Picking a facility: part 2

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Lee Stevenson here, along with my.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:10

Co host, I'm Danny Parmele and I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:15

We are here with our unfiltered podcast talking real conversations about church planting. Glad you could tune in.

We're in part two of our conversation on kind of choosing the right facility that, that location to look at launching the church. Having your grand opening, part one.

We talked about schools and talked about movie theaters, kind of the bonuses, challenges that come with both of those. Today we want to take some time and talk specifically about what about storefronts or industrial space as a potential place to launch the church.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:46

Yep. And renting from other churches as well too. So those are kind of the two that we'll focus on on here.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:52

So what overall, what's your experience with Danny, watching churches maybe even in your own sphere of, of of experience when it comes to a church renting space from another church?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:04

Yeah, so that was our, our story.

nched or got on the ground in: 2004

Had some old, old church smell to it, but it ended up working out well for us.

But it certainly had its challenges and you have both facility challenge, but then you have some of the other challenges that come in working with the church or even just confusion in the community, who you're a part of, who you're not type of thing that way.

So for us, especially with older church buildings, you really just have to be looking at, you know, parking and kids space and bathrooms which, you know, on the grading scale, the place that we rented was probably an F minus on all those. Actually didn't even have a park.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:03

Didn't know they had a minus on it.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:04

Yeah, so it was, it was pretty bad. The bathrooms were pretty bad.

But at the same time where we were looking in the city, there just weren't a lot of opportunities and we did not have a lot of finances. We couldn't just go rent a storefront. And the schools were really, really difficult to work with.

So we thought, you know what, we'll just, we'll kind of start here and kind of kind of see, see where it goes.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:25

So were you, did you start there on Sunday mornings? Saturdays.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:29

So we actually had to start on Saturday nights and we couldn't even get a Sunday nights because they had AA meetings that were meeting in there. So, yeah, you usually have a limit on when you can actually meet if they're still meeting in there.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:44

And typically if they're still meeting there, they're not giving up Sunday mornings.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:47

They're not giving up Sunday mornings. And so you try to work around it. And we did.

or: 10:30

But that is one of the biggest limitations that you are working with another group where they essentially have first dibs on it, and you got to kind.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:19

Of can do, and we can't time. Wow.

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:20

And then the other thing is. Well, let me say that's the advantage for us really was financially free. Yeah, it was.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:27

It's hard to be free.

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:28

I think it was a hundred bucks. We said, hey, the most we can afford is like three or four hundred dollars a month. And they're like, okay, well, we'll give it to you for like, $200.

It was something ridiculously cheap. So I was like, sold. You know, we'll do it. And.

But it was difficult because we had to, you know, keep all of the flannel graph banners that they had hanging. And, you know, I mean, what you didn't want those.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:54

Didn't flannel wraps kind of coming back.

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:56

So. So, yeah, so you. With environment, we couldn't do a lot. And same thing with.

Okay, they had a sound system in there, but it wasn't gonna really be the same. Yeah. And so then it was like, well, can we have extra space?

And we did some of the same things, like, okay, well, we'll put in an extra projector here. But that was a whole, you know, situation, because it was covering up the organ pipes.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:18

And it has to go through a committee. It has to go through this committee.

Danny Parmelee: 00:04:21

Yeah, yeah. And then.

Yeah, like I said, the other thing is just people, or I should say an advantage is, is that when you do meet in a church building, there are certain unchurched people where it feels a little less cultish that you're meeting in a church. And so there was that advantage of kind of the stained glass. And we did kind of play off of the whole ancient future type of thing, because it was.

I mean, this was an old, old church. And yet, obviously, the worship and the preaching and Everything else was relevant.

So there was such a stark contrast that there was a little bit of irony that created a bit of an appeal for it.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:59

That makes sense.

And what you gotta think about is if you can't get on that Sunday morning hour, that in itself is gonna be a challenge because across the United States at least it is, most mainstream people think about church or going to church on Sunday morning. That's just the reality. And we saw, even when we started a Saturday night service, we still saw very few first time guests come on Saturday night.

It was church people that would come Saturday night. The non church background. Still, that's exactly morning.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:31

Yep, that's exactly right.

And then when you have a Sunday night or Saturday night, you also tend to get, I want to say fluff, but you get people coming from other churches that they don't want to leave their church, they don't want to serve in your church, they don't want to give in your church. But oh, there's kind of a unique.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:44

I had to work Sunday morning so I can come here.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:46

Yeah, so that, so I'm working with a church planter right now. And they were actually meeting in the basement of a church, which don't cross it off your list, or it was a fellowship area, not a basement.

