Considering Renovation & Expansion Part 5

Ah, life’s rich pageant!

We are now past the “demolition” phase and into the “reconstruction” phase in our renovation. No longer will I be preaching with a huge plastic sheet behind me. There should be no more unexpected surprises because they discovered something wrong with the building when they did x, y or z. We have a pretty good handle on the costs now.

Those tricksy costs. When we started this back in the fall, we gave “swags” of about $250k. We did not ask for approval yet. We needed harder numbers. The reality is that those harder numbers, while harder to swallow, were not really hard numbers. Fortunately we haven’t doubled the original estimate but between the unexpected repairs (like the 300 foot trench for the sewer line) and the unexpected costs imposed by the county (usually connected with environmental stuff) the total has gone up over 50%.

You begin to second guess yourself. Did we make the right decision? Did we decide too soon? Are we like the guy in the parable who didn’t count the cost and now we’ll have a half completed project? No. While I think the Enemy would like to keep me up at night thinking we goofed, or were disobedient, I don’t think we were.

1. It needed to be done. We really couldn’t do the renovation without the expansion. There was no reason for the expansion without the renovation. The only thing I think we could have done is perhaps trading in our current modular for a newer, bigger one. That would have eliminated, perhaps, the new site plan for the county to approve and tack on lots of new expenses like the sidewalk to nowhere. Yes, we have to have a sidewalk to the street even though the street has no sidewalk. But this would not have addressed our constraints regarding sanctuary and bathroom space.

2. It was the best time to do it. The worst of the renovation took place during summer vacation to minimize the pain and inconvenience for the congregation. It seemed like we needed to get it done ASAP since we were packed and anticipating more growth come the new school year. We could not anticipate 2 families moving away this summer which opened up 10 seats (and the accompanying personal space). You make the best decisions you can with the information you have. None of us can tell the future and shouldn’t beat ourselves up for that apparent weakness.

Right now we have a big financial crunch. Working with the banks has been incredibly slow. And apparently pointless. We did receive the opportunity to have a loan through Ministry Partners, but were hoping for a local bank to loan us funds (hopefully at a lower rate). Banks don’t seem to grasp the concept of a “non-profit.” They want to see large cash reserves (we actually had them until we paid the contractor but that doesn’t seem to count in a banker’s mind). We are also under 100 people, which is the kiss of death of a church in a bank’s eyes. So yesterday we found out the local bank we’d been talking with decline us (oh, the pain of rejection and fear of the unknown). The banker was helpful in talking through the contract with Ministry Partners. The fees and rates were put in a better context for us to see they were not unreasonable and we’ll be signing the contract this week.

There will have to be some belt-tightening for the next few months, or more. We will have to trust in the God-man who fed 5,000 men (along with women & children) with 5 small loaves of barley bread and 2 small fish. It won’t be easy, because faith feels like dying. When I used to go to TN over the Labor Day weekend there was nothing scarier than going over the top of the cliff hoping that rope would hold you up. But you’ll never leave that spot and get to where you want to go unless you trust it. We have to trust Christ to get where we believe we should be. If we waited until we had all the money we thought we’d need (always a moving target!!!) we’d never move and we’d continue to have the same factors limiting growth as we moved into the future.

Now? We have 2 new, larger A/C units on the building. Without insulation in part of the building (behind the plastic sheet) in August, in Tucson, the temperature in the sanctuary did NOT rise during the course of the service. After 15 years of that happening… it didn’t. That’s a big positive for people moving forward.

The drywall is going up this week, and it all seems to be coming together. That should lift the spirits of the congregation. They are starting to envision what everything will look like and a sense of the space we gain, and the lobby too. We have to keep going and see what great things our good God will do.

BTW: if you want to help our little congregation “get ‘er done” let me know. We are taking donations.