By Neal Roseberry, AIA, Lemay Erickson Wilcox Architects
We like to tell our church clients up-front that a successful building program will require “sacrificial giving” on the part of every member of the church in order to be successful. Active investment and participation is needed because an effort the magnitude of a building program ultimately must be supported by the giving of everyone that attends your church. In the “widow’s mite” axiom of successful building campaigns, every member must own the concept, “not equal giving, but equal sacrifice.”
So engage your congregation very early in your building program process, with numerous opportunities for discussion about the church’s vision, and clear communication about why a building program is needed in the first place. This is really pretty simple stuff. And yet we still see building programs fail (after spending thousands of dollars in design and engineering fees) almost entirely because the church leadership did not invite the congregation into the process early, and the congregation in-turn did not support the design work developed by the leadership.
To engage every member in the project from day one, we like to start our design process with a Town Hall Workshop (or series of workshops, depending on the size of the church), that is primarily about listening to what members believe is important about their church, and what their church needs to better support its ministries. Please note: this is mostly a ministry discussion, and less a building-design discussion. Buildings support ministries, and not the other way around. Or succinctly said, “need precedes design.”
Even in churches that rely heavily on staff for steering church programs, a Town Hall setting allows an important exchange of information, with the church staff and leadership hearing members’ thoughts and concerns, and members importantly seeing a careful, transparent design process based in need and shared vision. As Architect, we prompt with questions, listen, and then feed-back to the church leadership what ministry objectives we have heard and believe the building program should support.
Regular communication between the church leadership—whether that be staff, or a building committee, or a building team—remains essential throughout the (long) process of shaping building designs, getting approvals from local governing agencies, bidding and constructing the project. We advocate weekly updates, on websites and in emails and/or newsletters. Transparent, clear, regular communication is very simply one the key foundation stones to a successful building program.
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