Consensus.

That’s why we prefer to do a 3-Day Design Charrette with church leadership before beginning to design and build a church. This three-day event consists of a series of meetings where we bring all of your stakeholders together before we get started with the project.

A charrette gives leaders, team members and key decision-makers a chance to have open dialogue about what they expect, as well as an opportunity to express concerns. When everyone is present and engaged, we can get everything out on the table. We can discuss the challenges we may face and how to avoid pitfalls. This will put you in the best possible position to have a realistic plan with achievable benchmarks as we move forward. 

“We’re really excited when we get to partner with a church and they entrust us with their facilities, with their money, with their people, because we know that church leaders have a lot of responsibilities and they’re held accountable for how things go,” says Joey Rhyne, Partner and Design-Builder at Dow Smith Company. “So we like to make them feel relaxed and feel confident about who they’ve hired.”

The process can also save as much as six figures. Some churches, eager to get to work, will pay hefty fees for designs that are impossible to build on their budget. Having an intensive discussion ahead of time can prevent this from happening.

Luke 14:28 asks us, “For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?”

This is a critical question and it’s not just about the financial cost, though that’s part of it. It’s also about the strain expansion can put on a congregation and the sacrifices that you’ll inevitably have to make along the way. Understanding how to minimize disruption to existing operations, while keeping staff and members of the congregation safe, is of the utmost importance.

So, what does a typical 3-Day Design Charrette do?

• Establish metrics such as historical attendance, space usage and project budgets so that everything will scale appropriately.

• Conduct discovery interviews by meeting with staff and core ministry leaders identified by the church to better understand the ministries that are under design.

• Prepare at least two optional site campus master plan concepts based on the conclusions from our discovery interviews.

• Prepare conceptual schematic design floor plans for the next identified building phase for your teams’ review.

• Prepare conceptual exterior building elevations to capture what the exterior may look like.

• Revise site plan, floor plan and elevations according to feedback from leadership to be presented again to capture any final comments.

• Provide overall code summary and discuss any red flags or concerns.

• Discuss final details to be completed and delivered.

• Prepare computer-generated model of the church.

[Click here to see some of the churches we have designed and built.]

We will craft an agenda for our three days together that will allow us to accomplish all of the above. This will be time well spent as everyone will leave the charrette on the same page and ready to start the next chapter of your church. You will gain consensus.

“I don’t consider a job a success unless the clients are our friends at the end of the job,” Joey says. “We are really passionate about the construction process, and even though it’s usually going to be inconvenient, we want it to be as enjoyable as possible. Construction is supposed to be exciting. It’s supposed to be about growth and good things, and change is a good thing.”