← unSeminary Podcast
unSeminary Podcast
Before You Build: What Every Church Should Know About Facility Expansion with Aaron Stanski
00:35:44
Loading summary
Transcript71 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, friends. Rich here from the Unseminary podcast. You know, we often talk about churches not doing well, but maybe your church is doing really well right now and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep the momentum going. It could be the time to start a new location. Maybe you've hesitated in the past few years, but now, now is the time for you to step out in faith again and launch your next location. That's why I've partnered with Portable Church Industries for a new resource called Launch a new location in 150 days or less. Portable Church has assembled a bunch of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum in a new location by sending part of your congregation back to their neighborhood and on mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step by step plan to launch your next or new location and a five minute readiness tool that will help you know if your church is ready to go. Listen, I really want you to drop by portablechurch.com rich that's portablechurch.com rich to get this free resource. Launch a new location in 150 days or less. Listen, if your church is growing, now is the time for you to step out and launch a new location. You know I'm passionate about this. So I want you to drop by portablechurch.com rich today to pick up this brand new resource. Launch a new location in 150 days or less. Again, one last time. That's portablechurch.com rich today.
- [01:32]
B
Welcome to the Unseminary Podcast, the place where church leaders get practical insights, tips and strategies for ministry growth. Today, you're stepping into something bigger than just a conversation. This podcast is part of a bold mission to help 100 churches grow by 1,000 people. Whether you're dreaming of increasing your impact in your community, empowering your team, or reaching more people with the message of Jesus, you're in the right place. We're here to bring you the stuff you wish they taught in seminary. Ideas and tools you can put into action this week to see transformation in your ministry. Let's dive in.
- [02:11]
A
Hey friends. Welcome to the Unseminary Podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in. You know, across the country we keep hearing about churches that are growing and we're seeing swelling attendance and. And that's good. Some of that is like a platinum problem, though. It generates other issues that we have to think about. And so what I did was pull on a friend of mine, Aaron Stansky. He's the founder and CEO of RisePoint. He's got 15 plus years of church design Leadership and project management experience. If you don't know Risepoint, where have you been? You're living under a rock. They're church architects and designers. They have years of experience working with churches like yours, schools and nonprofits and they offer a wide range, wide variety of services including architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding and so much more. Aaron is, I like Aaron up just because he actually has got incredible skills, his team's got incredible skills, but he really actually wants to help, just like you. And so Aaron, welcome to the show. So glad you're here.
- [03:04]
C
Yeah, I'm glad to be here, Rich.
- [03:05]
A
It's going to be good. Give, give people you've been on a couple times and but give us again for folks that haven't heard the Aaron Stansky, you know, couple bullet points. What did I miss? What do you want to fill in the picture?
- [03:16]
C
Yeah, I mean, you know, the quick story is grew up in ministry. My dad was a pastor growing up, planted. We planted a church in Boston when I was a kid. Went to school for engineering, worked for Harley Davidson Motorcycles, did big projects, project management and stuff for them for a while and then felt called to ministry. So left Harley Davidson, was on staff with crew for a couple years doing college ministry before I jumped on staff at a fast growing multi site church here in Chicago. So loved that, loved being part of that ministry team. And then of course we went through a big building project so got to roll up my sleeves on the, on the church staff side of things and hire architects and engineers and AV consultants and really kind of combine my, my engineering mind and my ministry heart. And so absolutely loved that process. And so yeah, I've been helping churches now for the last 15, 16 years. It's been an absolute blast.
- [04:11]
A
So good. Well the kind of person I want to have in mind today. And so friends, if you're listening in, if this sounds a little bit like you, you're going to want to pay close attention. So I'm that church, you know, the leader that looks around, they maybe have got, maybe they got two services. They're looking around and they're seeing, oh, they feel like maybe their growth is starting to create some pinch points. Maybe it's in kids, maybe it's in adults, maybe it's their lobby. It's. They look around and they're like, man, I just, I feel like our facility might be holding us back a little bit and because I do bump into this in churches all the time and there's like, there can be like a certain amount of anxiety and fear around Gosh, when do I, what do I do? So when you talk to pastors, what do, you know, notice as one of the kind of most common point of confusion when it comes to starting or pulling the trigger, moving on with a building, project, expansion project, try to improve things. Where are we getting this wrong?
