All too often, faith leaders interpret separation of church and state to mean they should avoid having much to do with their local governments. City leaders, in turn, often understand Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” to mean they should keep their distance from houses of worship.
Certainly it's important to avoid religious coercion. Yet never have the two entities needed to communicate with and understand each other so much: houses of worship are struggling to survive, and municipalities are fighting to maintain services. Each can help the other, and communities benefit when ministries and local governments work together.
Churches host human services critical to the community. Municipalities control zoning laws and building codes regulating church property use. Churches represent the sorts of “third places” that communities need to prevent social isolation. Municipalities control funding required to develop the workforce, reduce hunger and gun violence, and build affordable, low-income and special-needs housing, among other common interests.
What I’ve found is that most houses of worship have either neutral or adversarial relationships with their city governments. Congregations like to urge governments to spend more money on social services and less on business support; city and county officials grumble about properties that, although recipients of city services, are exempt from property taxes.
(Up to half the value of municipal properties can be exempt from the real property taxes that fund most city government services. Churches, universities and hospitals — some of the latter with religious affiliations — lead the way.)
But I urge Christian leaders to get to know their local governments, long before they need to.
For more than 30 years, I worked in the municipal sector, leading initiatives to revitalize cities where I lived. A decade ago, I left for the “bright side” and went to work for the United Methodist Church. Since the switch, I’ve been perplexed at how disconnected houses of worship are from their local governments.
In one case, I conferred with a mainline Protestant church in a Sun Belt metropolitan area that was struggling with a declining congregation and deteriorating buildings. Its building sits across a narrow alley from city hall. Yet when I asked whether the congregation had spoken with city officials, a senior lay leader said church members were unfamiliar with them. Did the mayor, council members or appointed officials attend the church? I wondered. The lay leader said that had been true in the past, under a former pastor, .
In another case, I worked with a mainline Protestant church in a small, poor Middle Atlantic city with an aging congregation and two nearly empty education buildings. It owned property diagonally across an intersection from its city hall, yet senior church officials didn’t know who the mayor or their council member was. They also didn’t know about their city’s Main Street program, which offers support for revitalization efforts across the country.
The disconnection can occur at the level of a judicatory as well. For example, a judicatory in a growing metropolitan region identified some 30 churches that had surplus property with the potential for development. I knew that their local housing and planning agencies were desperately seeking affordable-housing development opportunities. But a judicatory official said they were hesitant to share their findings.
What can churches do?
Here are six no-cost activities that you can do to promote good relationships with your municipal government.
Learn about your government. Pore over your local government website to learn the government’s structure. Is it a strong mayor or a council-manager system? Do council members represent districts, or are they elected at large? Who are the relevant department heads? Church leaders should sign up for city email lists and add key officials to their email lists.
Invite officials to church functions. Elected officials crave meeting voters. Appointed officials — city managers, police chiefs, directors of planning, directors of public works — can feel disconnected from the public they serve. Both may welcome an opportunity to meet the congregation. And it’s a good way to forge relationships with those officials before you need their services.
Review the laws governing your property. Your church may not pay local property taxes, but its property is regulated by zoning ordinances, building codes and historic preservation regulations. Finding alternative uses for properties is a way for churches to diversify revenues while embedding themselves further into the community. It’s best to know city regulations before going down the road of reuse and redevelopment.
Calculate the economic value of your church. Partners for Sacred Places and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice have developed a methodology for calculating the monetary value to the community of social services hosted by a house of worship — food pantries, clothing closets, child care centers, etc. They call it the “economic halo effect.” This information can help counterbalance the idea that church properties don’t contribute to the city.
Host community functions. Local governments are forever looking for spaces for community meetings, as are neighborhood associations. Houses of worship, especially those with good audiovisual equipment, can provide needed meeting space. Hosting groups can be a first step in demonstrating to neighbors that your church is willing to serve the community.
Talk to your congregants. Members of your congregation may be among your local officials or may have expertise in working with local government. Don’t ignore the experience in your midst.
Will governments respond?
These relationships are mutually beneficial, and there are some exciting partnerships across the country, especially in the development of affordable housing.
The city of Jacksonville, Florida, partnered with St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral and four other churches to create a Cathedral District nonprofit. The organization focuses not only on the health of the five churches but also on the viability of the neighborhood. It has hosted a series of community conversations on topics such as adaptive reuse of commercial buildings, housing, public art and even “the power of two-way streets.”
Five city and county governments in the Washington, D.C., area have engaged Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit corporation, to work with houses of worship interested in developing affordable housing on their surplus properties. It is looking for consultants and coaches to support the clergy involved in the effort.
A few state and local governments, frustrated by neighborhood NIMBY (“Not in my Backyard”) opposition, have passed laws that remove roadblocks for churches that want to develop affordable housing on surplus properties. California and Maryland lead the way at the state level, Seattle and Atlanta among cities.
Some municipalities have institutionalized relationships between town and robe: Montgomery County, Maryland, has formed and staffed a Faith Community Advisory Group; New York City has the Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships.
And if such a partnership doesn’t exist in your city, maybe you could propose one. Who knows what might happen if you walk across the street and start the conversation?
