NEW YORK (RNS) It’s time for housing questions.

First question: With our youngest son off at college, is this the year to downsize? Yes.

Second question: After four years in one Manhattan neighborhood, is this the year to have an adventure? Yes, so let’s look at Brooklyn.

Third question: Can we save enough in rent to justify the cost and hassle of moving? Yes.

OK, that was simple. A month before our current lease is up, my wife and I started looking.

It’s all possible because we are renters. We have owned houses and sold houses, but houses aren’t liquid assets. Even in up markets, they take time and money to sell. In down markets, yesterday’s home can become today’s prison.

As we explored Brooklyn last week, we passed church after church, nearly every one of them showing disrepair, from peeling paint to rusty fences to broken signs to trash-strewn courtyards. Steeples stood tall, but at ground level I saw the Christian landscape in America.

For more and more congregations, owning facilities is no longer affordable.

Maintenance has already been cut to the barest upkeep, perhaps below the tipping point at which decaying facilities become an impediment to growth in membership and a disincentive for retention.

With facilities consuming 50 percent or more of annual revenues, little remains for staff, program and mission. This further discourages growth, because facilities don’t bring in new members. Key attractors are mission and ministry.

It’s time to think about the unthinkable. Churches should consider returning to Christianity’s nomadic roots and getting out of the property-owning business.

Most new congregations already do this. They rent school auditoriums and theaters for Sunday worship and storefronts in strip malls for offices. Some see it as a temporary solution, until they grow enough to build. But more and more new congregations plan to rent forever.

Could existing congregations make the same transition to renting? Walk away from the beloved facilities that they inherited from former generations? Shift to hotel banquet halls and school gyms for weekly worship? Shift weekday ministries to members’ homes and workplace conference rooms?

I’m not talking about the ecclesiastical equivalent of living out of one’s car. I’m talking about creating an attractive space with just the right number of chairs, expandable when growth occurs, with nearby rooms for classes and plenty of parking and restrooms.

No stained-glass windows, of course, pipe organs, or large altars. But those aren’t selling points to prospective constituents anyway. Newcomers rarely see such supposed treasures.

It isn’t just a matter of making limited funds stretch farther. It’s about rediscovering purpose. Many congregations have turned away from mission and become focused almost entirely on keeping physical doors open for Sunday worship and the occasional funeral.

They will let clergy go before they consider gathering elsewhere. They will terminate Sunday School and parish suppers before they abandon familiar pews. Soon, all funds go to heat and light, and the only people who gather are those who remember better days.

That just isn’t a worthy purpose.

Christians are commissioned for mission, working with people, changing lives, creating circles of friends, proclaiming God’s love — not for rationing heat, changing light bulbs and hoping for a large bequest.

If congregations could discover fresh zest, celebrate the joy of being together, and give from the harvest to care for people’s needs, they would grow, thrive and make strong personal contributions to their communities.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter (at)tomehrich.)