Never meet in a basement. Right. It's called a fellowship area.

And that can work too because there's some churches where, okay, maybe you're not in the main sanctuary, but if you have that availability and it happens to work out price wise in parking and you can use the children's space sometimes that can be a really great thing.

Now interestingly enough, what happened is actually in this last week, because they had made a good relationship with the pastor of this church, they were growing, they were doing some good things. They asked if they could now meet in the sanctuary on Sunday and they said yes. And so they just made that move.

And of course that was helpful for them because it even provides even a little more legitimacy for them to be able to use that space.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:43

So yeah, and we, we, we used a local church when it came to pre launch phase, which was beneficial and helpful. And it was a church that just really bought into what our vision was.

I mean they provide childcare for our team to be able to come and be a part of stuff. And we had to actually drive kind of out of our community to attend that. But they gave it to us for free.

And we were like, if you're bought in and you're going to help us start the church, you'll make the drive. We talked to another church from a different denomination across the street from where the movie theater we wanted to launch in was.

And they wanted us to charge us $250 a week just for a launch team meeting. And we're like, no, we can't afford that. And so be careful of over. Especially if you're outside that normal hour.

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:28

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:29

On a Sunday morning, like don't, don't overspend in order to have that space. And so be careful that even as you negotiate with other churches.

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:36

Yeah.

One other kind of advantage with church stuff, and this has happened recently with two, two church plants in the city where I am in the, in the Nashville area, is that they were just using a church for their office kind of. So they built relationship. They did some of the, I believe, launch team meeting stuff.

Well, that church voted to give the building that was about a two and a half, $3 million building to the church. So that was amazing and very kingdom minded. Yeah.

And then recently a church planet that I'm actually on the launch team with, the same thing happened where the relationship went well enough and they just gifted the building as a $1.3 million building that was just given to this church planter for the next generation to be able to do it.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:21

So I hope we hear more stories.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:23

Like that and it's an encouragement to me and I want our planters and pastors to be doing the same thing and not just hanging on to buildings.

And I hope that I'll do the same if I'm in a congregation or on a board or pastoring a church at that time to go, you know what, the next generation is coming and there's only a few of us left. Let's pass the baton, you know, and let them do that.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:45

But what about the, the other side of it?

Churches that start in a storefront or look at industrial space as a potential place to get 24, seven, you know, presence immediately in the, the life of their church when they get ready to launch. What have you seen? What are your experiences with that?

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:02

Yeah, I think you, you usually need quite a bit more funds to be able to do that. Because even if a know you happen to know what business person. Here's, here's 5,000 square feet and I'll give it to you for free.

You're going to need some sort of build out. You may even need to get special permitting because a lot of warehouse space is not permitted for, you know, for, for gathering.

And the most expensive actually is basket.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:25

And parking's difficult with the industrial space as well.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:28

Parking can be really difficult or if you have to share it with whatever, you're in a, you know, other business strip mall and you know, business type of thing that way. But yes, having the 24 7, don't underestimate that.

I mean, people in the community and even if you don't have office hours and you're not doing stuff there 24 7, it just says we are here, we are here to say, you know, we can do that. But yeah, it's probably the least that I see of most churches starting that way.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:01

But a lot of financial. And I knew of a couple churches out there and one of the things I would caution you did launch in an industrial space.

Parking has become a massive issue for them. The second piece of it that I would say has been really challenging is, is the. Not only that, but they get long term leases.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:27

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:28

And so in the midst of the long term lease, that church has grown and they really need to find another location and change facility. But they're now locked into a long term lease that they can't get out of.

And it' actually become a detriment to their overall impact within that community because they, they're out of space and it doesn't matter how creative they can be at this point, they literally have no more room to even put children into spaces, let alone bathroom space and stuff of that sort.

Danny Parmelee: 00:10:54

Yeah. And even going back to our, the first session, what advice do you usually give planters on leases?

You know, is it better to have that flexibility and go, hey, we only want to do three months or is it like if you don't put a year, you know, to two years out there, you could all sudden grow and then the person goes, no, I don't really want you here anymore. So what's your advice on?

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:19

Yeah, I think it depends on the facility and what kind of terms you can actually come to. The terms obviously need to be favorable to the church and the potential growth of impact within that community.

If they're not favorable to that, then don't do it.

And this is where I would encourage a lot of planters, like find some businessmen that are used to commercial lease situations and get their advice, have them read through the contracts. They may see things that you naturally don't see. Just because it's not your, your world, you're not living in that.