- [05:06]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think like one, the whole process itself can just be completely overwhelming.
- [05:13]
A
Right.
- [05:13]
C
Like, immediately you're confronted with, oh my goodness, like, what's the right solution? What is the, what is the town or the, you know, the jurisdiction going to allow us to do? What is this all going to cost? Where are we going to do church in the meantime if we're having to fix this building or add on to it? I mean, immediately all of these questions start to kind of well up and it can become really overwhelming for a lot of churches.
- [05:44]
A
So. Good. So when, when we step back, is there any one of those that you think in particular is like a piece of the puzzle that is the most kind of mysterious or is the most confusing as, as you, that you bump into regularly with leaders?
- [05:59]
C
I mean, I think the most confusing is probably like, what's the right solution? Okay, A lot of times it's a combination of like, you know, we feel like we're out of space so we have to add on. But if we do that, we're going to have to modify what we already have and what we have is old or there's some maintenance on it that we haven't gotten around to and like, what can we do in this space? And so actually the right solution is probably one of the most difficult things to kind of imagine for a lot of pastors. And then right behind that is like, what's it going to cost? Right. I mean, for the last four or five years, we've seen a lot of inflation, we've seen a lot of different things happening, like with pricing and stuff. And so what used to be a pretty easy calculation for us as churches, now it feels like it's a lot foggier as far as like, what, what things are just going to cost.
- [06:51]
A
Yeah. So I've heard church leaders at this, this juncture, they start thinking like, okay, like, we gotta get an architect. Find out. Get me the architect, the person that designed this building 25 years ago. Where are they? Are they still in business? And you know, we start going down that road. I'm not even really sure what an architect does. Like, obviously you draw things, but, but like, help us understand what is the piece of the puzzle that like an architect brings to the Table.
- [07:20]
C
Right.
- [07:20]
A
And I know that's like a subset of what you guys do. Pretend that I'm like super dumb. Because it's probably not big actually to worry about pretending too much there. Explain what that is. What is that service? And is that actually what we need at this juncture? Is that, is that the first question? Like, get the architect come in here, we'll tell. Explain that whole thing?
- [07:38]
C
Yeah, I mean, well, I think we have to be careful. Sometimes hiring an architect is like picking up a hammer. Right. And for a lot of architects who were, you know, traditionally trained and might have like one sort of, you know, viewpoint of the world, like, their job is to come in and draw something new that's going to sort of solve your problem. The challenge with that is a lot of times that architect is just looking for one type of solution, which is build you something new, add something on, and they're looking at it very, very narrowly through the lens of what the solution is going to be. And a lot of times they're not, you know, kind of able to kind of step back and take a look at strategically and say, okay, before we start drawing plans and blueprints and some of those sorts of things, let's really talk about like, what's going really well at your church and how are we going to amplify what you're already doing? Well, how are we going to add some, you know, some pieces around it and then of course, how are we going to fix some of the big, you know, some of the bigger problems? So an architect, technically, right? I mean, it's a licensed professional. Their job is to lead your organization through the process from the very beginning, all the way through the stages of design. Their job is to make sure that the solution is aligned with your, with who you are as an organization and your budget. And they're supposed to help all the way through construction, making sure that it gets built the way that it was designed and, and that it gets, you know, that all the questions get answered and that it's ultimately safe. So that's what an architect does. I think the, I think the thing that we miss a little bit on the front end is in order for the architect to start, we really need, kind of need to know what the scope of the work is and the budget first.
- [09:29]
A
So good, okay.
- [09:30]
C
We don't put those two guardrails on the left and the right hand side. We're really missing out. The left hand side should be scope, the right hand side should be budget. And we should nail those down before we get going into design.
- [09:44]
A
Okay, I want to unpack that because I know. I actually texted you recently, friends getting you behind the scenes a little bit. I had a friend of mine, they had done exactly what we talked about here. They were like, we went and hired an architect to help with this thing, and they came back with a ginormous number that was like, I would say, a factor, you know, three or four times what I thought. And what do I know? I don't know anything. And I actually think it was these guardrails where they went off, off on it.
