed how church plants are, by far, the most effective method for reaching the unchurched, so for the purpose of this white paper, I will focus on the overall Church as an institution. However, because the “Why church planting?” question comes up so often, I will simply add that Tim Keller, widely recognized as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of our time, willingly chose to leave his highly influential role at Redeemer to launch the church-planting organization City to City because he knew that church planting was the most effective method for reaching the lost. There is no doubt a very real spiritual war waging here, but it is also an issue of a lack of education historically, theologically, and statistically.
Historically
Recently, I have heard a number of people in their excitement over Disciple Making Movements (DDMs) completely abandon what is often referred to as the “institutional” or “organized church.” This is nearly always from a businessperson who is frustrated by the lack of efficiency of our church institutions. I, too, am a big fan of DMMs but not at the expense of abandoning the institutional church. Those that do so lack a historical understanding of the longevity of movements and the necessity of organization. Hugh Heclo writes, “To live in a culture that turns it back on institutions is equivalent to trying to live in physical body without a skeleton or hoping to use a language but not its grammar.” Tim Keller shares in support of the organized church when he writes, “Institutions bring order to life and establish many of the conditions for human flourishing and civilized society.” He articulates the importance of both institutions and movements well when he says, “Movements have to institutionalize if they are going to have a lasting impact, and institutions have to ‘movementize’ or else they wither and die.” Similarly, James Davison Hunter argues powerfully that if Christians are truly going to change the world, it is not rugged individualism that changes culture but institutions.
Theologically
The organized or institutional church matters theologically as well. One-to-one discipleship is irreplaceable but on its own is insufficient. The Church i.e.. “ekklesia” by definition is a “gathering,” and Hebrews 10:25 tells us to “not give up meeting together.” Scripture does not give us any guidelines regarding the proper gathering size or location, but it does give us basic instructions for its leadership and discipline, even for house churches. For instance, in 1 Timothy 3:2-13 and Titus 1:5, Paul commands the believers to establish a plurality of elders and deacons to oversee the flock and prevent them from false doctrine. Then in 1 Peter 5:5, Peter commands the believers to be “subject to their elders.” Did you know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult began in a Christian house church? Even in the Old Testament, God instituted a whole people group, the Levites, so that there would be an organized group with the onus of keeping Scripture and faith paramount.
There are also numerous Scriptural examples of the Church being organized on a Local, District, and Universal level. For example: the books of Ephesians, Galatians, and Colossians are all known as “circular letters.” This is because they were not addressed to any one single church congregation. They were sent throughout each respective district to keep the house churches from going off the rails. Similarly, Revelation 1:4 addresses “the seven churches of Asia” (another district). In Acts 20:17, Paul summons the elders of the district church for a meeting in Miletus. Early believers came together for larger corporate meetings (Acts 2:44) as well. The list goes on, but throughout Scripture, there is always an organized church with leadership and rules, even in house churches.
Statistically
I often get pushback from people that the church in the US is a lost cause and that we should invest our resources elsewhere. For this reason, it is important to understand how high the stakes really are. The US is by far the biggest exporter of missionaries, money, and trained seminary students in the world. It is responsible for sending 32% of all missionaries in the world and hosting 50% of evangelical seminaries and Bible colleges in the world; and it is the most generous nation on planet earth.,, In 2020, it gave $131 billion dollars to religious organizations and $28 billion to international charities., So what happens to the international church if its powerhouse continues its downward trend?
According to research from Pew, almost 40% of Americans believe that religious institutions “make little to no contribution [to solving social problems], moreover 62% of the unaffiliated do not believe that houses of worship contribute to solving important social challenges.”
On the contrary, the American church contributes substantially—much more than you might guess from scanning the news. We just need to do a better job of telling the story. Religion (which includes churches, synagogues, and mosques) contributes about $1.2 trillion of socioeconomic value annually to the US economy. That is equivalent to being the world’s 15th-largest national economy, outpacing nearly 180 other countries and territories. It’s more than the global annual revenues of the world’s top 10 tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, and Google. And that is just the mid-range estimate. The upper-end estimate, which attempts to account for the personal and social dynamics that influence people of faith is $4.8 trillion, which is nearly a third of the US GDP!
