A 2.6M-Acre Problem: What To Do with All That Church Real Estate

We’ve written extensively about the challenges and opportunities that are presenting themselves for the Church. When it comes to church real estate, in particular, things can look bleak on the surface. Land and construction prices have increased dramatically, interest rates are up, and property inventory has been scarce.

However, with every challenge comes an opportunity.

The church isn’t the only area affected by these challenges. Everyone is looking for space, which means the demand for shared space opportunities has never been higher.

Last year, our team at Ministry Solutions Group predicted that the conversations around Activated Spaces (using your current space to serve community needs throughout the week) would pick up dramatically, and it did! In 2025, we contracted and opened nearly 30 childcare centers with third-party providers. We also helped set up pickleball courts, cafes, play spaces, outreach centers, and the like.

This has created a version of Jacob’s Well by bringing tens of thousands of people to church sites on a Tuesday afternoon who were not coming on Sunday morning. It also created millions of dollars of passive income for the Church. We believe that 2026 will be even bigger.

As we continue to promote the concept of Activated Spaces, there is another enormous opportunity in front of us as well, and that opportunity is how we use church land.

The Background and Current State of Church Real Estate in the U.S.

To set the context, here is a brief history of the recent church real estate model:

• 1990’s Single Site: Build a large building and have everyone come to you
• 2000’s Early Multisite: Build a small number of large campuses
• 2025 Modern Multisite: Build a large number of smaller campuses

(For more on the present and future of multisite, see our piece on the Modern Multisite movement.)

According to Forbes and other publications, it is estimated that the Protestant Church owns 2.6M acres of property in the US. This excludes Catholic churches (which own a staggering 177M acres worldwide) and LDS churches, too.

To put the protestant church property number into perspective, 2.6M acres is equivalent to the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. With 336,000 Protestant congregations nationwide, that’s close to eight acres per church on average.

I’ll say what I’ve said many times before. The Church doesn’t have a real estate inventory problem. We have an efficiency problem.

What does this mean for the Church? It means that there are a lot of churches that bought more land than they will ever need. A lot of these were in a 1990s mindset of thinking they would continue expanding on a single site. But that model has shifted. Now, those churches are sitting on underutilized land that could fund millions of dollars of ministry and bring activity and usage to the site.

So how does this work? The key to maximizing the value of your land while maintaining control is through a process called Strategic Land Use Planning (SLUP).

Most churches have not looked at or touched their zoning status in years. Why would they? There’s no obvious reason to do so. To oversimplify it, a good SLUP strategy:

• Determines your current reality and the current status of your land.
• Helps you clearly map out a path towards obtaining a maximum improved dollar value through legal and entitlement processes.
• Boosts “soft” value through community engagement by identifying the best uses that will serve the community.
• Identifies maximum return and who the best operators are that you can engage with to bring activity and excitement to the site.

That is a very oversimplified explanation of a very nuanced process. Let me use our good friends at Raleigh North Christian Center for an example.

Raleigh North Christian Center: Creating $15M-$20M in Value

We met Dr. and First Lady Chapman and their team a few years ago when the church had very much outgrown the 500-seat venue situated on eight acres and needed to expand. However, the cost to expand to what they needed at their current location was cost-prohibitive.

We helped them locate, negotiate, and purchase the acquisition of 20 acres of land for $2.7M. The property was then zoned for agriculture or R-1 (low-density housing).

The property abutted the city’s expansion and growth plan. We closed on the 20 acres of land, and through a Strategic Land Use Planning process, we were able to get the property rezoned to four-story multifamily and moved into the city’s Opportunity Zone. Within two years of purchasing the acreage, RNCC was able to sell the property with zoning and permit approval waived for $15.3M, yielding around a $12.6M profit on the land.

Within the next year, we then located a 36-acre parcel of land directly off the highway that was zoned R-1 as well. In this case, it couldn’t support multifamily because of soil conditions. But those soil conditions worked perfectly for our use (low density and surface parking), which meant that we weren't competing with multifamily developers paying nearly $1M per acre.

We closed on those 36 acres for $1.9M last year (2025), and I am happy to report that RNCC has officially broken ground on their new 50,000SF facility. This will also bring in several hundred thousand dollars per year from a partnership with a childcare operator we brought to the table. 

