Church Gives Away $1.5 Million Property to Another Church

Let’s face it, as we begin 2010, Christianity has an image problem. And I’m not just talking about the cheesy quotes that churches put on their signs. Instead of being known for the things Jesus was known for (radical love, caring for the needs of others, acceptance, generosity, etc.), Christians have become known more for what they are against (abortion, gay marriage, Harry Potter and Barney). Many people, especially those under 40, have a very negative perception of Christianity. Indeed, Christianity does have an image problem.

I am not going to waste time giving examples of ways in which Christians and/or churches have been judgmental and hypocritical (if you really need some, just follow me around for a day or two and you will be plenty disappointed). Instead, I have 2 purposes for this article: 1) to give you an example of one church who represents the best in Christianity, and 2) to get some ideas from you of churches in Gwinnett who are doing good and are examples of what a real church should be doing. I want to highlight those churches in future articles.

Brainerd Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, TN was founded in 1939 just a few miles east of Chattanooga’s historic downtown (not really sure what “historic” means; I wrote it because it sounded really good). The church purchased property and erected a building on Brainerd Rd and continued to grow for many decades. During it’s peak, BPC had over 800 people attending worship services. The need for more and bigger facilities led BPC to take on several building projects over the years, including adding a new sanctuary, educational wing, and a family life center which contained a full kitchen and a gymnasium.  It was a church facility most churches would have loved to have.

But as the demographics of Brainerd Rd changed (also known as “white flight”), the size of the church began to slowly decrease. It was still a medium-sized church, and it still made use of the wonderful facilities, but the leadership of the church, led by pastor Ron Ragon, realized that some hard decisions needed to be made. Either the church had to restructure itself in order to reach the community that the facilities were located in, or the church needed to get a new facility located more centrally to the current congregation. It was a long and painful discussion over several years, but In 1993, BPC decided to leave it’s million-plus dollar facility and relocate to another location.

But what BPC did next was shocking. The leadership didn’t just want to leave that community that had meant so much to the church for many years, and they didn’t want this amazingly functional facility to go to the highest offer, so they decided to give the facility away to the best qualified church. Yes, you read that correctly. They gave a then-valued 1.5 million dollar facility away.

The reasoning was simple. The best thing that BPC could do for the community was to get out of the way and bring in a more qualified (i.e., “black”) church to meet some of the needs of this particular community. So BPC interviewed dozens of pastors and churches and finally picked a church that had a tremendous vision and plan for using the facilities. The new church wasn’t even in the same denomination, but that was not what was important to the leadership of BPC. Loving, serving, and helping the community was of utmost importance.

If there were more churches like that – churches in which the needs of the community come before the needs (or should I say, “pockets”) of the church body, then would Christianity have such an image problem?

Help me to put a spotlight on the churches in Gwinnett who are doing good for their communities. Leave the names of the churches and a short description of what they are doing in the comments section, and I will follow up. Thanks!

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