Most churches don’t think of their land and buildings as an asset to be actively managed. They think of them, understandably, as the place where ministry happens — a building used well on Sundays, and often standing comparatively quiet the rest of the week. That’s not wrong, but it leaves a genuine question unasked: is this property, in this location, doing everything it reasonably could for ministry, mission, and the wider community around it?
I’m an independent architectural consultant, and I have worked on church renewal projects through feasibility, concept design and completion work on the renewal at Cross Life Asquith. The principles below apply just as directly to Presbyterian, Baptist, and independent evangelical churches across Sydney facing the same underlying question about their property.
Why This Question Is Coming Up More Often
Sydney Anglican Property, formed in 2023 through the merger of several existing diocesan bodies, exists to help parishes make better use of what they already own. Its CEO, Ross Jones, has framed the opportunity around stewardship — describing church land as an inheritance from earlier generations, and cautioning that leaving it underused would be a poor way to honour that inheritance.
It’s a useful way to frame the issue for any church, not just an Anglican one. Jones has also pointed out that many Anglican churches sit on some of the best-positioned land in their communities — a pattern that holds just as true for long-established evangelical churches of other denominations across Sydney. Whether or not a church has a diocesan or denominational body prompting this conversation, the underlying architectural question is the same.
Two Common Situations, Two Different Responses
Church property tends to fall into one of two situations, and each calls for a different kind of church development work.
The first is the growth-corridor situation: a congregation planting or expanding into a fast-growing suburb, where the priority is establishing a functioning facility quickly enough to become part of a new community’s social fabric from the outset. Several Anglican churches built in Sydney’s growth areas illustrate this well. This is close to the site feasibility work I’ve done through Chung Architects — testing a site honestly against worship, children’s, gathering and administrative needs, before commitment.
The second is the established-site situation. Many older church properties carry land that’s already owned but doing far less than it could — an ageing hall used a few hours a week, a large site with only a single-storey building on it, underused car parking. The proposed redevelopment at Christ Church Inner West’s Five Dock site is one example of what can be done here — new housing, retail and commercial space, a childcare centre and public gathering space, planned around retaining and properly maintaining the heritage church itself. A project like that only works architecturally if the ministry use is protected and enhanced, not squeezed aside.
What This Kind of Architectural Work Looks Like
This is where I think an architect’s role in a church property conversation is often underestimated. A diocesan or denominational property body, where one exists, can identify strategic opportunity at a portfolio level and help navigate funding and approvals. What it generally doesn’t replace is the close, site-specific architectural work that turns “this site has potential” into a workable proposal — the kind of work I took through from feasibility to concept design and completion at Cross Life Asquith.
In practice, that includes:
Utilisation assessment — understanding how a property is actually used across a full week, not just a Sunday, to identify space that’s idle or underused.
Site and planning analysis — testing access, parking, heritage overlays and planning controls against what a church might want to achieve, since these constraints usually shape what’s realistically possible more than ambition does.
Feasibility studies for prospective new uses, assessed specifically against whether the church’s own ministry program can continue to function properly alongside them.
Concept design through to completion, carrying a project from an early feasibility assessment through documentation, construction and the settling-in period once a congregation is using the finished building.
This asks a congregation to be candid about underused space, which isn’t always a comfortable conversation — but it’s a genuinely useful one to have early, before significant time and cost go into a specific direction.
Getting an Architecturally-Led View Early
Whether a church is engaging with a formal property process or simply aware, as many are, that their property could be doing more for mission than it currently does, the most useful first step is usually the same: an independent architectural assessment of what’s actually possible on the site, before committing to a specific proposal.
Property is rarely the reason a church exists. But for many established congregations, it’s one of the most significant assets available to support the ministry that is — and understanding how well that asset is currently being used is worth the same care as any other part of a church’s mission.