BCD Special Report on
Historic Churches
17th annual edition
7
freedom, combined with a competitive,
entrepreneurial spirit fostered a dynamic of
church creation, building, and philanthropy
that caused tens of thousands of churches to
spring up. Tis impulse remains strong as new
congregations are born daily. However, the
story for those older houses of worship, built
in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, is
more complex. European centred religious
groups – Roman Catholic and mainline
Protestant: Presbyterian, United Methodist,
Episcopalian, Lutheran; United Church of
Christ, and American Baptist (along with
Jews, Quakers, various German protestant
sects, Unitarians and Universalists, and a
handful of African American denominations)
– constructed the majority of historic religious
sites. As a whole, the older denominations
have shrunk in size, have fewer human and
fnancial resources, and occupy buildings
sufering from years of deferred maintenance.
Te ‘average’ US historic church today
faces several hundred thousand dollars
worth of necessary repairs, as well as
bearing the cost of hosting a variety of
events or programmes that beneft the wider
public. Tese factors contribute both to the
complexity of successfully executing capital
projects and to the potential for raising funds
beyond the immediate membership. In any
case, the process of assessing, deciding, and
acting upon a major building conservation
project impacts all facets of congregational
life: the way clergy and lay leadership relate
to each other, to the wider congregation, and
to church ofcials; how mission and vision
are conceived and lived; how resources are
collected and allocated; how the congregation
relates to the wider world; and how worship
is conducted. An event that pulls on all of
these strings disturbs the ‘normal’ day-to-
day life in a congregation. Tis stress can be
magnifed in cases where the funds to do
what is necessary to conserve a church are
well beyond the means of the congregation.
Tens of thousands of US congregations fnd
themselves in just such a scenario, often
without knowing where to turn for help.
Resources to help
congregations
Until recently there was no formal assistance
organisation to help congregations maintain
church property. Tis task fell, as it still
does to a large extent today, to clergy and
lay leaders at the local level, with only
occasional assistance or funding from their
larger denominational body. Congregational
leaders tasked with overseeing restoration
projects usually learn on the job.
Conducting a major building project
is overwhelming. Because these projects
typically happen once a generation, or less
often, there is little institutional memory.
Clergy receive no training in fundraising,
grant-application, or construction
management, and yet spend considerable
time on these tasks. Some congregations
do have lay leaders with experience or
skills in these areas, but they are too rarely
put to efective use. Many denominational
ofces have few resources to ofer.
In the past 20 or so years, this situation
has been eased somewhat by groups like
Partners for Sacred Places, America’s
only national, non-sectarian, preservation
organisation dedicated to preserving
historic houses of worship of all faiths.
Much of Partners’ work centres
on training congregational leaders in
documenting the community value of
their place of worship, articulating its
cultural and architectural importance in
a way that speaks to a wide audience, and
creating a sound plan for building repairs.
In our experience, congregations can
transform a crisis into an opportunity by
broadening the defnition of what constitutes
the church or synagogue ‘family’.
Both congregations and their wider
communities recognise the value of historic
sacred places as key assets – along with the
faith, passions, and skills of lay and clergy –
that transform neighbourhoods. Congregations
which seek to develop new relationships with
the wider public recognise their historic church
building as a tool for realising their mission.
Te question, so often incorrectly posed, was
never ‘do we care more about the people or the
building?’ (one hears variants of this in many
congregations), but rather ‘how can we use all
of our gifts and assets to live out our mission?’
Tis debate also speaks to the relative lack
of value placed on historic buildings in the US.
Church leaders, and even the general public,
do not assume that if a building is registered
at the local or national level as having
historic importance it deserves protection.
While congregations clearly invested much
money and efort in building their churches,
appreciation of the value of these assets
remains patchy at best. Some religious groups
dislike being listed on such registers, for fear
of having restrictions placed on the building
and the ways in which it is used. Consequently,
many important church buildings have
not been listed and so there are no defnite
numbers on how many historic churches exist.
Only a handful of local or state-wide religious
property surveys have been conducted by
Partners or other preservation organisations.
The public value of
sacred places
Churches in the US play an important,
although only recently documented, role in
building communities. Tey ofer a myriad
of programmes to the public including
after-school tutoring, soup kitchens, English
as a second language classes, musical
performances, job training, and addiction
support groups. While this pattern also
exists in the UK, it is more pronounced in
the US as the government here provides
less support for many of these services than
its UK counterpart, leaving the voluntary
or non-proft sector to fll the gap (the two
countries may, however, be growing more
alike in this regard). In addition, service to the
poor is a central mission of congregations, and
historic church buildings are both plentiful
and ofer large amounts of fexible space.
In the mid 1990s, Partners initiated the
frst national academic study, published as
Sacred Places at Risk, documenting how
congregations used their historic church
buildings and ancillary structures to serve
the wider public. We learned, for example,
that over 80 per cent of those who use
these churches are not members of the
congregation. On average, each historic
church hosts over four major programmes
that serve the needs of the community, and
helps leverage over 5,300 hours of volunteer
time every year to support these programmes.
Te study also assigned a ‘replacement’ dollar
value to a congregation’s subsidy of these
programmes, including the value of space
Te Module II session of Partners for Sacred Places’ New Dollars/New Partners training programme focuses on
teaching congregations to learn about the myriad assets to be found in their historic buildings and the service
programmes they ofer.