Churches owning real estate
Forge Development helps churches, ministries, and landowners unlock the value of underutilized real estate. Strategic advisory, development, acquisitions, partnerships, and ministry-leader investment opportunities. Led by operators who have already built it.
We help lead pastors, staff, and ministry leaders see what their land is actually worth, and what it could become. Honest valuations, scenario modeling, and a clear path before a single dollar is committed.
Development and project management that turns your church's land into revenue supporting the ministry. New sanctuaries, family centers, and campus expansions, plus the retail and medical office projects that pay for them. Executed by operators with work under way in San Antonio, Boston, Orlando, and Houston.
When the right move is to buy, sell, or trade, we source, negotiate, and close commercial real estate transactions on terms that favor long-term ministry capacity over short-term cash.
Underutilized parking lots, education buildings, and back-of-campus acreage rarely belong on a P&L as cost centers. We structure recurring-revenue strategies (leases, ground leases, joint ventures) that fund ministry without selling the asset.
For pastors, ministry executives, and faith-aligned principals: limited-partner positions in vetted commercial real estate projects. Real ownership in real ground, alongside operators who have already built more than 2 million square feet.
A selection of the completed and in-progress work: retail town centers, medical office, professional office, and mixed-use.
Churches routinely hand their biggest real estate decisions to well-meaning volunteers: a broker in the pews, an architect, an engineer. Each siloed in one discipline, some paid on the transaction, none underwriting the next forty years. Millions in value get left on the table, or signed into debt a congregation carries for decades.
Forge is not selling a service. It exists to fill a void: full-stack developers on the church's side of the table before the trigger gets pulled, thinking in forty-year arcs instead of transaction fees. Development, ground leases, and partnerships that turn dormant assets into recurring revenue for ministry.
Tithing members become an investor class holding a tangible asset, with Forge's principals standing alongside as the developer class.
The church keeps the ground it needs. The remainder is prepared and sold to other developers as shovel-ready parcels, priced by the square foot instead of the acre.
Proceeds from the land sales fund the church's build, so the congregation is not signing decades of debt.
Retained ground generates permanent passive income, funding ministry and staff for the long arc.
Roughly 55 acres outside Orlando, at about $5M of land. The church retains 20 acres for its campus. The remaining 35 acres sell to other developers as shovel-ready parcels. Two outcomes: a building paid for by land sales, and retained ground that keeps producing income after the ribbon is cut. An illustrative structure drawn from a live conversation; every deal is underwritten on its own terms.
Compensation, long-term security, and succession are conversations nobody wants to open. Forge opens them for you. One structure: the pastor holds a small ownership stake for the length of their tenure, and its appreciation passes to the incoming pastor at handoff. Generational stability, at no out-of-pocket cost.
Forge Development pairs deep church-side leadership with a working commercial real estate portfolio that has already crossed 2 million square feet. Together Chris and John cover the full conversation, from boardroom to ribbon cutting.
Three decades of leadership across churches, nonprofits, and growing businesses, from staff at Life.Church to the executive team that scaled Orange Leaf past 450 locations in five countries. He knows what a board asks before it votes on land.
Chris Spradlin is the Founder of Forge Development, helping churches and ministries unlock the value of underutilized real estate.
He brings three decades of leadership across churches, nonprofits, and growing businesses, with a working understanding of what boards face when evaluating land and future growth.
Chris previously served on staff at Life.Church under Craig Groeschel, then joined the Executive Team of Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt as the brand expanded to more than 450 locations across five countries, covering site selection, development, construction, franchise growth, and operational launch.
At Forge, Chris works alongside industry veteran John Carlew to help churches transform dormant assets into sustainable resources that fund ministry for the long arc.
Three decades of acquisition, development, and disposition across retail, mixed-use, hospitality, and church property. Having helped open more than 175 business locations, he reads a site for what it will earn, not only what it costs.
John Carlew is the Founding Member of Forge Development, a real estate development company focused on identifying overlooked opportunities, solving complex development challenges, and creating projects that generate long-term value for communities, investors, and stakeholders.
With more than three decades of entrepreneurial and real estate experience, John has participated in the acquisition, development, redevelopment, leasing, management, and disposition of commercial real estate across multiple asset classes. His work spans land development, retail centers, mixed-use projects, hospitality concepts, church properties, and adaptive reuse opportunities.
John's background combines real estate development expertise with extensive operational experience. Throughout his career, he has helped launch and support more than 175 business locations, giving him a working understanding of how real estate decisions directly impact business performance.
At Forge Development, John focuses on transforming underutilized properties into productive assets through thoughtful planning, strategic partnerships, and disciplined execution, producing developments that are financially successful while positively impacting the communities they serve.
With land or without it. With a building fund or without one. Send us a sentence about your church and what you're weighing, and we'll come back with a short, honest read before any decision gets made.