THE EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITIES IN RELIGIOUS REAL ESTATE

BRICKS AND MORTALS: REMOVETHEPEWS.COM

The Extraordinary Opportunities in Religious Real Estate

THE EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY IN RELIGIOUS REAL ESTATE

Religious buildings are rapidly going out of business as religious sites. Deferred maintenance joins membership decline to cause these buildings often to “sell” to the highest bidder or simply go stagnant. Luxury apartment buildings and restaurants compete with spiritually more mission consistency in becoming low income housing or collective work spaces or music halls.

I am the senior minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City and helped to found “Bricks and Mortals,” a city wide organization. We advocate adaptive reuses of religious buildings, including continuation of their spiritual functions. The Judson model of hyper use of sacred space is widely imitated — we sometimes housed five congregations and serviced dozens of not for profits, including extensive Sanctuary work with immigrants.

The stakes are clear. They include rampant privatization and loss of self-governing institutions. They include the loss of spiritual nourishment and a profound sense of…