Who Should Lead a Church Building Project? What to Clarify Before You Start

A church building project involves a lot of people. Along with your own church building committee, you have to think about architects for design, lenders for financing, and contractors, engineers, and vendors for execution.

Each group plays an important role. But they’re only responsible for their own portion of the project. Without a single point of leadership, church construction project management becomes fragmented.

Without a single, experienced hand at the tiller, details become difficult to control as you go along. This can make costs spiral, like when a church plans an expansion with a single design firm, only to realize it was way out of budget and will cost even more to scale down.

This is why you want an owner’s representative in your corner early and throughout each major renovation, expansion, or build your church engages in.

Centralizing Oversight With an Owner’s Rep

A church owner’s representative or “owner’s rep” sits at the center of everyone involved in a church building project. They oversee everything, from financials to ministry, real estate, and design. By rolling oversight into a single role, an owner’s rep can represent your church at every stage of a project.

Ministry Solutions Group has sat in this capacity for hundreds of churches across America. We’ve helped them orchestrate individuals, design and execute plans, and shepherd hundreds of millions of budgeted dollars.

An owner’s rep is a long-term, goal-oriented position. While everyone involved is focused on their individual parts of a project, owner’s reps help keep decisions aligned with a church’s overall mission, budget, and schedule.

The Benefits of Working With an Owner’s Rep

Working with an owner’s rep has a lot of advantages. At Ministry Solutions Group, we’ve noticed that one of the most important of these is capturing a deeper sense of clarity around an unfolding project.

An owner’s rep’s unique position helps them see a project from a 10,000-foot view. They can take into account things like budgetary constraints while addressing a contracting concern. They can keep the ministry's use of a space in mind when working with a designer.

Most importantly, they can advocate for church leaders, making sure they understand all of their options at each step of a project. They can evaluate risks and tradeoffs that lead to better decision-making earlier in a project — before unnecessary time, energy, and resources are wasted.

Having everything concentrated in an owner’s rep that you can trust also keeps everything coordinated and makes it easier to stick to projected timelines and schedules. Above all else, having an owner’s rep siphons responsibility to a single seat so everyone else on your church’s leadership team can stay focused on what matters most: maintaining capacity for ministry.

What to Clarify Before You Start Your Next Project

If you’re considering a church project in the future, here are three questions you want to ask your team before you set things in motion:

1. Is there a single point of leadership for your project? Do you have someone to orchestrate a fractionalized group of people focused on different areas of the project?
   
   
2. Are you falling into the “We have a guy” trap? Everybody's got a guy. At Ministry Solutions Group, we’ve seen so many churches fall into the “Joe can do this, he’s done something like it before” trap. But not everybody's got the right guy. Make sure you’re selecting an owner’s rep that is qualified and experienced.
   
   
3. Do you have independent representation in the owner’s rep position? It’s also important to make sure you find an owner’s rep that can maintain an unbiased, third-party opinion about the best way to balance all of the moving parts while still maintaining long-term ministry vision.

Do you need an experienced owner’s rep in your corner? The team at Ministry Solutions Group has helped over 250 churches across America manage over $1.6 billion in projects. Our owner’s reps bring real experience and deep knowledge to every project.

Reach out for a Free Analysis, and together, we can look at how we can help your church make the most of whatever project you’re planning next.