- [10:09]
C
They just.
- [10:10]
A
They didn't start with Scope and Budget. They started with, hey, here's a problem architect, solve it for us. And they came back with this, you know, very incredible initial drawing and all that. Talk us through. How do we nail down Scope and Budget from the beginning? Talk us through. What does that look like?
- [10:27]
C
Yeah. So I would say, you know, you want to find a ministry partner who's going to come in and really kind of flush out some of those pieces, really understand what's working well, what's not working well, what's missing, where do we have to clarify what it is that we're doing in order to sort of establish that? And. And there's a. There's a lot of great partners out there who can help you do that, but you're really looking for someone in the building design, construction space who has experience, who has a lot of experience, honestly, with churches and understands what it means to, you know, serve people who've been part of your church for 20, 30 years and keep them on mission and disciple them up, as well as welcoming people who are walking into your doors for the very first time. So at rise point, we walk through a process called the needs analysis, where we get on site with, you know, a church for an entire day and understand their DNA and really understand what's working and not working and stuff. And we start with that so that we can sketch out some ideas and some concepts and stuff around what is the. What is the scope of work that's going to solve the problem or fix the lid or add the seats that we need? And what's the budget that we feel like God's calling us to spend as a church in order to go do that? And we want to start with that before we jump into full architecture.
- [11:48]
A
Okay, so sidebar question. Is it possible for someone to help us at this early kind of scoping phase without doing some sort of on site, like, can I just call an architect and say, hey, here's the problem? I need to add a thousand seats. How much is that going to cost? And then they go away and come back with a number or, or you know, is there. Yeah. Can they do that? Talk us through that?
- [12:11]
C
Yeah, I mean you can, I mean you can call up Rise Point and I'll get on the phone with you. The. And. But there's going to be a range. Right. And I can say like, hey, here's the last 10 churches that we've done a thousand seat auditoriums at. And here's kind of the range and stuff.
- [12:26]
The, the problem with shortcutting to that is that you miss a lot of things. Right. Each jurisdiction is different, like how the civil engineering works, the parking requirements and stuff. And those really affect budget. And so we want to understand those first. And the second thing is, I mean, every church that we work with is incredibly unique in the people that they're reaching and the values that those people have and whether they're de. Churched or unchurched and, and who they're running into and stuff. And so really kind of understanding that context is so important before we jump into, you know, sort of solution. But yeah, I mean, since we work with churches all over the country, I mean if someone called me up, I could probably, I could probably put my thumb in the air and give them a swag on what that might cost.
- [13:15]
A
Yeah. And I would, you know, it's funny because I've, I've recommended people have asked me those kind of questions and I always actually say exactly what, you know, where you led, which is like, you should call my friend Aaron and, but, but what you should do, get on the, do the like free call or whatever, get on the book of time. But I said you really should do this needs analysis thing because the project that you're facing is always much larger than you think. And I would rather people take time, invest the resources up front and time frankly to slow down and say, let's actually understand the question we're asking before we jump to answers. Right. Like what? Because we could get this thing wrong. And actually that gets to this whole idea of how early is too early. My experience has been people wait too long before they engage with someone like you. They get into like their third service, fourth service, they're like, oh gosh, people aren't going to the fifth service. Maybe we have to figure out how to get more space. Talk us about, you know, what mistakes do we make when we wait too long without engaging with someone like you.
- [14:15]
C
Yeah, I mean, I'd say, you know, the thing to keep in mind is that your. If you're the average church that reaches out to Rise Point, you're somewhere between two and a half and three years away from having any sort of new space. And that's on the short end. We have churches who are bringing new space online five years after they've reached out to us because they live in downtown areas, very challenging jurisdictions and some things like that. And so when we're thinking about when is the right time, I think, yeah, earlier is definitely better, but we have to be careful that we're strategically spending dollars even on the front end, you know, so that we, you know, we're getting out of it. What we need as leaders, what questions are we asking that we need answers for in order to determine is it the right time to move forward with a building project? Is it a right time to launch a campus or go multi site or some things like that? If you wait too long, typically what happens is either we're rushing through the design process to kind of hit the capital campaign stuff and there's budget misalignment. All of a sudden we thought it might be this, but now this is the actual budget for what it's going to work. And I think when that happens, there starts to be some vision confusion. We're looking at solutions that we kind of rushed through and it doesn't feel like we really thought all those things through.
