Churches in Schools

Does your church gather in a school? Any problems?

Here’s a clip from USAToday:

Every Sunday morning, the elementary school in Queens, like dozens more schools in New York City and thousands more nationwide, is transformed into a house of worship for a few hours.

There’s no tally of how many churches, synagogues and mosques convert public school spaces into prayer places for the nominal cost of permits and promises to make no permanent changes in the school setting. What’s clear is that there has been a steady rise in numbers as congregations find schools are available, affordable and accessible to families they want to reach.

Critics, including some courts, are concerned that these arrangements are an unconstitutional entanglement of church and state. They say these bargain permits effectively subsidize religious congregations who would have to pay steeply higher prices on the open market. They also note that the practice appears to favor Christian groups, which worship on Sundays — when school spaces are most often available….

So Forest Hills’ evangelical founder and pastor, Jeremy Sweeten, still rises early each Sunday, hitches up a 20-foot trailer packed by PortableChurch.com with every bit of paraphernalia needed to create a sanctuary and children’s Bible classes, tows it to the school.

Arriving at P.S. 144, the trailer is swarmed by volunteers such as Bible college student Bill Dupree, who hoists the trusses for the sound stage in the cafeteria, and Nicki Stepp, who organizes a little classroom between colorful plastic snap-together partitions in the gym….

•A 2007 national survey of newly established Protestant churches found that 12% met in schools, according to LifeWay, a Nashville-based Christian research agency.

LifeWay Director Ed Stetzer says the major draw is that start-up congregations and expanding multisite churches can offer worship close to families’ homes for a fraction of the cost of creating their own building.

However, Stetzer, who also leads church-planting efforts, says he sees the constitutional dangers. When asked to address this with school districts, Stetzer says he cautions they will have no control over the religious preaching and teaching.

“So if a Wiccan coven (wanted a use permit), you would have to be as neutral as you would with an evangelical church. Even Westboro (the Topeka, Kan., congregation that pickets funerals with signs denouncing gays) could move in and you would have no way to stop them,” Stetzer says.