Frequently Asked Questions:

Can You Present To Our Board / Congregation / Trustees?

Absolutely.  Depending on your church's location, this can be done either in person or via a speakerphone call.  Web conferencing is also available if your church is so equipped. 

What Services Do You Offer?

Each church has its own unique needs and abilities.  Services are generally tailored to the individual church, however, the types of consulting services generally fall into the categories of: needs analysis and feasibility; project assessment; financial analysis; church design; financing; or capital stewardship.

How Can You Support Our Church From North Carolina?

Distance very rarely plays a significant role in effective communications or ability to support a church.  When a church in my area has a question, they do the same thing you will do - they pick up the phone or email me.  The only time location is an issue is in those few places you can't seem to fly into from anywhere.  If you are more than 2-3 hours from a commercial airport, this simply requires a bit more planning for travel, but does not significantly impact the ability to support your church.

Why Can't We Just Do It Ourselves?

The simple answer is you can, but the two questions you should be asking are:

"Does our church have the knowledge (from experience or training) to know how to execute a building program in the most efficient and cost effective manner?" and,

"How much better will the outcome of this project be with the focused application of experience and know-how from an impartial, objective, and experienced church building consultant?"  (Read related article)

Your church is about to embark on one of the most expensive and complicated projects that it will ever undertake, with hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on the line.  What you don't know can hurt you.

Why Don't We Just Hire An Architect?

You will need to do so, at the appropriate time.  In my experience, few architects really understand church design from a ministry point of view.  There is an old saying, "When you are a hammer, every problem is a nail."  Architects, builders, and bankers think like architects, builders and bankers.  You need someone that thinks like a church and knows how to deal with an architect, lender or builder. 

These professionals are responsible for "their piece of the pie", as it relates to the entire project.  What they do not provide is the breadth of experience and ability to oversee the entire project.  A consultant looks out for the best interests of the church - overseeing and connecting all the pieces together into the "whole pie" solution the church needs.

How Much Does It Cost To Build A Church?

This is a common question that is about as easy to answer as "how far is up" or "how much does a car cost."  Trying to compare prices on a cost per square foot basis is difficult at best and dangerous at the worst.  There are too many variables in how one might define building cost, and there are many other variables that can affect cost besides square feet of floor space.  The church needs to concern itself with total project costs that include every cost to be in the door and doing ministry. Read Full Article

Can We Get A Grant To Build Our Church?

There are very few grants designated to helping churches build buildings.  Of the few that exist, they are usually denominationally and/or regionally limited and would usually be for a small portion of the project costs.  Churches usually have the best results when they attempt to obtain grants to expand existing ministries that meet specific needs.

How Do We Justify A Consultant's Expense?

I believe it would be much harder to justify not hiring a consultant.  Can you imagine making the presentation to the congregation or decision making body in the church where you had to say, "We have little or no experience, and none of us has any training in needs analysis, church design, construction, or even in hiring these professionals - but we are going to roll the dice with umpteen hundred thousand dollars (or million) dollars based on what we think." 

When you build, everyone you deal with; the banker, the architect, the city planner, the builder - they all know more about what you are doing than you do.  An experienced consultant looks out for the best interests of the church and will save the church many times their investment while making the entire process easier for the church.

We're Very Early In The Planning Process, Can We Call You When We Think We are Ready?

You could, but you will find the best time to get assistance is in the early stages of planning.  This will save your church a lot of time and effort, and will prevent it from going down bad paths.  The further into the process of planning, design and construction the church gets, the more difficult and expensive it is to make changes. It is in the earliest phases of building when the church will have the greatest impact on the outcome of their project for the least cost.  Sadly, this is the time when the churches are least likely to seek outside help.   Many times I have been contacted by a church with problems that could have been easily avoided, but by the time they sought counsel, the church's cost effective options were limited or non-existent.