- [15:42]
And so I think that's another one. And then I just think, you know, there's some missed ministry opportunities if we kind of wait too long. I think a lot of times when we're planning out, here's the multiple phases of how we develop this campus and expand it. You know, we miss out on opportunities to go get some smaller things done sooner, capture momentum, you know, fix the welcome center, like invest some dollars in something we know we're not going to tear down, make it better for guests in a couple months and we miss out on those things if we don't have a bigger, more strategic plan.
- [16:19]
A
Yeah, kind of a step back and say, hey, how does this fit into where everything that's going on? What would be kind of double clicking on that? What would be some indicators internally that would say, hey, you know, these things are happening. I should really reach out to Rise Point. What would be some of the things that you would see as telltale signs that it's now a time to, to kind of take this step?
- [16:40]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think if we're, you know, if we're really pushing towards our those max numbers and Our primary service, I think that's a. That's definitely an early indicator. A lot of churches just kind of reach out and say, hey, okay, here's. Here's kind of where we're at. Here's where the math is at. Like, can you look at this? Like, from a. Like, how much kids area should we have? How much lobby space should we have? And we can run some quick math for them and say, hey, you don't have any other lids. You're looking good. You. You probably have a few more years of growth in you. So that would be one. You know, I think if, you know, first starting to talk about adding a third or fourth service, it's probably a little bit too late, but we should probably get on it sooner than later. Um, and then, you know, one of the. One of the other things, too, is just kind of paying attention. It's easy for us on Sundays to stand on the stage and look out and get a pretty good sense of, are there enough seats? Is there space for me here? And, like, we look out and we see some empty chairs. Keep in mind that when you're coming in from the back of the auditorium, it's a lot harder to see some of those empty chairs. And so what is the percentage? But the other thing is, the things that we're not seeing when we're. When we're on stage on Sunday is we're not seeing the parking lot. We're not seeing the early childhood wing. That's basically. It's a disaster back there. There's kids running around like crazy. And so even if we're. Even if we have enough seats, like, or we're not at the 80 or 90% capacity to our primary service, we need to be looking out at some of these other areas and making sure that there's not a lid somewhere else.
- [18:18]
A
Yeah, that's good. Yeah. In fact, I literally just last weekend said that to a church. I was, you know, I was doing a weekend visit where I was on site and all that stuff. And it. To me, it felt like the building, the parking and the kids and the main auditorium, they. Or the adult auditorium, they just didn't match. It was like they. The three were out of alignment. And I think they had enough kids. But, you know, I don't know. It's interesting how that can happen. And, you know, the lead pastor typically is seeing only the adult room and not, you know, not anything else. Early on, you know, there's. My experience has been in projects that have been a part of that. I would rather Spend money as personally as a leader. I'm not saying, friends, if you're listening in that you need to necessarily do this. I would rather spend money on the front end with a designer like you because I, Because I'm. The joke I've made is it's a lot cheaper to move walls on drawings than it is in the real world. And I've had that comes from pain of building stuff. Of building stuff. And then being. Literally, I opened up a new facility, then stood there with a kids ministry person. And the kids ministry person was like, oh, I didn't think it was going to look like this. I was like, oh my goodness. What, what are you talking about? Like, we just opened this new facility. Talk us through, like, what's an investment on the front end to reach out to someone like you? How do you help churches see that hiring someone like you can actually save us resources in the long haul? Talk us through that.
- [19:41]
C
Yeah. I mean.
- [19:43]
Starting out at the beginning and getting really clear about where we're going and how we're going to get there, it really helps us, you know, car, like, make sure we don't over build or under build. It makes sure that, like, compared to all the other churches that we're working with all over the country, that we're in alignment with where the square footage is at. And it's aligned with how you do ministry locally, how you use these spaces seven days a week. And so it's really making sure that we're not overbuilding or under building anywhere. Because that's a, you know, that's a huge, that's a huge miss if we do that. And that's probably one of the biggest cost savings. The other thing is, you know, during, you know, during sort of that season of vision and master planning and when we're talking to our folks about what God's doing at the church and we're telling stories of life change.
