Reply #83: I suspect that those "instant" churches growing up in the burbs [View All]

[Lydia Leftcoast]

are funded under the table by right-wing foundations.

Having grown up as a preacher's kid, I have some knowledge about how mainstream churches organize new congregations in outlying areas. They start small, as in meeting in a rented storefront or even, in one case I know of personally, in the minister's living room. When they have enough people, they build or buy a small building. The growth of the congregation comes first in the sequence of events. If the congregation stays small, they stay in a small building.

When I was a teenager, the parish my father served built a new building, but that was only because we were having four services every Sunday and still had to set up extra chairs. Our old building was purchased by another church whose building had been destroyed by a tornado. They're still in it, forty years later.

It is unheard of for a mainstream church to start with a huge auditorium and acres of parking lots. If they're that big, it's because they've been attracting people and need the space.