For their current site, we interviewed and hired a group of real estate professionals to help us maximize the value of the eight acres they own currently. Through a similar process, we created a plan to maximize their land value. This led to a competitive process where our package was submitted to a small number of large, qualified developers. RNCC was then able to get multiple offers at the maximum price point. The winning developer even waived the zoning and permit approval to purchase the property (which means no contingencies to close).

In short, somewhere between $15M to $20M of value was created simply by knowing how to navigate this land use process. I can’t tell you that every church will have those results. But what I can tell you is that there are a lot of people reading this right now who are sitting on millions of dollars of unrealized assets to fund the ministry in the form of their church property.

Church Land Do’s and Don’t’s

Again, the SLUP process is nuanced and requires experienced professionals. Here are a couple of quick pointers on things to pay attention to if you’re at a church real estate crossroads:

Your project team is everything

Your church “has a guy.” We know, and he or she is a banker, a contractor, an architect, or maybe someone who recently added on a bedroom to their home. The “we have a guy” mentality is a common thread with every church we’ve worked with. However, the SLUP process requires you to find the best and most experienced people, not the people in closest proximity to you relationally. Here are a few rules we have:

1. Remember, a relationship earns someone only an opportunity. It doesn’t guarantee them the role.
2. Don’t hire people you can’t fire. An independent advisor gives you a buffer against internal congregational pressure.
3. Get the best people, period. This is the future of your church, and millions of dollars are on the line.

Location + site control is critical

They say the #1 rule of real estate is “location.” It’s true.

And rule #2? That’s site control.

You have to control your interest and control of the site. This requires expert planning, legal agreements, and full master planning. Remember, you don’t have to give up control of your site in order to optimize it.

Avoid joint ventures

In all of our years of work managing hundreds of millions of dollars in projects, our team has NEVER needed to enter into a joint venture (JV) with another developer. However, we have been brought in to unwind existing JV agreements, and it’s never fun for anyone involved.

No matter what a great guy and great Christian the developer “your guy” is, at the end of the day, your objectives are not aligned with his. He is raising capital and making monetary commitments to people and banks (with your property on the line as collateral). His clients are his investors.

Even worse, in nearly 100% of all cases, you will be required to subordinate your interest in your land to a construction loan for the project. This makes the Church, in essence, a “guarantor” of the financing. A JV is one of those ideas that looks really great until you actually start thinking through the details.

Consider a Ground Lease

One alternative here is a Ground Lease Option. This offers churches a powerful alternative to selling or JV partnerships. They retain full ownership of your land while leasing it long-term (often for dozens of years or even a century at a time) to developers who build and operate housing, retail, or community uses on it.

This generates steady passive income without subordinating your deed or giving up control.

Integrate multi-utility components

Strategic Land Use Planning can give you a “rising tide raises all boats” effect. As you plan, look for multiple ways to integrate the uses on your land. The more these uses complement each other, the more value each vertical is worth.

Another thing to keep in mind: you don’t want to have a bunch of disparate uses on the property, or uses that don’t support the church or are inconsistent with its long-term vision.

Avoid housing

There is a huge push in the real estate community for churches to use their land to support solving our current housing crisis. I’m not a fan. Here’s why.

• First, housing creates highly competitive high-traffic times (e.g., Sunday morning).
• Second, other than multifamily units, this brings the lowest monetary return.
• Third, this gives you future neighbors (who can vote) who may or may not be happy or aligned with the mission of your congregation.

The takeaway: tread carefully here.

Activating Your Church Land With Wisdom

Each time you pull into your parking lot or walk through your doors, remember. You are sitting on more than a pile of dirt and asphalt.

You are potentially sitting on an unrealized asset that could help you fund your vision for decades to come.

The key is finding clarity in how you can take steps to activate your church real estate. You want to avoid things like those JV nightmares I talked about earlier and find the church property opportunities like at Raleigh North Christian Center.

If that’s the crossroads where you find your ministry at the moment, reach out for our Free Analysis. With some basic documentation from you, we can provide you with ideas around potential uses, value, next steps, and the like with no obligation from you.

We can help you identify and tap into the opportunities in front of you. We’ve worked on 300 ministry sites, helping fund and manage $1.6B worth of projects, and we would love to use that extensive experience to help you take your next steps with clarity.