1. Plan For Facilities From Day 1 – If you just planted, in 5-7 years you’ll need a building or a new job!
2. Build A Long Runway – “Church Building - How long does it take…really?
3. Track Everything – Good financials and attendance numbers put the bank’s bean counters at ease.
4. Define “Healthy” Early - If you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time. Understand what the metrics of healthy are for your church.
5. Measure “Healthy”- What gets measured gets done.
I covered this a little in Part 2 but it’s worth a deeper dive.
More often than not these days, the bank(s) you work with are going to be more interested in your margin than your equity, cash position, or anything else. You may have 6 million dollars coming in, but if it goes right back out they’ll see that as a stumbling block for debt service.
You have to be able to repay what you borrow
Focus right here: While the bank can tell you what you CAN afford, it’s your responsibility to determine what you WILL afford. Many times their CAN afford will eat up every bit of margin you have. If we only learn one thing from the financial meltdown, hopefully, it’s to take responsiblity for our own affordability. Continue Reading…
Why $1,200 you ask? Because it seems to be the average giving per person in healthy churches we build for. (There are also some national stats that put the number in this ballpark) In the course of a normal year I have approximately 80-90 significant conversations with churches at various stages of preparing for church construction. Any time a church gives me their total attendance number (Men, Women, and Children) I make a guess at their annual budget based by multiplying their attendance by $1,200. Often I’m within the margin of error on my guess. When I’m not in the ballpark I’m usually high, meaning the average per person is lower than $1,200. That’s when I start asking more questions about the financial health of the church. Most of those churches don’t have enough margin to secure enough financing to cover what they need to build. If you don’t have margin you CAN’T build.
Don’t build until you’re healthy!! Building a new facility to get a church healthy is like having a baby to save a marriage. Continue Reading…
Ironic how the "thing" we tend to trust more than God has "In God We Trust" written on it isn't it?
If there is one thing you should know before you buy anything it’s how much you’re willing or able to pay. The only way you can possibly understand how much you should to spend is to have a solid understanding of how this purchase impacts everything else you want or need to spend money on. That’s budgeting 101 right?
So when you get ready to add ministry space should you have more than a spitball number for how much you’re going to invest? If you answered yes, do you know how to get from a spitball estimate to a hard number you’re prepared to live with?
Here are a few things to consider as you prepare to thrust your ministry into a building project.
1. Trust God – Most of the time when I hear people say they are going to trust God with their project it’s usually in the context of trusting him to fund the gap between affordability and what they believe they need. Sometimes that’s where the trust should be. Sometimes it should be trusting him to crank out some ministry in what is less than ideal.
2. Get Your House In Order – If you aren’t keeping good records on everything from attendance to your profit and loss statement and balance sheet start now. Go back as far as possible and get information that will allow you to tell the story of your church from a financial stewardship perspective. You’ll need to be able to paint a vision for the future based on where you’ve been and where you going. You’ll be able to use this with banks and the people who are going to invest in the future of your ministry.
3. You Determine The Cost - Raise your hand if you still think it’s wise to let a financial institution determine what you can afford? When banks assess your affordability they’ll look at every available dollar you have to make payments with. In most cases they look at your ”descretionary income” as their backup plan for payments should you hit a rough patch. (You call it missions, they call it descretionary income) The challenge with this line of thinking is that God wants us to live with margin. He wants that for us personally and as a church. There are some downright fine people serving churches in the banking industry today. Don’t make them responsible for something God has made you responsible for.
Why I Love My Work
One of the defining characteristics of Cogun has always been our passion for serving churches. I’m constantly encouraged to add value to you as the little church so you can make a huge impact on the big church. If you need some help getting dangerous on your total project budget email me at rwchancy@cogun.com. I’d love to invest in your ministry by helping you nail it d0wn.
Click Here to read more about Church Construction Budgets
How do you know when its time for your church to build? Here are four things to think about when you’re thinking about building.
1. Finances – obviously money matters when you’re building a new facility. Here is blog I wrote specifically on Church Construction and Money.
2. Max Facility Use - Do you have a document that outlines how your facility is currently being used for ministry? The least expensive ministry space you’ll ever have is what you have right now. Before you think about building or renovating a thing, you want to make sure you’ve thought through every square foot of the current facility. How many services are you in right now? Could you add another one? Could you do a video venue? My church uses the same space on Sunday Mornings for middle school and Sunday afternoon for high school. Do you really need all that Sunday school space or could it be repurposed for a more effective use? (Touchy subject I know)
3. R U Ready? – This is the one thing most pastors I work with fail to realize. This process will take more of your energy than you think. It will take more of your time than you think. It takes longer than you think and it will require you to spend more of your influence than you think.
Being ready means you’ve got your hands wrapped tightly around the vision God has given you, hold on to it. You’ll constantly need that vision to recenter you when the difficulty arises. It means you don’t have secrets. (I trust you know what I’m talking about). Secrets often find a way not to be so secretive when you are trying to make a big impact for the kingdom. Being ready means you’ve weighed the cost and you are personally ready to pay it.
IF THE LEADER ISN’T READY….THE CHURCH ISN’T READY!
4. The “Great Deal” - Stumbling on great deal for land, or a building does not mean it’s time for you church to build. I met with a church a couple years back that bought 11 acres for their church because the price had dropped so much. Now they are trying to sell 11 acres in a down market because they realized, because of location, they would benefit more by renovating a building than from building a new one. ’There is a difference between a “great deal” and a “great deal for your church”.
Facilities must move you in the direction of the vision.
So, are you ready?
In addition to being an all around awesome guy, Bryan Miles with his wife Shannon Miles Advisory Group to help churhes streamline their ministry with high quality outsourced services. This is a great article he wrote on how the church should make puchasing decisions.
Bryan Miles Guest Blogger
When it comes time for most churches to make a decision on buying something (e.g. software, a general contractor, web-designer, curriculum, architect, equipment, services, & etc) … the “decision maker” in the church usually filters their decision on mostly subjective criteria … in their head … such as:
In my years of experience … this is what most church decision-makers truly filter their buying decision off of. Church leaders should help their staff learn how to be better buyers much like a savvy business does.
1. what does this cost?
2. What are the “hidden fees”?
3. Did the company research us before they came to meet us? How did they prepare for our time together?
4. Do we only work with the salesperson or other people from the company?
5. How (specifically) will our ministry grow if we use this service?
6. How does this company handle client/project management?
7. What kind of contract are we expected to sign? What are we legally obligated to?
8. What sort of customer/client experience will we receive?
9. Does this company work in our industry? Do they have relevant experience? How has this person/company helped other churches (case studies or examples)? Can we talk to the “bad” references? You get the picture.
The church (in general) needs an objective format for basing their buying decisions … and then, when they get ready to cast vision … they can stand up with confidence & say that they objectively vetted the vendor(s) for the right fit for their church. Vision-casting based on objective measures only adds to the “oomph” in the church staff and attendee minds.
If you have other ideas tied to what churches should objectively measure … please leave a comment. Of, if you would like to speak with us about your upcoming decision for your church and want to bounce some ideas off of me … please eMail me at bryan@milesadvisorygroup.com or check us out at www.milesadvisorygroup.com.
Hi, My name is Richard and I’ve spent the better part of the last decade serving the church through leadership and consulting roles with the Catalyst Conference and Injoy under Dr. John C. Maxwell‘s guidance. Learn more about me »
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