It should be understood that good planning does more than simply meet the need for increased capacity. Proper planning takes a long-term look at where God is leading you and where you may grow over time. Many churches that have not thought through their future sufficiently will find their expansion inadequate shortly after beginning to use it.  This is an indicator that they are doing some things right from a ministry standpoint, but doing things wrong from a facility planning standpoint. If you are not already stuck at a limiting cap (such as leveling at 80% or having insufficient parking), you can use your present average rate of growth as the percentage figure for planning your future growth. For example, if you have been growing at 10% per year on average, use this as the guidelinefor when you’ll need to add additional services, provide increased capacity or relocate from your present site. Mathematically you can do a straight line projection of the 10% increase to determine population in 10, 15 or 20 years. This is, of course, assuming that your current mode of growth can continue to be effective given the demographics of your area.
How this plays out in a facility and number of services may be as follows: Let’s say that your church Worship Center has a capacity of 250 and you are in one service. You’ve started out with 120 people and have been growing at a rate of 10%. In about 6 years you have hit your 80% capacity and add a second service. Growing at the same 10% rate in 7 years you will have reached the capacity (80%) of those worship services and then will need to do two things: (1) add a third service, and (2) begin planning a new facility.
This example is based on the assumption that the attendance will be the same at both services, which is not usually the case. There tends to be certain “most desirable” hours in America, particularly between 10:00 and 11:00, which will end up reaching capacity first. There may be ways to encourage people to go to a less occupied service, however this may not be effective. Statistically, then, you may be running at 90% capacity in one service and 60% capacity in another service. If your growth tends to stabilize at this level, it is an indication that it is time to provide a larger venue and begin making plans for an expanded facility. In this case, a third/later service can be added with the understanding that it is a temporary situation to provide for continued growth until you get into the facility with greater capacity.
When planning the expanded facility, the rule of thumb is to double the capacity. If your seating is at 250, then the Worship Center should have a capacity of 500. Again using the straight line growth projection you should get an idea of how many years you can sustain your growth, remembering that if you are in three services and are going to go back to two services, you will not have quite as long to grow in this new facility and may eventually have to add the third service again. (In other words it does not provide a true doubling approach over time, since one service has been eliminated.)
In addition to the numerical or attendance planning there has to be the financial planning. New facilities cost money. This results in the need for capital Stewardship campaigns and some mortgage debt. It is not feasible to continue to increase debt disproportionately to the Church’s ability to pay for it. As a result, it is important that a realistic financial plan be developed both in terms of the cost of the project and the increased budget needs that a new facility brings. For more information see Financial Planning.

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