Have you ever hired someone for a particular task and got a nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach that keeps telling you that this particular person just is not the best fit for the job? Boy, Churches by Daniels sure has!
Integrity & Trust
What comes to mind is a job that we did where the church had hired a certain church architect. The architect was very capable due to his extensive work with various government projects, and he ended up doing a really nice job. From the first time we met him, we knew that he wasn’t the best architect for the church, but, the church had already hired him, and they seemed to like him very much.
As time progressed though, we began to notice some flaws in his billing process. Any time there needed to be any changes, this architect would continue to bill the owner; and a lot of times we could not figure out the reasoning behind these changes. Needless to say, this made for a very uncomfortable situation, and there ended up being a great deal of extra billing that came from him. This does not even count the costs that affected the project itself, and, although the end result was a nice building, the process of getting there was not desirable!
Relevant Experience
We have also had situations go on where the architect is not familiar with church design. He may be a very good architect in his field, but he doesn’t know specific things that go into the design of a church. It seems that churches, particularly pastors and boards, need a little bit different treatment than what you would normally see on other projects. The church architect needs to know and understand the relationship the church has with its parishioners, and why they are building buildings. They are not building to just have a new facility, but the Ministry is what dictates the building not the buildings dictating the Ministry.
One thing you would need to keep in mind is that architects are people and there are all kinds of personalities and their abilities can vary from a wide range. You can have an architect who is a great designer, or you may have one that is more “nuts and bolts” who are not great designers, but do a great job with the “nuts and bolts” making sure that everything fits together. Your church designer may not do a good job of making it fit together.
So, there are all sorts of architects and we would advise that you look for a church architect who has built some churches. Maybe take a look at those churches to see what you see: what you like and what you don’t like. Every job when you’re through with it there are definitely places you would change and make different. Make sure the church architect is working for you and not working against you on his own agenda. You want to make sure he is working for you personally.