Lessons from a Church Building Program

“Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

A few years ago our church, for the third time since I have been a pastor, undertook a major building program. We finished a short time ago.  If you count the purchase of the property on which we now meet, it has been four major financial projects. In every one of these projects the prospects of finishing seemed remote without some providential provision.

For many pastors, a building project is something they want to avoid at all costs. If they must do it, they cannot wait until it is over. I believe the building project time is very important in growing a church. I am not talking growing numerically, but growing spiritually. Here are some things we have learned as a congregation along the way.

We could not start until God was ready.

It is not that we chose to wait. He made us wait. We had a need. We did research, and more research. We considered moving, buying commercial buildings. Then our church faced various crises that required us to set our building plans on hold. Even when we thought we were finally able to start, God put us on hold for an extra year to prepare the congregation. We did not ask God to slow us down, but He did anyway. I now know this was His doing. I had to learn to not be frustrated when God forced us to move at His speed rather than ours.

Buildings are tools.

Buildings are tools that are used for the purposes of the local church as it accomplishes the Great Commission. The building is not the church, although it often becomes identified with it. The building is not an object of worship but it should not be an obstacle to worship either. Every craftsman knows that a quality tool helps the worker not only work quicker, but he also can work better and put out a better product. Poor tools can be more work than they are worth. I had an old lawn mower that I spent more time fixing than using. It was a distracting tool. We did not want a building like that. We wanted a building that would help us, and not be a distraction or a burden. When we think of buildings as tools, it helps us to focus more clearly on what is most important in the building process.

Building projects are opportunities to grow people.

When we began the project, I told our congregation that what God does in us—what He teaches us along the way—is more important that the building we have when the project is finished. Every believer needs to learn to give sacrificially. Every believer needs to learn to take steps of faith. When we ask our people to give, we do not ask timidly like we are asking an imposing favor. We are teaching them to take steps of faith in response to God’s leading in their lives. We are giving them an opportunity to grow.

In our congregation, a group of 400 people gave almost $2.5 million dollars above normal church expenses over the course of five years. In that same time, our regular tithes and offerings grew and our missions giving expanded to record levels. We had no wealthy members and there were no six figure gifts. People just gave what they could by faith and God made it sufficient.

There will always be a gap when you start.

“Pray for the gap” was our theme as we began laying out plans for the project. We had worked out a budget. We had solid estimates on what it would cost. We projected giving goals that were a real step of faith. We carefully determined what would be wise limitations on financing. After all that, there was a gap—a need for which there was no present plan and no solution. It was not an unreasonable gap, but it was still a gap—an unknown—a problem that God was going to have to solve.

I think this will always be the case for churches in big projects. It is that step of faith that God requires congregations to take. This takes true spiritual discernment. Steps of faith and paths of folly can look very similar at times. This will require much communication with the congregation, much prayer, and a sense of unity and teamwork as the church moves forward together.

Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.

We worried about talking about the project too much. We did not want our Sunday morning guests to think that fund raising and building is the only thing that we are really interested in. However, it became clear that most churches, us included, have a tendency to under communicate rather than over communicate.

As many people as possible need to be involved in an organized way.

Giving requires ownership and ownership requires passionate participation. There were so many people involved. Building committee, finance committee, volunteer coordinators, volunteer workers, work days, prayer team, interior design team, and many more. This is a congregational project that requires congregational participation. So many eyes looked over the plans, and as a result we avoided problems, gained valuable insight and ideas and most of all the congregation itself became owner of the process. It is really easy for a planner, building design team, architect, or even pastoral leadership team to try to avoid people participating. They worry about conflict, arguments, etc. Wise leadership needs to understand how to involve people without creating conflict. It can be done. It should be done.

Buildings have limitations.

While buildings help us do the work of ministry, and people in our communities notice when something is happening, we have to remember this as independent Baptists. There will always be groups that have buildings that are nicer and more attractive than ours. We have some amazing buildings in our area that house Sikh, Islamic, and Jewish places of worship for instance. The best advertisement for the Great Commission is still the transformed life of an individual believer. In the course of building project we had to be careful not to be side tracked from our primary project. We need to reach people with the gospel and disciples that. Buildings are important tools in that process. We need money in order to build those tools. However, it is easy to allow the pursuit of building funds to become THE object. Business exist to make money. Churches do not. For us, money is like bullets to a soldier. We want to spend it and spend it well. We do not want to waste one dollar, but coming home with our ammo belts full is not something in which to take pride.

There are more lessons that we learned along the way but this is a start. I pray our church never reaches the point where we think we are above taking huge steps of faith in the service of our Lord.