- [20:39]
Like, we're really kind of laying out a vision for what God is calling us to do as a ministry. And people just naturally have questions around like, how is this going to help? And how is this actually going to help us reach my lost co worker, my lost neighbor?
- [20:59]
And so I think spending the time to do that, really translating sort of the mission and vision into physical space needs and producing some of those renderings that accompany that story. I mean, that's just a really critical part.
- [21:13]
A
Okay, so let's double click on that. That's that I feel like I have been caught in this situation where I get, I get like it's the hammer and nail thing you say, like, I'm pretty sure I know what the solution is. Like, let's go do this. And I like that what you're saying is, like, hey, we need to take a step back and, like, actually think through how does this fit in our vision and how's that all? How do you actually do that? How do you help a leadership team discern what the problem is that they're really needing to solve or should be solving rather than just, let's build a bigger box or, I know, we just need 25 new parking spots. Like, how do we not jump too quickly to that? What's that look like?
- [21:51]
C
Yeah, I mean, it looks like, you know, spending time and really getting to know them and what makes them unique. Like, we have a fantastic set of tools that we use at Rise Point to, like, really talk about, you know, let's talk about outside the walls, right? Like, who. Who are we called to reach and. And what does it mean to do ministry in this place that God has uniquely put your church in the geographic area? And let's talk about the tension between this side of town and that side of town, and let's, you know, let's wrestle with, you know, some of those issues and then let's. And then let's talk about like, like, man, who are we as a church on our best day? And what does it feel like when we're, like, living up to our full potential and then we even get into some of the things around, like, man, what are. What are some of the strategic drivers? What's driving more people hearing about Jesus, what's working really well? What do you see as opportunities or things that, where, if you had the right leader or finances, that you'd be able to, you know, accomplish even more of your mission. And so by starting there and then starting to work down towards. Okay, where is your facility aligned with that, with that exercise and where is it misaligned? Okay, let's unpack that a little bit. And then without getting into the solution yet, I want to meet, like, individually with each, you know, ministry leader, talk about what, how check in works and all of those things. And so it's really sort of this almost like a 360 review of what's happening between the mission and vision God's given us, and how are our facilities helping or hindering that mission and vision? And then it just comes down to budget. And so, okay, here are the possible solutions. Here's what, roughly what some of those things are going to cost and Then it's going to the, going to God in prayer and saying, okay, what are you calling us to do? What are based on these options and trying to figure it out.
- [23:52]
A
I want, I want to come back to the budget question in a second, but I've, I think I probably have stole this off you. I have said to multiple church leaders that like our buildings were built. There was like a philosophical underpinning of the buildings that we were built with. There was a ministry model that they were built on.
- [24:10]
C
Sure.
- [24:10]
A
And yeah, then there's been a lag between when we made those decisions, we built them. Now we've been using them for X number of years. And our ministry model may no longer be the same as the building or probably isn't actually the same as when the building was built. What's your sense on how long that lag time is kind of between.
- [24:30]
We built something, if we built something more than 10 years ago.
- [24:34]
We probably want to readdress or look at our facilities afresh and say, does this actually meet the needs of. Because I feel like so many of us are in like the cramped shoes that just don't quite fit. They work, but they don't quite fit. What do you think that lag time is?
- [24:49]
C
Yeah, I mean, the lag time is getting shorter and shorter. Okay. It used to be, you know, it probably used to be 40 or 50 years.
- [24:57]
A
Right.
- [24:57]
C
You know, without major ministry model shifts and stuff. Obviously, you know, Willow Creek, North Point, you know, coming onto the scene in the, in the late 90s and stuff really shifted. We have churches all the way up into the 2000s, even into the 2000s that sort of copied the model of the Willow Creeks and some of those things. And I think we're seeing, you know, we're seeing the model shifting a lot faster now. I'd say, you know, you know, we're probably in a faster 10 to 20 year cycle, something like that. But I think we're coming out of the, you know, the, you know, that model of Willow Creek and North Point and stuff. And we're, we're moving into a new season and it's kind of exciting for us. I mean, we get to, we get to sit on the front edge of all of that churches, like in fantastic places, being creative, reaching, you know, people for Christ. And so it's just interesting to kind of observe some of those things and, and observe what's working really well and, and where can be we can improve.
