Sacred spaces are at risk in our nation. Bob Jaeger is working to protect them.
Bob Jaeger is the co-founder of Partners for Sacred Spaces, an organization that serves historical sacred spaces and enables them to be more sustainable and better serve their communities and congregations. Bob previously worked with the Philadelphia Historic Preservation Corporation and served as Senior Vice President for the Historic Religious Properties Program. Bob is also the coauthor of Sacred Places at Risk.
I sat down with Bob on January 31, 2025, to discuss the disappearance of sacred spaces in America—and how Bob and his organization are fighting to protect and revitalize them. The transcript of our interview is below.
Can you describe the problem that churches and sacred spaces are currently facing?
Well, as you can imagine, many of these buildings are elaborately built. So, it takes a lot of attention and resources to take care of them. You’ve got towers, domes, and complicated groves, often stained-glass or leaded windows, multiple doors, and complicated heating systems, just lots of different spaces. It’s not uncommon for churches or synagogues to have ten or twenty spaces throughout buildings of various sizes. Managing that is always a challenge, and as the buildings get older, finding the right expertise and the right contractors to take care of them is a challenge as well. Another complication is that many congregations are smaller than they once were, so they don’t have the same budget and number of people to take care of everything.
Often, these buildings show a lot of wear and tear as they house programs that serve their larger communities. It’s a lot for a congregation to contend with, but it’s the main reason we exist. To provide resources and guidance, and to build the capacity of congregations, working together to take care of these spaces is a must.
Given the diversity of religious backgrounds, I can imagine that needs differ in different places and spaces. Can you speak to what working with different denominations and religions is like and how those differences can affect your work?
Indeed, even in a small town you may have a dozen different denominations, many of which have lots of different traditions. The resources they have available varies considerably. Some churches may be very independent, such as a Baptist church or a Pentecostal church. These churches don’t have a denomination to help them. Others have a diocese or presbytery that may be able to offer some assistance. That can make a difference. That’s not to say that if you’re Presbyterian, your presbyter will help you out every time you have a repair issue. Still, there may be some resources.
But independent churches have fewer resources, so we try to keep that in mind when we work with congregations. Do they have the freedom to do what they want? Do they need help finding a good architect? Do they know how to get good contractors? Does the congregation need some training and help to understand what it takes to take care of the building?
So, some congregations have some of those resources in house and some do not.
I can imagine that it can be a challenge just finding contractors and architects who actually have the necessary skills and have worked on historical buildings in the more classical style.
Exactly. Let’s say you have a slate roof. Well, not every roofer can repair slate. How do you find the right roofer who can handle it? If you need to replace some slate, sometimes the congregation is told, “The whole roof needs to go. We need to put a whole new roof on.” But a roofer who knows slate might say, “No, no, no, you need to replace some of the slate, but not all of it.” So, finding that contractor who really knows their stuff and can give you good, honest advice can be a challenge. We hear of churches who have a dishonest contractor who may even walk away with the money before the work is done. There are all kinds of challenges for a congregation to work its way through.
How do you go about determining mission or cultural alignment with contractors or the organizations that use the space?
That’s at the heart of a lot of our work right now, because it’s very common for a congregation to have a lot of spaces that go underused or unused. How do they figure out how to use that space in a way that’s in keeping with their mission and purpose?
Often a lot of our work now is helping to connect a congregation with its neighbors, which might seem unnecessary. But a lot of congregation members are commuting in from miles away, so they don’t know their neighbors as well as they did in the past. One of our jobs is to help congregations get into conversation about opportunities to share their spaces. To allude to what you just mentioned, to do it in a way that ensures congregations and the nonprofits using their spaces are aligned in terms of value and priorities. They should see the world the same way, like, “We’re here to serve the underserved.” There was a really great example across the street from our office, an old Baptist congregation that was thinking about putting new users in the old Sunday school wing of its church. They were talking to theater companies about the possibility of having rehearsals and performances in that space. When we helped the church and these companies talk to each other, they realized that they both wanted to give voice to the voiceless. The theater companies wanted to do productions that would give voice to those who are not normally heard, and the church felt the same way. The companies took residence in the old Sunday school wing. They built basically a theater there, where they did their rehearsals and performances. But that took some conversation and some discussion, like “Do we want to serve some of the same people and for some of the same reasons?” One of the things we try to do is to help churches and synagogues with those conversations and make good decisions about who they share their space with.
