Southwest Chinese Baptist Church (SWCBC)

Phase I Church Building Project FAQ

• "Why is SWCBC building a new church building?"
  First, as our church grows we need more space to accommodate more people. Secondly, we are meeting at our Mother Church's Gym where sound condition has been pretty bad. Thirdly, due to the budget cut of our Mother Church, all fellowship meetings must be cut short and everybody must be out of the building before 10:00 p.m. on every Friday. Fourthly, a lot of ministries have been postponed, down-sized, or even dropped due to limited space. Finally, we need more rooms for our offices, storage and library, plus, more spaces for parking.
• "How to get our own church building?"
  We can buy an existing church building, buy and modify an existing building to a church, or, build a new church from scratch. SWCBC had looked at all these means before and ended up bought a piece of land and to build a new church building.
• "Where is the land? How big? How much?"
  SWCBC bought 11.7 acres of vacant land located at the southeast corner at the intersection of Sugar Ridge Blvd. and West Airport Blvd. in Stafford between Hwy 59 and Beltway 8 (1 mile east of Texas Instruments). The physically address is 12525 Sugar Ridge Blvd. (at 10300 block West Airport), Stafford, Texas 77477. The sale price was about $267,000 in 1992 and now appraised by the Fort Bend County at over $400,000 in 1995. Recently a strip of 50-foot wide land along the east boundary has been given up to the City of Stafford since a future public road may be built there and the City may require the Church to share the expenses. Such offer has already been approved by the Church Members and the City. As a result, the actual size of the land is 11.2 acres.
• "Who decide to build the church building?"
  Back in 1985, an ad hoc committee known as Church Building Committee was formed under the Church Council. The appointment of this Committee was first recommended by the Church Council and approved by the Church Members. The Building Committee will meet and do all the study first and then recommend any work needed to be done to the Church Council. The Council will decide (including getting approval from the Church Members if necessary) whether to get the work done proposed by the Building Committee.
• "Who are the people in the Building Committee?"
  Members of an ad hoc committee like the other standing committees such as Fellowship Training Committee, are recommended by the Nomination Committee and/or the Church Council to the Church Members for approval. Normally, all committee members serve using a 3-2-1 "shifting" system implying that each member will serve that committee for 3 years, and every year, one-third of the members will "shift" out of the committee while newly elected members will "shift" in to make up the committee. Only Church Members who have joint the Church for at least one year are basically qualified for any official position. All others may be qualified for members-at-large of a sub-committee. For more details please consult SWCBC Constitution and Bylaws. Currently, due to the complexity of the Building Project, the Building Committee has further sub-divided into two sub-committees in order to recruit more manpower. They are Finance Sub-Committee and Architectural/Engineering Sub-Committee. These two sub-committees have just further sub-divided into many other sub-sub-committees to recruit more and more manpower.
• "Are we ready to build the new church building on that piece of land?"
  Yes, we are ready to build the Phase I Church Building Project which includes a sanctuary, education facilities, fellowship area, site improvement, parking and landscaping. Environment study, soil test and topographic survey have already been done on the land. All results show favorable condition for building the Phase I Church Building there. A Ground-Breaking Ceremony was held on November 19, 1995, the Building Permit was issued on December 28, 1995 and construction started the next day.
• "Who are the architect and constructor of the new building?"
  SDT Architects, Inc. has been invited to design and draft the building and manage the construction. Clear Lake Construction Company has been selected as the general contractor for the construction. The completion date will be in August 1996.
• "How big is the building?"
  Due to the recent inflation of the construction cost, the footage of the Phase I Church Building is currently about 10,400 sq. ft. Visit the Church's World Wide Web Home Page on the Internet for the floor plan and rendering of the building. The URL address is "http://swcbc.org".
• "How do we finance the cost? How much?"
  SWCBC accepts building fund love offering, holds fund raising activities and sells church bonds to raise fund for the Project. The total budget is US$800,000; however, due to recent high inflation of construction cost, the cost may end up at 900K.
• "What are church bonds?"
  Church bonds are certificates of indebtedness issued by churches as nonprofit organizations to provide funds for acquisition of property. Newsletters about our church bonds have been published and available from the Church Office. You may also visit the Church's WWW Home Page for more details. In summary, our church started selling $600,000 church bonds to fund parts of the project on October 29, 1995. There was a Bond Seminar held on October 22 at church. All bonds were sold in the third week after the kick-off sale.
• "What can SWCBC members do to help to build the Lord's Temple?"
  Pray, of course, that the Lord will prepare and guide us to participate in any activities relating to the church building. If you can serve in any capacity, contact the Building Committee. If you can donate resources such as money or furnitures, contact the Finance Committee or Building Committee.

