Church    Financing       Center

The idea of spending additional money for a building consultant on your church construction project might seem unnecessary to most, but with the help of an experienced, independent building consultant, your church will save time, money and effort, making the additional expense well worth it.

Many architecture and construction companies will offer their own consultation services for their clients. In some cases, however, these consultation services are merely an effort to sway you church’s building decisions in their favor. Because of instances such as these, it’s a good idea to hire an independent consultant who does not have a personal agenda in deciding where your church spends its money.

What does a church building consultant do? An article from an online church business magazine does a great job of summarizing what exactly your church building consultant will help you with:

• Identify and quantify needs - What does the church need to build and why is that the right thing to build to help the church become the vision and accomplish the mission of the church.
• Financial Feasibility - What can the church afford and how will they pay for a church building program. This may include helping the church prepare to receive a church construction loan or execute a capital campaign.
• Run a Capital Campaign - A capital stewardship campaign can help your church raise 1.5-3x your current annual budget in just 3 years.
• Assist the church - Assist by evaluating, selecting and negotiating with the architect, engineers, builders and other professionals.

Overall, hiring a consultant in the beginning stages of your church building project will be worth the minor expense required for their services in comparison to the great deal of time, money and effort that your church will save in the long run by doing so.

If your church is looking to use bonds to finance an improvement project or construct a new facility, then you may want to take a look at this article, called All the things you need to know about Church Bonds, which explains all of the “ins and outs” of the church bond process. This article includes an explanation and benefits of different types of bonds as well as the theological, financial and practical reasons that a church bond may be a better choice for you over a conventional loan.

The application process for a church loan is complicated enough as it is, but when you are unprepared the process will only become more difficult and time consuming. Having all of the proper documentation and knowing how to organize it can easily prevent such a problem, not to mention make a great first impression to the lender.

Christianity Today magazine addresses this topic and encourages churches to prepare well in advance of the actual application process in order to ensure that all of the necessary documents are in hand and have the correct information. The church loan process must be addressed in a business like manner rather than simply having a vague vision in mind.

Since the church financing process is knowingly complicated, it is far more than one individual person should be expected to handle alone. The church should develop a team of individuals to handle the task, particularly individuals who will be able to speak on behalf of the accounting, law, real estate, banking, and architecture aspects of the project at hand.

With a team of prepared individuals working together, the church loan process should run much more smoothly. To ensure that this is the case, and guarantee that you are properly prepared for the application process, use Christianity Today’s Loan Application Checklist, available here.

If your church is looking to build or expand in the near future, here is an article that explains each step of the church loan process in detail. While the process is somewhat similar to the standard commercial loan process, many people do not have a great deal of experience in this area. For that reason, this article is a good resource for understanding how the typical church loan process works, and can help churches prepare if they are looking to obtain financing for a construction project in the future.

Click here to read the article.

While researching for information about church loans and church financing, it’s easy to come across materials that can point out what major obstacles often arise during the loan process. These include problems that you’ve probably already heard about, such as difficulty obtaining a loan due to a church’s unique status, etc.

This most recent article I came across goes beyond just identifying the major problems that church’s face and does a great job of explaining why certain factors are problematic. For instance, it’s easy to understand that a church is unique from a typical business that might be trying to obtain a commercial loan, but the reason that lenders hesitate to lend to churches is that if the mortgage is not paid by the church, the property would be very difficult to sell because of its specific, unique layout. This is much different than a standard commercial building which can be easily sold and accomodate just about any other business.

Check out this article to find out more about the 4 major problems that churches face when obtaining financing and understand specifically why these problems occur.

Since most churches cannot afford to pay the cost of building a new facility or improvement projects on a current facillity, they are often in need of additional financing.

Here is a great resource containing numerous church financing related articles, including on called The Best Money a Church Can Buy. This article emphasizes the importance of doing research before deciding on a form of church financing (mortgage, best efforts bonds, etc.) and prior to choosing a lender (commercial bank, bond finance company, local bank, etc.).

There are a number of financing options available to churches that many people may not even be aware of; additionally, there are several sources through which a church can obtain funding, which is why it is crucial to conduct research to find the source that best fits your church’s needs.

Check out the article for more information about the different types of financing options and lenders, as well as a number of tips that are likely to help improve your church loan process.

The lease-purchase program available to churches is a great option for a church that is currently renting and looking to build a new facility, but is having trouble obtaining financing to do so.

The basic idea of this program is to allow a church to begin construction on a new facility without paying for the loan until the new building is complete (preventing the church from paying rent at the current facility while also making payments on the construction loan). After the completion of the new facility, the church will move into that building under a lease agreement with the option to purchase within 3 years.

This program is perfect for churches looking to build as soon as possible, as well as newer churches that may not be able to obtain the financing for a conventional church loan.

For more information about the church lease-purchase program, check out this article.