Interestingly, the companies inserted the theater space beautifully, so it didn’t destroy anything. It’s a historic building, not just the worship space, but the other spaces were also historic. The church wanted to protect that, so they inserted this rehearsal/performance space really beautifully. They had a box office and stored sets in the old gymnasium of the church. They were really creative! But they did that thoughtfully and together.
Do you find that sacred spaces are more on the minds of local communities after some of the work you’ve done, whether or not they are a direct partner? Are they more engaged with those spaces?
Exactly, they are, which is really important. Otherwise, if there’s no connection and engagement, there can be miscommunication and resentment. I’ll give you an example. If the church doesn’t have a lot of parking on Sunday mornings, you’ll know every single parking space is taken on the street. I live in Philadelphia, which is very dense. Neighbors can get irritated if the church is taking up all the parking. But there are ways to accommodate each other and talk. That’s what happens when churches open up their spaces and talk to their neighbors. They can make sure that the neighbors appreciate and support them.
One thing we haven’t talk about yet is money. Congregations need money to fix the roof or to replace boilers. Their conversations with their neighbors make it more likely that the community will support them.
Now we are getting into philanthropy. Can a congregation make its case that they are a community asset? Basically, the area community center. Whether it’s a neighbor, business, or a community foundation, they can see this place not just as Methodist or Baptist but as a community place. So yes, that can really help build a bond and lay a foundation for good fundraising
How much of your work is in compact urban areas, like Philadelphia, and how much of it is in smaller communities?
We deal with all kinds of communities, including urban, suburban, and rural. We've done a lot of work looking at the economic impact of both urban and rural congregations. Some of our programs are focused solely on rural areas and small towns. For example, we have a program serving Nordic heritage churches in the upper Midwest – Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas. Most of these churches are in smaller towns or rural areas. I remember visiting a Swedish church about a quarter of a mile from the Canadian border, so close you could see the border from the church. It was that far north, and nothing was around it.
But these churches represent the cultural heritage of the Swedes who settled there and they had this great story to tell. The building told that story. We really think it's important to work with a wide range of congregations like this.
What are the differences between making a fundraising plan for a rural versus suburban area?
The approach is the same for both areas but the details can differ. In an urban area, you've got lots of people around you and probably more foundations and funders in your community. But going back to the Nordic project, we've been working with an Icelandic Lutheran church. Yes, there are Icelandic churches in North Dakota, very small congregations in the middle of the countryside. This church has a cemetery there. Is there a lot of wealth and a lot of foundations there? No, but in this project, they went into the cemetery and wrote down the names of all Icelandic people buried there, and worked to figured out who their descendants were. They found the descendants’ addresses, then wrote them a letter to invite them to participate in their fundraising campaign. They raised, I think, $30,000. Now for a small church, that’s a lot of money. For a big church, it may be less significant, but for this much smaller one it helped fund repairs and keep the building up and running. They were really creative. They knew that fostering those connections might represent support.
It must be a major strength to have shared cultural and ethnic connection points.
Exactly, we spent a lot of time talking to congregations about all the different relationships they should think about and should explore. In the case of the Nordic church, there are people from that heritage scattered around who would possibly really care about them. Former members who have moved away, people who care about Swedish or Icelandic heritage. If you're an African American church in a big city, same thing. There are people who care about you who may have moved away, people who care about the African-American experience or people who care about Black neighborhoods. There are lots of congregations that need some encouragement to think in in new ways about the people they could be talking to.
Most congregations, going back forever, have raised all their capital funds from their own members. Almost every dollar comes from the members. That's fine if you have 500 members. But if you now have 100 or 75 members, you have to think differently. What we've learned is if they make a good case and tell their story in a powerful way, one third to two thirds of their capital funds can come from non-members, which is pretty powerful. We talk about foundations, of course, and local government, and we talk about neighbors. But one source that not a lot of congregations think about, which might be the most productive, is former members who moved away. For instance, you know that if you if you're in the north maybe they move south where it's warmer, but they still care about you.
When we train congregations we ask, “How many of you, by show of hands, keep in touch with your former members?” If we have 50 people in the room, can you guess how many raise their hands? Almost none.
The bottom line is to broaden your fundraising approach because you have a powerful story to tell, not just to your members and former members but to your neighbors, etc. It’s a new way for congregations to think about their communities and for communities to think about their churches, too. It goes both ways.
To play devil’s advocate, a lot of people would say, “Why invest in some of these more historical places that have higher expenses and upkeep when you can just use any space?”
