{"id":554,"date":"2015-05-19T01:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T05:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/?p=554"},"modified":"2026-04-01T16:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:21:14","slug":"when-not-to-build","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/2015\/05\/19\/when-not-to-build\/","title":{"rendered":"When Not to Build"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just finished reading a book today called <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">When Not to Build: An Architect&#8217;s Unconventional Wisdom for the Growing Church<\/span> by Ray Bowman &amp; Eddy Hall. Here are the three main principles the entire book is based on:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>The Principle of Focus.<\/strong> A church should build only when it can do so without shifting its focus from ministering to people to building a building.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Principle of Use.<\/strong> A church needs more space only when it is fully using the space it already has.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Principle of Provision.<\/strong> A church should build only when it can do so within the income God has provided and without using funds needed for the church&#8217;s present and future ministries to people.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If you believe that a building is part of your church&#8217;s future (as I do for New Day) or you&#8217;re currently making plans to build, I think this is an excellent resource to prepare you for\u00a0building <em>or<\/em> change your mind about building. This book also gives lots of helpful ideas in regards to how to keep growing without building, which I also found very helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just finished reading a book today called When Not to Build: An Architect&#8217;s Unconventional Wisdom for the Growing Church by Ray Bowman &amp; Eddy Hall. Here are the three main principles the entire book is based on: The Principle of Focus. A church should build only when it can do so without shifting its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-resources","7":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Mike","author_link":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/author\/mike\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/1160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}