I think that location of the church building is hardly a factor when it comes to outreach. It's not very likely that you'll get people to come to your worship services or events at the church building in this day and age, so rather than trying to bring people in to our assemblies, we need to take Jesus to them where they're at. I think the church building is one of the last places that evangelism will initially take place, so the location hardly matters.

Of course, our church building is used by other organizations like alcoholics annon., so having a church building located in the city is helpful for that.

I know we do a lousy job of using our building as a resource. We have a great location on a good highway with amazing visibility and easy access, and it sits empty most of the time. We've been trying to get it used for some community events (school in service days and etc.) and hopefully we'll do better on that as time goes on.

For outreach - not important. Unless you refuse to minister to those in its neighborhood. Then maybe it isn't the church building that's in the wrong location. Think about it.

Ours is pretty utilized. We host a great AA group on Tuesday and Friday evening. A couple of groups use it every Thursday evening. Saturdays and Sundays are typically full of activities. Until recently, we have allowed non-members to use our building for weddings. We're taking a break from that right now because there were so many we couldn't handle them all. We have foster parenting classes here during the day on Wednesdays, Ladies Bible Classes on Tuesdays. We used to have a Summer School program until the director moved away. We have a food pantry located in our building for our community that's open on Wednesday Mornings and Thursday evenings. Probably lots more that I'm forgetting right now.

Our building is here to be used. We rarely say no to anyone, and we don't get all uptight about protecting the walls or carpet from showing signs of use. It's not here to look pretty.

Location shouldn't be a factor, but our church is conveniently located on Main Street across from a beautiful park! Besides our Sunday morning activies, we also have a Wednesday night outreach to the children of our community for ages 3 through grade 6. It was a blessing to attend the Elementary Spring Music Concert and discover that there were few families within our city limits that we hadn't impacted at one point in time. We provide rides for the kids to and from our one hour program of music, lessons, games and crafts.

We also have a weekly Mother's Prayer group that has seen wonderful answers to prayer over the years. Our daughters have come through "not so good" relationships to find wonderful Christian husbands to father our grandchildren. Our sons have ventured out and most have found their special calling in God's plan. Recently we had a lady from another church in town start coming "just to listen and learn how to pray".

I definitely agree that our outreach needs to move outside the walls of our church. The command of Jesus was to "Go ye into ALL the world". I don't think He ever intended for us to just sit inside the church and expect the needy to come to us! Earlier this year I was blessed by the message of a gentleman who was planting house churches. He said that the familiar picture of Jesus knocking at the door has always been suggested to mean He is knocking on the doors of our heart. He now sees a new meaning for the picture. . .that Jesus is outside of the churches knocking on the door and asking us to join Him out in the world. Might not be a bad idea!

~Diane