What Churches Should Know About Moving from a Portable Campus to a Permanent Facility

Is your church thinking about or already moving from a portable location to permanent facility? Recently, Radiant Church in Kansas City, Kansas switched from a mobile setup. They were a church plant that was meeting in a rented space every week until the recent move. David Jeong, the AVL Lead at Radiant Church grew up a preacher’s kid in South Korea and says he had no plan to work in ministry, “I said, ‘Dad, I'll do anything in my life except for being a pastor or being in full-time ministry, stuff like that.’ And the Lord said, ‘Jokes on you!’”  Jeong’s family moved to the United States in 2015 and he went to a small Christian school where he joined the worship tech team to try and make friends and because the technology looked fun. There he developed a passion to learn about AVL and from that point he got involved at his church. Now he’s the AVL Lead at Radiant and just last year they went through the process of developing out a new and permanent facility. “It's in the greater Kansas City area. It's a pretty busy street. It was a sports recreation center beforehand,” and he says it still is. “They're actually right behind our main auditorium. So sometimes I see volleyball in our main auditorium underneath chairs and what not.” After they bought the building and did minimal renovations, Jeong says they decided to use their portable AV systems to worship in the new building while they renovated. It was a smart move because they didn’t have to pay rent at the old location while they renovated the new facility. Jeong’s first piece of advice? “I would actually suggest utilizing professionals,” he explains. “Whether it be system design and especially, especially, especially if you're rigging anything above people's heads. Do not ever do it by yourself. It's dangerous. It could fall. It's a liability.”Listen to this podcast to hear Joseph Cottle talk with Jeong at length about the entire process and the pros and cons of how they did it.