And I found that like I had a commercial real estate realtor in our community that just befriended us and really helped us out when we were looking at potential renting some space. And, and we ended up office off site and had to rent industrial space for our offices.

And he was huge help in the negotiating process for us to do that. And honestly it didn't cost us anything in the long run as well.

But you know, typically I would say you want to be careful signing any lease over three years.

But if it's a great space and you get really favorable terms, I would definitely be willing to sign up to 3 years to be able to keep that, that space. And then always put a contingency like we get first rights of refusal once that lease is up.

So that way somebody else can't just swoop in and out bid you to take that space. You get their first rights to be able to say no, we want to renew the lease and continue to be able to stay here.

So you want to work those type of things within that lease.

Danny Parmelee: 00:12:54

That's great. How important is having your office space there? And I say that for all of them. You know, obviously theater schools, that can't be.

But you know, whether it's church base or storefront.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:07

ever since we planted back in: 2009

I think we got six weeks where we actually when we moved from portable into our permanent facility, they had some pre office space. I painted it, put flooring down like this is fantastic. I got my space and six weeks later we had already grown and needed that for children's space.

We couldn't use it for office space anymore. I got honestly, in our our world today, it's become much more culturally acceptable to be able to hang out at coffee shops and other locations.

There are a lot of places too that do joint kind of executive suite kind of executive space where you can for a monthly membership rent office space there. And so you get access to their copiers, tables, boardrooms or whatever.

I would definitely look at doing that specifically if those are, you know, if you have those within that direct community that you're in. But I mean be creative.

Even early on when we planted, we were two years, we rented an apartment complex and we had a two bedroom apartment and we officed out of that. And that was way cheaper than it would have been for us to go get prime office space.

So we were able to rent like a two bedroom in Phoenix metro area for $700 at that point. And I just went in and disclosed what I was doing? I just said, hey, listen, I don't have space in my house for an office. I want to rent an apartment.

I'll sign a year lease. And I just want to come here in office. I'm not going to sleep here. I'm not going to stay here. I'm just going to come and I need a home office space.

And they're like, you're going to sign a lease? I said, yeah, just hand me the lease and let me sign it. And it was mine.

And then even as the church grew, like, I added a garage, so we had storage right there next to our office space as well. And it worked out great. Once we grew about two years in, it was like, okay, we better. I think we had four staff there now working in that apartment.

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:19

All the neighbors. Is there a drug?

Lee Stephenson: 00:15:20

All the neighbors, they just see people day in and day out, walking in and walking in and out. We were like, yeah, we probably need to find another spot at this point. But be creative. I know guys that plant that they'll rent a house.

I know some churches that actually bought a house and use as equity. You do need to pay attention to hoa.

I know some, some planters that got pushed out of that situation because HOA came in and said, no, you can't do this. But I know other church plants. I know one specifically. They bought a ranch. They had like 10 acres of the big house and a barn, and they renovated.

That became their youth space office space.

And they used that for years down the road, even after they moved into permanent facility to be able to continue to do some of the things that they were doing.

Danny Parmelee: 00:16:04

Yeah, that's awesome. If I'm hearing you, you're saying having that office space connected is not high on the checklist. And I agree with that. 100.

There's actually probably an advantage that you, you know, you're kind of pushed out, especially those early years into the community. Yes, you probably need a place to retreat and to write sermons.

And obviously you need a place if you're having, you know, private and confidential conversations.

But the more that you can be out and about and at coffee shops and being in the community is going to actually probably be an advantage to you anyways.

Lee Stephenson: 00:16:35

Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially if you, you know, have a level of extrovertedness and are able to engage people in those. Those spaces.

Danny Parmelee: 00:16:42

So how much is too much?

I know we've talked just a little bit, you know, and again, it's going to be so relative to different parts of the country and city versus suburban versus rural type of thing. But any rules of thumb when you're.

Lee Stephenson: 00:16:57

Looking at the financial I would say keep it under 20% of your your budget, overall budget, especially those early days. I think that's a good round figure to be able to plan for. It gives you some margin.

You get up to 30%, you're going to begin to handcuff your ability to actually carry out ministry. And so 20%, to me, is the top level. Whatever money you're bringing in or expect to bring in from a budgetary standpoint, be careful going over that.

Thanks, guys. It's been fun talking about facilities on the unfiltered podcast again. Thanks for joining us. My name's Lee. My buddy here, Danny, with you.

And until next time, keep it real.