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Welcome to the ChurchBuild Project Guide!

This Project Guide focuses on the many issues involved in taking a larger church building project from inception to completion. It has been jointly authored by Nigel Walter, an Architect and Project Manager, and Jim Hammett, a Christian Consultant who has been responsible for advising a number of churches undertaking substantial new build schemes. This project arose from the knowledge that any church embarking on a major project will face many of the same issues, that these will often be fresh challenges for those involved, and that sharing our experience would be both relevant and helpful. Our aim therefore is to give you a guide to help your church achieve its vision with less pain, less delay and less waste of money and effort.

Who Is This For?

This toolkit is aimed at churches undertaking major church building projects in the UK. By major we mean loosely from £200,000 to £10m construction value and beyond, and addresses both new build and work to existing buildings. If your project is smaller than this then there will still be some sections that you may find helpful, but please be aware that we are not principally writing with your situation in mind. We have no axe to grind in terms of churchmanship or denomination, and would be delighted to see this material used across the breadth of the Church.

What Is Included?

The Toolkit is structured into 6 sections:
1. Principles – what your project is about
2. Partnerships – who you will need to convince
3. People – who to work with and how to choose them
4. Processes – the major process issues
5. Technical – building systems and specification issues
6. Finance – how much and where from

This structure and the sections within them are laid out in full in the footer of each page for convenience of navigation.

Disclaimer – Important!

This information is offered in good faith and is intended as an introductory guide to the complex issues involved in major projects. It does not pretend to be the last word on any of the topics covered, and should always be supplemented by relevant specialist advice, particularly where decisions have financial implications. Think of this Toolkit, therefore, as a map that will give you an overall sense of your journey and show you some avoidable pitfalls; it cannot, of course, teach you how to walk…

Where To Begin? The Overview

Throughout this section there will always be a link in the top menus to the Project Route Map. This opens in a separate window and gives you an overview of the stages a typical project goes through in its journey from initial vision to completed reality. This journey is broken down into nine main steps (A-J), within which there are a number of people involved, and tools for you to use and adapt. Feel free to print off this map and refer back to it to ensure you’re still on track. For many of these tools you will find templates that we have prepared, which you can download from the download section.

Please Give Us Your Feedback…

We hope you find this Toolkit really useful in guiding the development of your project. Whatever your experience, we would really welcome your feedback on anything you feel could be improved. Contact us through the form in the sidebar, or the Contact page.