We do hear the argument. One reason to keep investing is that these older historic buildings have enormous cultural value, and I mean enormous! They have enormous meaning for the people in that neighborhood. They've been around for 50 or 100 or even 150 years.
I think about the Black church in a Black community that has been there since 1955 after the Great Migration. Well, that church has been at the heart of that community, serving it in lots of different ways. Could the congregation move into a concert hall? Yes, but then they’ve lost that place that has so much to say about civil rights, voting, serving people in need, and serving the poor.
Then there's the artistic side. In many neighborhoods, these churches have the preponderance of artistic excellence, whether it's existing glass, maybe Tiffany, or the sculptures or the paintings or the carved wood.
Do they take more money to take care of? Yes. Does it sometimes take a creative approach? Yes.
Also, these older buildings have lots of different kinds of space. If you're in a Quonset hut, you've got one big, pretty ugly space to work with. But a church might have 15-20 different rooms. You’ve got the sanctuary. You've got the Sunday school room. You’ve got the parlor and the dining room. You’ve got the kitchen. You've got 12 classrooms, and you've got all this space. A congregation can serve their community in many different ways through these spaces. If you're in a steel building on the edge of the city with no character, you're not going to have all those spaces to work with.
I think that's an interesting contrast, too. Many places are buildings made to last for a little bit and then get replaced, which you can see in the architecture. Then you see these other places that were built with a certain amount of care. Like you said, careful detailing and design, and even the rooms were meant to last.
Exactly, you might think a modern building functions similarly, but it doesn't add to the character and beauty of a neighborhood. Or at least they typically do not. There are modern churches that are beautiful, but if you're talking about leaving your historic church and going into a warehouse, it's just not going to be the same.
But it’s also true that congregations, if they stay in those great buildings, need help. That's our message: they need help. These are de facto community centers for much of the week. Can philanthropy, can government, can businesspeople see it that way? Maybe they don't want to get tangled up in the religious side, but can they see that these are civic assets?
Are there any particular cases or churches whose stories you’d like to highlight?
Well, one that we love to talk about is as a Methodist church in my neighborhood in West Philadelphia. It's called Calvary Methodist. They've done a lot of the things we encourage, including creating a separate secular nonprofit to help them manage the building and raise money. It's called the Calvary Center for Culture and Community, so if you look up Calvary Methodist in Philadelphia, you'll find this place.
They have opened up their church building and shared it with countless organizations. There have been times when they've had three, four, or five congregations also worshiping there. They had a synagogue there for a while, and a Mennonite church. They've raised a lot of money from outside the congregation. In other words, they've done a lot of the right things.
It's still a challenge. We've worked with this church for years and for years they have been the poster child for what to do and how to be creative. But the pandemic did a number on many congregations, because they were relying on their tenants and uses of their spaces to generate a lot of the money they needed to take care of the building. That all ended.
Calvary Methodist has started to come back, but it wasn't overnight. It's a great example of a church doing a lot of the things that we encourage. And yet they have to be vigilant and stay persistent, because one thing, like a pandemic, can be the monkey-wrenchthat ruins the machinery. They've really been working hard to stay in connection, and there's a special services district that's going to help them. They've met foundations to help them, and we've been there for them.
This church is now at the point of rebuilding what they had before the pandemic. A lot of congregations have had to do things that they never really did before. A lot of congregations have found way to rebound from the pandemic, and Calvary Methodist is an example of a church whose story isn’t over. They will continue to really work hard to keep that place going.
For instance, it's now become the neighborhood town hall. It's the place for performances and larger gatherings, voting, and a whole range of things. It’s not just a Methodist church anymore. It's a great place and since you love architecture, they have two huge Tiffany windows.
Over Covid, many churches started to televise their services more than before the shutdown. Many people found that they preferred it. What are strategies churches are using to say, “Places are important. It's good to be in a physical church”?
That's a really good question, and I think you're right. A lot of people got used to worshipping from home. If you're elderly or not so mobile anymore, it can be a real gift to be able to participate from home. But congregations are really working hard to say, “That's great, but if you're here in person and experience the building in person and see your neighbors, give them a hug, it's personal. It's powerful. So we hope you can come back, maybe not every week, but do come back and experience this in person.” I think most congregations are continuing their virtual broadcast of the services. But they also want people to come back. That's a tricky thing. You don't want to stop your broadcast, and yet you do want to encourage people to come back in person. It's like other parts of American life, like theaters. I think people have come back to theaters, to see a movie or to see a play, because it's different than watching it online. The challenge is balancing the two.
