Tag: Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Conflict Management, External Relations Tagged with

16 min 36 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • The book of Acts is an underutilized resource for discerning about the building
  • There’s more than one way to solve the problem…
  • Solutions to the building problem only surface by going deeply into discerning your relationship with the community around you
  • What might you have to do to your physical space to make other people want to use it?
  • Learning not to underestimate the beauty of our spaces… > Dealing with idolatry of the building
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Posted in Assessments and Evaluations, Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, External Relations, Legal, Mission and Vision, Social Justice Tagged with

12 min 33 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • Book of Acts reminds us that the first congregations shared space;
  • Many New England churches originally called themselves “meeting houses” – places for all kinds of meetings, not just Sunday worship;
  • Assessing the many ways your congregation adds value to your community;
  • “Partners for Sacred Places” can help your church think creatively about uses for your building;
  • Over the centuries, churches have functioned as patrons of the arts;
  • Integrating social justice in multi-purposing your space;
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Posted in Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Church Growth & Vitality, Contracting and Negotiating Before Beginning, External Relations, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Managing Expectations, Self-Care Tagged with

10 min 59 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • Is the church over?
  • Is this great experiment that was started by Jesus – this experiment that the Holy Spirit exploded on Pentecost – is it really over?
  • Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question….
  • If our role isn’t to preserve the Church, what is it?
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Posted in Assessments and Evaluations, Buildings and Property, Change Management, Church Decline, Church Growth & Vitality, External Relations, Faith Formation, Healing / Grief Work, Legacy Churches / Church Closing, Managing Expectations, Mission and Vision, Stewardship Tagged with

16 min 07 s

Rev. Dr. Rochelle (Shelly) Stackhouse

  • Does your church have more property than it needs? Is much of your building unused most of the time? If so, you have lots of company! Many churches have significant real estate that’s fallow – unused – and yet they continue to pay for its upkeep. Of course, no one likes this situation or planned for this reality, yet churches often have difficulty moving forward. Put differently, churches often struggle to incorporate their property into a realistic understanding of their current mission and purpose as a faith community. Rev. Dr. Shelly Stackhouse, a long-experienced interim minister and now the Senior Director of Programs for the non-profit, “Partners for Sacred Places,” offers some key questions and a process to help such churches move forward in this episode titled, “Your Church Property Has a Mission Too.”

Does Your Church Have a Mission Statement for Its Property?

Interim ministers have the opportunity (obligation?) to help a congregation begin to assess their situation with their property;

  • How is our property being used?
  • How often?
  • Who’s using it?
  • What spaces could be used more fully?
  • What property should we offload? How and to whom?

Developing a mission statement for your property;

Understanding property as part of your mission – start by going room to room…

There are people in the wider community who are stakeholders in your property;

Honoring the grief in letting go of unused property;

It’s in the telling of stories that people come to feel the past has been honored, and then are open to a different future;

Listen or Read Now!