Most churches sit empty for over 90% of the week. It isn’t hard math. If you use your building for six hours on Sunday during church operations, a few more times here and there during the week, and that’s it, most of the time, your real estate is sitting idle.
This is why the Ministry Solutions Group team has found so many churches end up supporting their buildings, rather than the other way around. If you want your facility to support your ministry, you need to invest in activated church space.
We’ve talked about building activation a lot in other resources, but there’s an angle that can often make church leaders hesitate: their people. Many leaders don’t want to activate their unused spaces because they’re afraid it will overload their staff with extra work, especially when they’re busy trying to manage things like parking and people flow during the busy back-to-school rush.
It’s a reasonable concern, but also one that doesn’t have to be a factor if you activate your underutilized spaces the right way. With that in mind, here are three steps you can take to use your church building for weekday ministry without overburning your staff in the busy fall months ahead.
The first thing you want to do when considering weekday ministry is think about how you’re framing the initiative. It’s tempting to see this as a space problem. You have unused space. You want to use it. But you use it for some ministry stuff already …and you don’t want the other weekday stuff to mess with the weekend flow.
Before you get lost down that rabbit hole, start by reframing the entire conversation. Activating your church during the week addresses a usage problem, not a space one. Your church has plenty of space to do what it needs to do in important areas of your ministry. You’re not trying to add to it or dramatically change it. All you’re trying to do is solve an efficiency problem when that space sits empty. This lowers the stakes and takes some of the pressure off.
It’s also important to use this reframe to remember that you are backfilling your ministry space use, not competing with it. Discovering new weekday capacity from your church building is a way to use your space better. It can even create outreach opportunities for adults, teens, and families.
This reframe is important when it comes to staff. You aren’t trying to create busywork for staff members. If anything, the increased exposure of your ministry will bring more people into the weekend ministry events that your team already staffs. From here, the key is engaging in that activation with wisdom and moderation.
Once you’ve framed the church activation conversation around opportunity and efficiency, it’s time to consider your options. Where can you activate space?
We always recommend starting with your local community. Don’t pick things that you like. Instead, go out and gauge community needs. Run surveys, go to town hall meetings, and connect with community leaders.
As you discover real needs, look for the best ones you can address with your facility and resources. Here’s the trickiest part: pick one activation to start with.
It’s tempting to meet every community need you can. But if you try to invest in a pickleball court, a coffee shop, and a community center at the same time, you’re going to put strain on your staff. (Not to mention your resources and sanity!)
Look for opportunities that align with your weekday spaces, your ministry mission, and your staff capacity to oversee. Not necessarily for your staff to run, though. That leads us to our last point…
We are big on third-party partners at Ministry Solutions Group. Take childcare as a great example. This is one of the most underrated ways to activate church space for a reason.
When a church leader hears “childcare program,” they think legal liabilities, safety protocols, and lots and lots of staff. At Ministry Solutions Group, we recommend that you resist the “we can figure this out on our own” line of reasoning and work with an outside organization.
They will bring a deeper sense of understanding and professionalism that you simply can’t match as a church. No matter how good your children’s program is, weekday child care services simply aren’t your natural strength as a church.
When you partner with a professional child care provider, you provide space, and they provide the service. That’s how we helped Chase Oaks Church fill a childcare vacuum in the local area. The result was a child care option for local parents, more efficient use of weekday church space, and even added exposure to the ministry as children and parents came into the church on weekdays who might never have otherwise come in on a Sunday morning.
The best part? Chase Oaks’ staff didn’t need to fill the intense gap of staffing a child care program for all of this to happen.
Activated spaces are a great way to offset operational costs. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of your staff.
Approach the entire concept from a usage and efficiency problem, not a space one. Find real local community needs you can fill — and then limit yourself to the ones that make the most sense for your ministry. If needed, look for professional partners who can help you operate those weekday initiatives without adding the burden onto your staff.
If you can do that, you can activate your unused spaces without adding another stressor onto your staff, especially as we head into one of the busiest seasons on the church calendar.