Upon returning to the United States on furlough, a missionary family from Africa was provided a home by their host church. It was much larger than the space they had occupied overseas. As much as the children enjoyed the extra room, the mother lamented that she had lost her family.The sense of connection they had shared in their small, admittedly inconvenient, house in Africa was quickly lost in the larger American home. Eventually the family returned to Africa and reestablished that sense of connection.

Space matters.

When it comes to designing, securing, and using space, many church leaders are motivated by practicality—how many people can fit inside? As good as this intention may be, we must go beyond that. Ultimately we must ask what space will help us have the greatest gospel impact—not just quantitatively (how many people can we accommodate?) but also qualitatively (how is this space forming people spiritually?).

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In early 2008, we made the decision at Fairhaven Church to move forward with an $8 million construction project, even as the signs of recession popped up everywhere. Reports of other churches delaying or canceling plans for expansion were easy to find. We concluded that we should move ahead carefully, yet confidently.

Why? What questions did we wrestle through that led us to conclude that moving forward was the right decision?

Below are 10 questions to help you galvanize the issues that are important in balancing the uncertainties of the economy with the need for building expansion:

Recently I talked with a senior partner of TAG Consulting, Kurt Andre. Among his many talents, Kurt is a certified Executive Leadership Coach. So I asked him which books on leadership he finds the most helpful. Here are his top 5:

Walk the streets of Disney World, and visitors are transported into a magical world of creativity and inspiration. Mel McGowan, a former Disney Imagineer and now president of Visioneering Studios, a national church architecture firm, brings this same expectation for creativity and inspiration to ministry facilities.

My daughter was reaching out to Daddy. What a joy to see our nine-month-old longing for me from the arms of the nursery worker following our mid-week service. Hannah was being gently rocked by the wife of one of our elders, but it was clear she wanted down. I thanked the woman for watching our daughter while I led a prayer group and my wife taught some of the older children. She assured me that she held Hannah the entire time, except when Hannah was sleeping in one of the stacked cribs. While I appreciated her diligence, I let her know that Hannah enjoyed crawling.

"I'm not comfortable with her crawling on this floor," the worker replied.

The floor was carpeted and vacuumed regularly, so I asked why. With a look that conveyed a terrible secret, she confessed, "The carpet may look clean, but it's laid on a wood floor that was built on top of the original tile floor because we have a water problem. I'm sure you smell the mustiness."

I acknowledged the damp smell. She continued, "I don't want to get anyone in trouble, but look at the wallpaper." She pointed out some dark spots that crept up from below the carpet level. "I don't let any babies crawl on this floor."

Since the 12th century, Christian church buildings and steeples have been practically inseparable. Noted British architect, mathematician, and astronomer Sir Thomas Wren, who was commissioned to rebuild many churches destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, placed special emphasis on steeples and spires. His designs continue to be embraced, resulting in churches that are as beautiful as they are useful.

Steeples have long been used as means of communication. Steeple bells ring to tell the neighborhood, town, or village that services are beginning (or ending), or that an important announcement will soon be made. And on April 18, 1775, two lanterns displayed in the steeple of Boston's Christ Church, also known as the Old North Church, warned Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British were attacking by sea.

Today, steeples remain an icon of American churches. But choosing a steeple for a church building, or even deciding to have one, is far from a simple decision. Fortunately, manufacturers and providers of steeples understand their church clients, and offer a wide variety of steeple products that will last many years.

At the TAG Consulting Leaders Forum in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week, Jim Osterhaus spoke on a topic that comes up every day in church leadership, yet is so challenging: How do you navigate competing values?

Jim is senior partner of TAG Consulting, a veteran psychologist, and author of Thriving through Ministry Conflict: By Understanding Your Red and Blue Zones (Zondervan, 2005).

Jim says, "Competing values wreak havoc." Yet they can be hard to discover in yourself or in your church, because "Our minds can hold two competing values and then go about covering up the contradictions."

At the TAG Consulting Leaders Forum in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week, noted Christian leader Leighton Ford spoke on how to move from crazed busyness to focused attentiveness. Leighton is president of Leighton Ford Ministries. For 30 years he served as associate evangelist and later vice president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His newest book is The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things (InterVarsity, 2008). In introducing Leighton, Jim Osterhaus pointed out that Leighton has been at the forefront of 4 major church movements of the past 50 years: mass evangelism (with BGEA), reclaiming the social dimensions of the gospel (with Lausanne), the study of leadership (with Arrow Leadership Program), and now the reintroduction to evangelicalism of the good of contemplative living (his books).