Walking into my first building committee meeting as a young pastor I had two simultaneous feelings: feeling proud that the church was moving forward and feeling scared that I was traveling in uncharted waters. I was thrilled that we were moving forward with a grand building project, but I had no training or background in construction.
In time the new sanctuary was erected, but not without a few blunders and mistakes. At the dedication service, I commented to my close friend and building committee member, “We may have built this building, but I feel that I know more about what not to do when building a new building than what to do.”
Here’s what I learned.
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We chose the wrong architect.
The building committee was wise enough to interview several architects, but we chose the one who awed us with pictures and drawings. Ironically, we did not use any of his original drawings; in fact, his first design was so elaborate that when it went out for initial bids it came back three times over our projected budget. That design was eventually scrapped and a more simple design was used instead, but not until after the church had spent over $100,000 in architectural fees.
In addition, while our architect had designed a few churches, he had not designed one in our denomination. He did not understand our worship needs and our emphasis on Sunday School.
We chose the wrong contractor.
Based on the architect’s recommendation, we choose a contractor that he had worked with before. The contractor seemed capable and knowledgeable, but what we did not know was that he was not making payments on other jobs. About halfway through our building project, he informed me and the architect that he could not complete this job and was quitting. When he walked out the architect and I sat in stunned silence and disbelief. What would we do? How would I inform the church?
We didn’t have the right people on the building committee.
The building committee was made up of good hearted people with a great love for the church. We had the former CEO of a major retail company, several small business owners, and others who had been chosen for their reputation within the church. But none had any experience with a major construction project. As time went on this became more and more apparent.
We built too soon.
The need for the building was apparent. We had two worship services and several Sunday School classes were meeting in the sanctuary because we lacked adequate Sunday School space. In hindsight, however, we could have gone to three worship services and two Sunday Schools to provide additional space and to have a larger congregation base before we began the construction.
We didn’t start raising money soon enough.