- [26:03]
A
You know, you're, you're baiting me. What are those things? That you've seen that I've shifted. There's got to be. Or is that the magic? We got to call Aaron to find out.
- [26:12]
C
You don't have to call Aaron. No, I mean, the thing, I mean, like.
- [26:17]
You know, I heard someone share this with me recently, right? I mean, every Netflix account homepage is different for every person. All billion subscribers or whatever that they have, they're individually tailored to those individuals. And I know that because when I had a bunch of seventh grade boys spend the night at my house, like, my algorithm got so messed up on my Netflix account last weekend.
- [26:43]
A
Love it.
- [26:44]
C
But I think there is a shift away from some of the bigger, more institutional types of look and feel and trying to get down to, okay, how are we engaging one on one with people who are walking in and where they're at? How do we, you know, instead of preach a sermon at them, how do we hear their story and what does it look like for us to hear their story in various places, whether that's at the welcome center, whether that's, you know, side by side in the pew, whether that's in sort of a first steps class. And so there's a shift on that side of things. Just like as we look at the next generation and how we engage and reach the next generation.
- [27:21]
A
Okay, I want to loop back on the money question. So I, for folks that don't know, a part of what I do is actually help churches with that and don't really talk about it publicly, but I do. And, you know, there is this interesting tension that churches often come to this. It's like we think we're different than our, ourselves. And that if I was going to go build a new house, I would have to start with, well, how much income do I have? And like, what can the, you know, what can the, you know, what would the bank give me from a mortgage point of view? Like, I start with reality around my finances, finances. But so many churches start with, let's build this giant thing, and it's totally disconnected from the, from what we could actually afford to either raise or carry long term. How much variance can a church bring to a design? Like, if they upfront are defining, hey, like, we can afford probably 5 million. I know I've got $35 million in dreams, or maybe not. That's, that's too crazy. I got $15 million in dreams. Is it possible for me to actually get that into a tighter box? Help us understand how do we do that? How do we on the front end be realistic with our finances as we're doing this design thing. Yeah.
- [28:33]
C
I mean, I think we have to.
- [28:36]
With open hands, we have to hold out the, you know, the dreams, the vision, you know, the stuff that God's given us. And we have to prayerfully sort of go through that exercise and say, okay, but how much risk do I want to introduce into the organization, like, via debt? What. What is God actually calling us to do with those things? And we have to be creative in how we. And how we get across the finish line. I think when I. When I hear sometimes a senior pastor sharing with me his. His $35 million vision.
- [29:09]
A
Yes, yes, yes.
- [29:11]
C
What I immediately try to do is say, okay, talk to me about what it is about that $35 million thing that's resonating with you.
- [29:19]
A
Oh, that's good.
- [29:20]
C
Right. And so even though he's describing something that's $35 million, and as an architect, I might get really excited about drawing $35 million worth of stuff, if he actually can't afford it and can't raise it, he's actually not going to go do it.
- [29:33]
A
Right.
- [29:33]
C
So I need to go back to that vision and say, okay, what are the pieces in there that are from God, that are. That are aligned with the mission that his church has and stuff? And I need to contextualize that. And then as an architect, as a designer, I have to turn around and say, okay, with my guardrails in place of budget and scope. How do I express those things in the $5 million that God has entrusted our church with? And so there's going to be a lot of difficult decisions along the way. We're going to have to prioritize some things, and some other things might have to go on the back burner. But that's the process that we want to help churches walk through to. To get them to that point where they're walking into a space for the first time and going, oh, man, this feels like us. Like, this is. This is who God wants us to be in our community. And I'm so excited about doing ministry in this new space.
- [30:26]
A
Yeah, that's good. So it's. It's not, from what I hear you saying, it's not unreasonable on the front end to be like, hey, we should actually bring, like, be clear on. This is. This is what we think we can actually raise. This is what we think we can carry. We think we could do a project of X, whatever. And that needs to be early on in the discussion rather than we're disappointed on the back end. Oh, my goodness. We Got this, this big number and we don't know what to do with it.
