Choosing an objective, reliable building committee is one of the most important steps in guiding a church through the building process, according to church building experts.
“Most churches do not construct buildings often enough to know from experience just what this entails,” Gwenn McCormick wrote in “Planning and Building Church Facilities.”
“Too often, in the midst of the process, leaders find themselves bogged down … because they unwittingly set up a flawed organization.”
In his guidebook, which LifeWay’s church architecture department recommends to churches considering a building project, McCormick advises church leaders to select the best committee possible from the beginning. Making organizational adjustments in the midst of the process could cause “negative fallout,” McCormick warns.
“A vision of the church can only be accomplished when members are willing to assume leadership roles to accomplish them,” said Gary Swafford who heads the new work and church building office at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM). “When the vision and the commitment of the people match up then you can accomplish the task.”
To organize a good building committee, church leaders should look for about six to 15 people — depending on the size of the church — who will be able to make decisions and identify the needs of the congregation. The group needs to have decision-making authority and must be committed to attend regular meetings. It is also crucial for the committee to see the project through from start to finish.
According to the “Church Property/Building Guidebook” by T. Lee Anderton, a committee member should:
Be a dedicated Christian, and a respected, active member and leader in the church
Place reliance upon the Holy Spirit, through prayer for guidance
Possess concern for the mission of the church, and is concerned about the needs of people for Christ and Christian development
Have a community need awareness, and the ability to recognize spiritual needs of individuals in the community
Have a thorough knowledge of the church’s total organization and an unbiased view of its various components and their functions
Be able to place the church’s needs above personal preferences
Be knowledgeable and competent in his given area of building program responsibility
Possess sound business judgment
Have time to serve and not shirk responsibility and difficult tasks
One key to having a successful building committee is to make sure that your group represents a cross-section of the church’s membership, according to Tommy Haralson, project manager and concept designer for Black Design Architecture.
“From my nearly 40 years of experience (as a minister of education in churches and working with church building programs), if you don’t have a good cross section, the committee may develop tunnel vision,” said Haralson, who also works as a church consultant with the SBOM. “The broader the representation of the church (on the committee) the less danger of a building that doesn’t meet the needs of the entire church family. Unfortunately, many churches discover this after the building is built.”
He recommends the building committee include males and females both young and old with various backgrounds and personalities.
Swafford added that the group should comprise leaders representing the various organizational functions of the church — “somebody from all ministries, services and departments the church provides.” Both Haralson and Swafford believe that organizing a balanced team improves the successfulness of the church building project as a whole.
Haralson said many churches automatically include businessmen on their committees for their management and money-handling skills, but there are many areas of the church that other members will be more familiar with including the kitchen, fellowship halls, preschool areas and recreation facilities.
“If you are going to build a building that is going to be useful to all of the members, you need the right tools,” Haralson said.
Another way to ensure the success of a church’s building committee is to organize subcommittees to handle various areas of the construction project (i.e., audio/visual committee, sign committee, finance committee, decorations committee).
“The most effective organization is one that establishes a building-steering committee or a council whose members then become heads of subcommittees assigned specific areas of work,” McCormick noted.
Similar to the size of the original committee, the number of subcommittees depends on the size of the church and scope of the project at hand, according to Swafford.
“It depends on what is being built,” he said. “You have to have someone to deal with each component of the building project.”
Swafford added that once the committees are formed, each member of the group should have a clear definition of what is expected of them as well as a clear outline of the church’s expectations for each committee in order to avoid conflict.
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