“There is a solid body of research that has explored the social contributions of religion, which range from increasing civic participation to ministering to spiritual, physical, emotional, economic and other life needs.” This includes everything from social benefits to communities, education and civic engagement, decreasing crime and deviance, promoting mental health, improved government stability and economic growth, health and welfare, etc. Specific to mental health, the social benefits of houses of worship are associated with better coping skills, increased life expectancy, stress reduction, and better self-reported health. According to Harvard scholar Robert Putnam, congregations are storehouses of reciprocity that yield social capital. In “Bowling Alone,” Putnam posited, “Faith communities in which people worship together are arguably the single most important repository of social capital in America. . . . As a rough rule of thumb, our evidence shows, nearly half of all associational memberships in America are church related, half of all personal philanthropy is religious in character and half of all volunteering occurs in a religious context.” A variety of researchers agree that the major reason for the higher levels of volunteering among religious people is the vibrant social systems and linkages that exist in congregations. Churches are unique communities that encourage volunteerism and others-focused outreach and introduce individuals to secular as well as religious opportunities to serve others. The Social Capital Project reported that, “Religious institutions that convene people under the banner of shared beliefs have powerful community-promoting advantages as compared with secular institutions. They provide a vehicle for like-minded people to associate, through regular attendance at religious services and other events and charitable activities they sponsor. Religious institutions are highly effective at enforcing commitment to shared principles and norms of behavior, passed down over generations.” They found that Church attendance and participation in prayer groups, rather than private spirituality or solitary practice, were “highly correlated” with community health, religious health, and civic engagement.
Byron R. Johnson of Baylor University has done extensive research in prison reform and found that although there was no correlation with conversions, prisoners that participated in weekly organized religious gatherings like Bible studies and church gatherings reduced their likelihood of recidivism by roughly 50%. Taken together, the research literature confirms that the effect of attendance is significant and unique. Either through the networks of support provided, the learning of self-control through the teaching of religious moral beliefs, or the condemning of illegal or inappropriate behavior, religious service attendance appears to be quite consequential.
Another Baylor University study of church-based care for homeless populations within 11 US cities found that almost 60% of emergency shelter beds were provided from faith-based organizations (this included churches, synagogues, and mosques), which saved taxpayers an estimated $119 million. Congregations provide 130,000 alcohol recovery programs and 120,000 programs to help the unemployed. One study determined that churchgoers are four times more likely to give to charity than those who are not. Another study found that shutting down a congregation in an inner city preceded and contributed to the social-economic collapse of the community in which the congregation was located.
Cardus, a Canadian think tank, wrote, “To the extent that liberal democracy, education, social equality, and improved physical health are good things, organized religion (yes, organized religion, not just an internal, personal, psychological state of communion and private conviction) has been a powerful generator of many of the things we wish to attain for ourselves and others around the world.
There are three organized institutions that are ordained by God: The home, government, and the church. It should be no wonder to us that all of these are under constant assault. Again, the spiritual warfare taking place here cannot be overlooked. Does a lot about our current model need to be changed? Absolutely! However, we still need organized congregations that gather in some capacity. The church has issues; let’s solve them!
In Conclusion
We serve a Creator who made 17,500 different species of butterflies and a God who gave us a very rudimentary structure for the institution of the Church. Clearly, there are many different expressions of how churches can operate, and therefore, we as businesspeople have lots of opportunity to come alongside the Church and co-create sustainable solutions for it. We need Lenders, Operators, Investors, and Leaders to take this seriously. The Church is Christ’s Bride and His sole plan for the redemption of humanity. We need to approach this topic with the caution that we would approach a king, the tenderness that we would address our own child, the creativity of an image bearer of the Creator, and a reverent fear of the almighty God whose ways and thoughts are higher than ours. In closing, the admonition of Edmund Burke seems fitting, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Let’s GO!
Technology has always had the potential of advancing human flourishing, or promoting wicked agendas. Technology’s effects depend crucially on the heart and capabilities behind the people wielding it. The rapid proliferation of web3 technologies – fungible tokens (“crypto”), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the metaverse – is no exception.
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