Church Space founder and CEO Day Edwards, a minister’s daughter, saw an unmet need among churches and fledgling ministries struggling with the costs of acquiring and maintaining their own buildings.

“This is my ministry,” she says. “I was thinking of starting a co-working space for entrepreneurs, but God said, ‘No, you want a co-churching space'".

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Church Space was launched just this fall, and Edwards says most of the initial spaces were scooped up quickly, well before the inaugural open house planned for Dec. 22 at Church Space’s flagship location in northwest Houston. “I had pastors lined up,” she says, speaking by phone with Next City just after showing a space on Houston’s south side. One pastor had been meeting for years in a barber shop, she says; others had been holding services in homes or hotels.

Church Space fees are lower than the going rate for hotel space, Edwards says. She cites hotel rates for a Sunday as $700 to $1,000, while her organization charges $450 for the allotted Sunday plus a weekday.

A high demand for shared church space comes as no surprise to Rev. Patrick Duggan, executive director of the United Church of Christ Church Building and Loan Fund. He sees how more building-sharing could benefit not only new churches, but existing ones that own buildings. 

“There are a lot of underutilized church buildings on the landscape, and the congregations are under duress in terms of what to do,” Duggan says. 

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