As I shared with the congregation at the beginning of the year, in order to purchase a church building, I came to see a church building close to Tooting Broadway Station on the Northern Line, which had come out on the real estate market this week. The parish can accommodate about 170 people, but there was not enough space for the three Sunday school departments, so decided to put it on hold for now. I’m due to see other buildings near Colliers Wood and South Wimbledon stations this week as well.
Currently, the church has two campuses, one in central London and the other in Wimbledon in the south. Considering the price range, the central location is too expensive, but there is no place like the building that we are currently using, so I am currently focusing on locations near tube stations which are located near Wimbledon, but which is also easy for members in the city to come to during the week.
Purchasing a church building was an important prayer topic I had since I started my ministry in London 16 years ago, and as the majority of church members were young people until the congregation reached 300, I had no difficulty leading the church alone as a pastor. That’s how hard the church members worked hard in all aspects. Thanks to this, we have church finances left over, so we have been saving a certain amount every month to purchase a church building in the future, believing that we should prepare a deposit as best we can, no matter how much faith we have. However, this was not done while cutting costs for ministry or missionary work. There was grace in every part.
The ratio of families and office workers has increased significantly, and at the same time, the number of Sunday schools has increased to five departments across the two campuses. There are two pastors, but since we need more in the future, I don’t think we can afford to save as much as we used to. Although it is not ideal to purchase a church building in this situation, I am confident that based on the deposit we have collected so far, we will be able to purchase the building if our current members work together.
Currently, Wimbledon Church has also grown a lot, so if it were to purchase a building to use as a place of worship, it would need to have at least 2 million pounds. However, the church’s current finances for this are about 1 million pounds. The amount that needs to be paid is not a small amount for a church that runs on donations from believers. Even if it means that the congregation needs to save little by little to build a larger sum, I believe that even if it seems difficult, if everyone works together, the church should be able to afford a better place of worship.
Pastor Chan-Gyu Lee of Hanmaum Church in Frankfurt, who came as a lecturer for the Autumn Worship Session last year, said that even though there was not much of a deposit, like-minded believers paid their monthly salaries in the form of construction donations and purchased their current building without much difficulty. I personally subscribe to the belief that raising people is more important, so I don’t think it’s right to spend a lot of money on buildings; however realistically speaking the annual rent for both church campuses alone is already 60,000 pounds per year combined, so it’s time to save on at least one place and buy a building to be used as a permanent place for missions and prayer, and I believe the time is now.
Although we will have to borrow money from the bank anyway, this is an opportunity to reduce that financial burden and express my conviction that purchasing a building that can be used by our beloved Church; not just for our church, but to serve many churches in London and serve missions and evangelize to all nations. If it is difficult to commit all at once, how about splitting it up? If you are a student rather than a salary-paying office worker, how about providing a portion of living expenses? I hope that we can participate towards this goal with the joy of looking forward to what God will do, rather than viewing it as a financial burden. I will admit, today I have written something down that really isn’t like me.
