Bill Couchenour, Churches, Before You Build: Successful Strategies for Developing Worship and Ministry Facilities. Cogun, Inc., 2003.
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Referenced in: Church Administration – Architecture and Building Issues
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is a brief (175 page) and thorough start-to-finish guide to the process of building church facilities. At the printing, the book and the author were highly recommended by Christianity Today’s BuildingforMinistry.com and the National Association of Church Business Administrators. Topics include:
- The various phases in planning and managing a building project
- A detailed look at the preparation phase, e.g. congregational/mission/needs assessment
- Ten characteristics of effective building committee members
- Budgeting, capital campaigns, and debt
- Choosing and contracting with the range of professionals needed to complete a building project
- A detailed guide to the design process, including the master plan
- Appendices on issues such as dimensions and measurements and a series of questions to help evaluating capital stewardship organizations
From the Publisher
A comprehensive guide to successfully developing facilities for worship and ministry. You will find a useful framework for the overall process that unlocks the keys to planning, coordinating, budgeting and financing the facilities you need.
About the Author
Bill Couchenour serves as president of Cogun, Inc., a premiere church construction company, which has coordinated the design and building of more than 650 church facilities since 1970. Since 1995, Bill has led the company in serving hundreds of congregations to bring about facilities that met specific ministry plans and budgets. He is also a regular contribution to BuildingforMinistry.com for which he serves as Director of Marketing and Ministry Services. He has written a number of articles on church ministry in postmodern culture that have appeared in national Christian magazines. He graduated from Mt. Vernon Nazarene University and received his MBA from Youngstown State University.
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