There is a lot of merit in renting, but it’s hard to run a full slate of programs out of a rental property. You also have to set up and break down every week, and most rentals don’t have satisfactory nursery facilities.
This is fascinating. We rent; and you're right. We cannot offer all the programs that a group with a building can; but we CAN help churches with buildings with their events -- financially, and with warm bodies to help. We have a lot of money to use for community outreaches and to be the sole support of two missionaries, clandestinely, in muslim countries. We give scholarships to local students going into ministerial studies; we do a back-to-school shopping thing with JC Penney where we go through the store giving $100 gift cards to families shopping for their kids' school clothes. We are able to help a lot of native American families this way; others, too. It sure is fun. We give out around $6000 annually that way. We also team financially with missionaries to the state universities, we team with Salvation Army to intervene in utilities when people are between jobs, we team with the abortion-rescue clinic that saves about 80 babies a year from the abortionists.
But it is a niche for a group of people who don't want to pay pastors' salaries or building mortgages. Most of those churches' funds are already spoken for. If they want to help someone, they have to have a bake sale. But, we are all in the same Body of Christ; we just have niches.
I think you and I are thinking of different things when we use the word "rent". Maybe I should have said "lease"
What I was suggesting was leasing of a church property, on maybe a 5 year lease arrangement. You would pay rent monthly. There would be no weekly setup or take down -- you would be the only occupant.
In other words, envision a standard church setup, only instead of the church owning the deed, the property is owned by a third party and the congregation pays rent rather than mortgage
As I said before, this avoids providing a target for looting. And as the congregation does not represent assets, only cash flow, it provides an incentive to the upper hierarchy to avoid annoying congregations to the point where they leave
I don’t think it’s really necessary to go that far either. When churches come and go that whimsically it just seems to be that much more evidence of worldliness. We have some like that around here. They’re either on fire or barely a flicker.