Pastor T.L. Rogers, head of a mid-sized church in suburban Maryland, calls himself a “closet developer.”

“One thing that makes my heart beat is the smell of drywall. I love to look at something and see what it can become,” says Rogers, who led his Hyattsville, Md., Baptist church in renovating a strip mall in the late 1990s. The church sanctuary is now a former Soap-N-Suds dry cleaners, the church administration office inhabits a former Domino’s Pizza and a former Duron Paint store is now the church fellowship hall.

Having completed that project, Rogers and his congregation are thinking even bigger: “We want to reach out into the community,” he says. They recently purchased a restaurant, which they plan to tear down, next to their church.…