- [30:50]
C
Yeah, I like to be doing it simultaneously. I like to be doing the needs analysis and working through. Okay, here's the eight different project options. You can relocate and spend 35 million. You can add on, you can do this, or here's your, here's your four options. 10, 8, 6, $4 million dollars. And at the same time, I like to encourage churches to like, okay, go talk to someone like yourself and say, okay, what do we think we could raise if we did a capital campaign? How much debt do we currently have? How do our elders feel about us, you know, borrowing some money if it, if it makes a bigger impact on the project? Because if we can bring those two things together and pray through it and get clarity from God about what he's asking us to do, then I can go help draw buildings and blueprints and things like that. Rich, you can help them raise some money and they, and we can, you know, we can go through that process.
- [31:41]
A
Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, it's great. And I, you know, my experience has been every one of those steps, friends, is it's a lot of work. It's, it's like a, it's a faith stretching experience. There are light, light nights, staring at the ceiling. But every one of those I've been a part of, literally 100 of them have been transformative in the life of the church. You know, when they, when you look back, you're like, wow, that was an inflection point. I am so glad we went through, through that. It wasn't this, like we did that and it was like, man, that wasn't so good in the end. It was really, was amazing. Well, there's a resource that you've provided. It's called 10 Things to Get right before you build. Talk to us about this resource. And then, and then where can, where can we want to make sure people get this? Tell us, tell us a little bit about this.
- [32:23]
C
Yeah, I mean like with, you know, church, hundreds of churches calling us, you know, every year, asking a lot of the questions that we've talked about today. Like we tried to distill down what are the most common things the churches are like, okay, pause real quick. I gotta go do something real fast before we decide that we can sort of move forward. And so some of these things are what happens like while you're talking to rise point. And some of these things might be before, but I think it's just kind of a helpful reminder and a Thoughtful list to kind of work through. And so if that's helpful at all or if that's interesting at all, you can just go to RisePoint.com unseminary and a little landing page will pop up there. There's two things you can do on that page. The first one is to just give us your name and your email there and sign up and get that 10 things to download. I also threw another button on there this morning in case you're like, hey, that sounds great, but I've got a specific question I have about our building or like I actually really need to talk to you guys about what our options are. And so I put another button down there at the bottom. If you want to schedule a call with myself or one of our architects, we'd love to hop on the phone with you. No charge for that 30 minutes. Just kind of talk through where you're at, what some of your questions are and see if we might be able to help. So once again, that's RisePoint.com unseminary and you can get all that, all that stuff right there.
- [33:47]
A
Yeah, that's fantastic. That's rypoint with an e.com forward slash on seminary and friends. I've had multiple.
- [33:55]
Friends in ministry who have engaged with with Aaron across the entire spectrum. The like three 30 minute thing all the way up through, you know, the kind of full deal help get a whole project out the door and, and just so happy with the work that Rise Point does and just has been transformative for their churches. So you get a hearty endorsement from me, you really should do that. Again, that's just risepoint with an e.com forward slash on Summoner. You can pick this up. It is a helpful little PDF and the schedule call is a great thing. Well, Aaron, I appreciate you being here today. If people want to track with you guys or if there's anywhere else online, obviously risepoint with an e.com we want to send them to. Anywhere else online we want to. We want to send them to.
- [34:36]
C
Yeah, I mean you can always, you know, follow us on the insta or whatever you want to do there. If you're into like, you know, cool pictures of like steel being erected.
- [34:48]
Or kids ministry stuff or pictures and stuff. We're trying to share a little bit more info there. But yeah, I mean, or just our website and yeah, stay connected.
- [34:56]
A
That's so good. Thanks for being here, Aaron. Have a good day, buddy.
- [34:59]
C
All right, you too.
- [35:00]
A
Bye.
- [35:00]
B
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Unseminary Podcast. If you found today's conversation helpful, I'd share it with a friend in ministry. It's a simple way to spark new ideas and grow together. Also, don't Forget to visit unseminary.com to sign up for our email list. You'll get exclusive resources and practical tools delivered straight to your inbox to help you lead your church more effectively. Most importantly, take what you learned today and put it into action this week. Ministry impact starts with small, intentional steps. See you next time.