One of our founder Nathan Artt’s favorite sayings is: “The easiest way to get more square footage is to use the same square footage more.” When you activate your church buildings, you tap into the extra potential they have throughout the week without interfering with your regular weekend and evening ministry activities.
This can help you meet local community needs, improve outreach, and create financial stability. If you want to put a building activation project in motion, though, you need to go beyond choosing whether you’re going to set up a childcare program or a pickleball court. You need the right project management pieces in place, too.
Here are three essential elements of project management that come with any church optimization project.
When you’re considering altering a brick-and-mortar space, it’s easy to say that you need plenty of time. Making plans, finding contractors, and gathering supplies are time-consuming. Projects are inevitably delayed. (When asked, 91% of construction managers said they experienced project delays in the last year.)
So, yeah, it goes without saying that you should give yourself a long runway to complete a building activation project. But there’s more to time management than the length of your project.
You also want to manage your time by approaching your project in the right order. It’s important to separate the information-gathering phase from the decision-making phase.
It sounds simple, but at Ministry Solutions Group, our consultants have found that most churches tend to do this backward. They start making decisions and then look for the information to back those decisions up.
Information-gathering is about asking the right questions and interviewing knowledgeable people. Your goal should be to look for the areas of free or affordable information that can help guide the weightier decisions to come. Make sure you manage your time to allow for each of these phases to play out in order.
The church may not be a business, but that doesn’t change the fact that church buildings and finance go hand in hand. When it comes to building activation, in particular, one of the prime goals is often to enhance the fiscal health of a ministry by having a building positively impact your budget rather than the other way around.
If you underestimate your project costs, though, this can set back the financial benefits from the get-go. That’s why you want to invest plenty of time (see section 1) in planning out your project financing. This includes:
At MSG, we’ve seen time and again that a church project with financial clarity flips the script when it comes to lenders. Rather than desperately looking for anyone who can give you a loan with a reasonable interest rate, you become a potential client that financial institutions will fight over.
Finally, make sure you have the right people attached to a building activation project. This isn’t a quick activity, nor should it be done by pulling names out of a hat or asking for volunteers. You want to find the right contractors and licensed professionals who are able to implement your plan. Critically, you also want to assign a project lead to oversee everything.
At Ministry Solutions Group, putting the right people in place is a key part of creating a Clear Path Forward for any church building activation project. You can consider architectural concepts and floor plans as a group, but once you set things in motion, you want qualified individuals in place and an equipped and experienced leader to guide the project through each phase of execution.
“Qualified” is the keyword here. Make sure to avoid what we call “we have a guy” syndrome. Every church has a guy who thinks because they have some experience on a small scale, they can run $10 million projects.
No disrespect to anyone, but if you entrust someone like this to a major project, you’re taking a huge risk. Their lack of experience and their emotional investment in your church can cloud their judgment. You are also deliberately preventing your project from benefiting from the pioneer tax that others have paid by learning these things elsewhere.
If you want a building activation project for your church real estate to succeed, make sure your team — and especially your project lead — possesses the institutional knowledge to oversee timelines, supply chains, contractors, budgets, and all of the other things that come with major projects of this nature.
Optimizing your church’s real estate is important for long-term ministry success and, in many cases, even survival. Make sure you invest in project management measures that give you the best chance for a positive outcome.
Consider time management and priorities. Use your budget as a positive. Get the right people on board. If you can do that, you can expect your project to meet and even surpass expectations.
If you’re engaged in building activation and need consulting or other support, reach out to the Ministry Solutions Group team for a FREE ANALYSIS. Together, we can ensure your project enhances your church’s vision and mission.