Afterthought

Ideally, borrowing money with or without interest from the congregation is the best way to raise money. Selling church bonds is fine but it costs at least 5% of the bond amount for professional fees and expenses. It is recommended to have outside help the first time a church to sell bond. The second time, the church may consider doing it herself. The major advantage of church bonds sale is that members can roll over their self-direct IRA or pension plan to buy bonds. The following are some thoughts summarized from the building of our Phase I Church Building Project in 1996.

At the very beginning of the building program, the following should be considered in sequence:

1. Finance through a bank or financial institute.
2. Selling church bonds.
3. IOU note to borrow money from members.
4. Pledge and love offering.
However, 2 and 4 are the most "effective" methods in asking for money from the congregation.

A working budget prior to building should be prioritized as:

1. The cost to build a bare minimum required building which can be used for worship on day 1 when we move in.
2. Additional landscaping.
3. Additional furnitures and appliances.
4. Additional equipments like sound, phone, security system equipment.
5. Additional equipments like organ, piano for children.
6. Any other things.

Actually, money is secondary to the need of the building. The size of the building must be first determined in order to accommodate the current congregation plus 50% extra growth. Once the size of the building is known, multiplying it by current $/sq. ft. to come up with the budget. If there is not enough money, then do fund raising like love offering, pledge, special program, and/or selling church bond. Last resource is to finance through banking institutes. Generally speaking, an average family unit can offer or lend the church $4000 to $5000 depending on the location of the church (higher in California, lower in southern states ... etc.)

We paid about $23,000 to Security Church Finance (SCF) for issuing $600,000 bonds. The trust company for our bonds is American Church Trust (ACT) Company which is a sister company of SCF. Both companies are in the same building in Northwest Houston. We paid ACT a fixed $150/per month until all bond matured and some percentage of the balance fund kept in the account for "maintenance". Therefore, make sure the bond sale day is very close to the time you need the money to pay for construction (say, one month).

We sold more than 98% bonds to our congregation (members and their families and friends). Although we did emphasize on selling bonds to Christians only, few non-believers bought our bonds anyway because of the comparable interest rate. We sold them all out in 3 weeks.

In average, for Chinese congregation, the total amount of bonds issued can be up to $4,000 x number of church members. For example, a membership of 200 can issue about $800,000 bonds without much problem. Of course, this is an average number. Some "wealthy" church can afford $5,000 per member. Keep in mind, the total bond amount can be up to 4 times of the church total annual budget or offering (funds for general, mission and building etc).

The only advantage of issuing church bond is that people can roll over their self-directed IRA and qualified annuities or 401K to purchase church bonds. Therefore, the high number of middle aged members, the high probability of getting all the bonds sold fast since most of them should have IRA or some kind of self-directed pension.

Once you have decided to sell bonds. Preparation work is very important such as making the congregation aware of the importance of getting IRA and CD ready. That's why "professional" help from church finance company like SCF is needed. They will help you well prepare for the big day which is the bond sale kick off day.

The most important things needed to be done from the beginning are:

1. getting an appraisal;
2. deciding on whether buying a title insurance or not (consider waiving it if you have an attorney as your church member and the church have done a complete clearance on the title search);
3. preparing financial statement for the past 3 - 5 years;
4. preparing a prospectus in English and Chinese if your church is a Chinese church. Note that the Chinese version must be certified to be a close enough translation of the English version. A certified letter required from an attorney who can read and understand Chinese. Virtually any Chinese attorney in any specialty can do that. Newsletters are optional but excellent for members who lives out-of-town. BTW, residents from some states, such as D.C. and California, cannot purchase church bonds that are offered out of their states. E.g., residents in LA cannot purchase church bonds offered by your church legally.

Everybody in the congregation can participate in the bond offering because the denomination of the bond issues should have a large range. The denomination of church bond can be as low as $100. It is all up to your church in deciding on the denomination. Actually, few of our church kids did buy some of our church bonds. The emphasis of the bond sale should be put on the spirit of unity in building the God's temple, not the amount that people buy. That is the reason why, in addition to the bond sale, some other fund raising activities are still needed, like walkathon, sport fund raising day, garage or auction sale (goods and/or services) ... etc. How many activities the church should hold varies with your church size and man power.