My wife pointed me to a post from a children’s ministry blog. It is the story of a children’s minister who visited two churches in metro Dallas. One was Fellowship Church, when Ed Young, Jr. is the pastor. The other was Irving Bible Church.
The important part of the post is the following:
Two large churches have a different view of their neighborhood that I want to illustrate. Fellowship Church in Grapevine is typical of most in that most of the church is off limits without an appointment. I had an appointment but entered the “wrong” door because it was inadvertently left open. The receptionist was less than thrilled. But here is a church with stunning decorations that basically go unused when the church is not in session. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is typical and really I expected as much since many of us don’t have the security staff to be entirely open.
But, when I went over to my good friend Gary Lindsay’s church, Irving Bible I was greeted not by security or a receptionist but by several families hanging out in the indoor two story play structure just eating lunch. That’s right. The community is welcome whenever!
So I am wondering…Is your church open during the week?
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David is an entrepreneur, pastor, coach, and author. He has his doctorate from George Fox Seminary where he studied under Len Sweet, his M.Div. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and has done post graduate work in communications from the University of Alabama and the University of South Florida. He lives with his wife Brenna Phillips in Smyrna, DE. 
Great article and great perspective. We should be and need to be open all week long!
Super job!
I am a member at IBC (10 1/2 years) and have now been on staff for the last 4 1/2 years. I would like to add to the picture of IBC. We not only have all of our common areas open every day of the week from 8:00am to 10:00p, free Wi-Fi, a coffee shop, and more, we also allow the community to use our facility for meetings, dinners, graduations, conference, etc.
This is my ministry at IBC. I help provide our facilities for outside use. We are like any other church in that there are many times that our facilities just sit empty. Having so much free space creates a unique opportunity to SERVE our community.
We have over 60 outside events on our campus every year. That’s over 1 a week. And, it really doesn’t take much. It just takes a church to look at their facilities as not just an opportunity to serve their members, regular attenders, or visitors but as venue for connection points to your neighbors. Every church has this service opportunity whether it’s High School graduations, MOPS, AA, PTA, Chamber of Commerce meetings, or a class room for continuing education classes. Oh, and did I mention that we don’t charge anything above personnel costs?
I could go on and on but more than anything it is my hope that more churches make their facilities more open to the public events. The opportunity is too great to miss.