[PAR35]

Applause for the priest whose church is already drawing up plans for an appropriate but modest chapel.

On the other hand, there is a risk with building too small and too soon. It can actually inhibit the ultimate growth of the congregation.

[AnAmericanMother]

Not if you plan for expansion.

Usual practice (and I've been through this twice) is to build a "worship space" that can be turned into a parish hall.

Both my former ECUSA parish and my Catholic parish did this. I've watched it happen over a period of about 45 years, because I went to the elementary school attached to our former ECUSA parish, and I grew up literally two blocks away from our Catholic parish.

The ECUSA parish started with one of those buildings with the exposed L-shaped structural steel beams (cheap). With moveable dividers, it became classrooms for the school on weekdays. It eventually became the parish hall, then the auditorium for the school. The Catholic parish started with a hilarious low, round concrete building (locally known as "The Great Pumpkin") that eventually became the gym. The second building started out as the sanctuary, then became (and still is) the parish hall. The current chapel was added as one wing to that building, then another wing was added as Sunday School rooms. The new sanctuary was constructed at the other end of a covered walkway from that building -- it's a "real" traditional brick church in the H.H. Richardson style.

Except for the "Great Pumpkin", which was wrecked out to construct the traditional Oxford-University-style buildings for the new prep school attached to the parish, all the buildings survive and are functional today.

[AnAmericanMother]

And, BTW, both parishes experienced significant growth over those years. You can't tell about ECUSA numbers (they're thoroughly fudged), but our former parish is the largest parish in the diocese outside the Cathedral parish. ASA (acc. to Louie Crew of all people) is around 450. (BTW that's way down from pre-2003 GC. My husband was head usher and he counted heads for communion. We used to have that many at ONE service, and there were four on a Sunday.) What's funny is that makes it 164th NATIONALLY.

Our current parish is at 1600 households, which exceeds the growth estimate made back in 1988.