Strategic Facility Planning for Growing Churches

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re joined today by Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe, a church design and project management firm that helps growing ministries align their physical spaces with their mission. With a background in engineering and church leadership, Aaron brings unique insights into how churches can strategically plan for future growth through facility design and proactive planning.

Are you leading a growing church and starting to feel the squeeze? Wondering what to prioritize when your parking lot’s full, your kids’ spaces are stretched, and your worship center is near capacity? Tune in as Aaron shares a practical framework for addressing facility constraints, avoiding project panic, and preparing now for sustainable growth in the future.

• Not all churches are in decline. // Despite negative prevailing narratives, Aaron affirms what many leaders are seeing: healthy churches are growing—rurally, urbanly, and everything in between. These ministries are investing in evangelism, discipleship, and their communities. With that momentum, however, comes the inevitable question: are your physical spaces ready to support your growth?
• The constraints framework. // To help churches think clearly about facilities, Aaron introduces the “constraints framework.” Ask: If your church attendance doubled in the next year, what would break first? By identifying constraints early, leaders can focus resources strategically—before growth stalls.
• Predict the pinch points. // Common facility constraints include parking shortages, overcrowded kids’ environments, and limited worship center seating. But other “second-tier” constraints—like insufficient special needs space or lack of adult discipleship areas—can also hinder growth in less obvious ways. Proactively identifying and solving these limitations is key to unlocking your next wave of impact.
• Don’t skip the site plan. // Church expansion is often slowed by regulatory issues related to zoning, parking ratios, or city permits. Many churches underestimate the time involved in updating or expanding a site plan. Aaron recommends master planning early so leaders have options when space gets tight.
• Plan, don’t react. // Too many facility projects begin in panic—after leaders realize they’ve hit a wall. Instead, Aaron encourages a posture of proactive planning. A key part of that is Risepointe’s Needs Analysis—a one-day, on-site process that results in a strategic plan outlining opportunities, costs, and next steps to prepare for the future.
• Stewarding the opportunity. // While building costs and material prices fluctuate, Aaron warns against letting fear hold churches back. Instead of being reactive to market pressures, leaders should focus on what they can control—clarity of vision, alignment of resources, and readiness to act when God opens doors.
• Facilities as a gospel stage. // Aaron shares the inspiring story of Downtown Cornerstone Church in Seattle, a congregation that endured significant delays, regulations, and even seismic retrofitting—but ultimately moved into a new building that now serves as a powerful platform for mission in the city. Facilities, Aaron reminds us, are not the mission—but they enable the mission.

To learn more about Risepointe’s Needs Analysis, visit risepointe.com. Download the free resource, 10 Things to Get Right Before You Build, here.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am really looking forward to today’s conversation. Got both an expert and a friend on the podcast, a return guest, which means we got high value here. We’ve got Aaron Stanski with us. He is the founder and CEO of Risepointe. They’ve got 15 plus years of church design, leadership, project management experience. They provide creative design solutions that really remove lids ah that prevent growth in ministries. They work with churches and schools and nonprofits on architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding, so much more. They are incredible leaders. And Aaron is the guy at the tip of the spear. Welcome to the show, Aaron. So glad. Welcome back.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Thanks, Rich. Good to be here.

Rich Birch — Always good to always good to see you. And yeah, maybe for folks that don’t know, give us the Aaron Stanski story.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Compress that down, and then we’ll jump into today’s I got a burning question for you today, Aaron.

Aaron Stanski — Sweet. Yeah. Well, I mean, I grew up in ministry, Rich. My dad was a pastor. We actually planted a church out in Boston when I was a kid. So I like to think I have some church planter blood in me there.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Aaron Stanski — Went to school for engineering, did that for a while with Harley Davidson motorcycles before ending up leaving that and ah joining staff with Cru and then with my church. So I was on staff at my church for a while.

Aaron Stanski — We went through a big building project. And since I had engineering experience, I sort of got tapped to help out there. So I had to hire, interview architects and engineers and AV consultants and all that stuff. And so I loved it. I actually got to take the engineering mind that God had created me with and sort of the ministry heart and bring those two things together.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Aaron Stanski — And now that’s what I get to do. I get to help churches and Christian schools all over the country figure out how to align their facilities with their mission and vision and go through big projects. So it’s super fun.

Rich Birch — Love it. I love I love to have Aaron on when we’re thinking about, you know, really anything to do with facility stuff. He is, if you were to email me and say, Hey, I’m thinking about facility stuff. Who should I talk to? I would say, talk to Aaron cause he’s a great, he’s super generous. Thing I love about him is he actually does love the local church. There are folks in this space who are like, they’re just trying to sell you something, or at least that’s the impression I get. I don’t know if that’s true. I can’t read a person’s heart, but I get that impression from other folks. That’s definitely not Aaron. He really loves churches. And I was thinking about this question recent, Aaron…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …and I thought, man, I want to get him on the show to talk about it. So, you know, I my mission is to help a hundred churches grow by a thousand people. I interact with growing churches…

Aaron Stanski — Sure.

Rich Birch — …all across the country and which is fantastic. And just recently I had a mutual friend say, you know, there’s this, this neg this negative narrative about the local church that it’s like, oh, all churches are in decline. They’re all not going anywhere. Things are terrible. But that’s just not true.

Aaron Stanski — No.

Rich Birch — There are hundreds, thousands of churches that are making a difference all across the size spectrum of all different sizes.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — You know, 200, 2000, 20,000 that are growing. And I’d love to kind of talk about it from that perspective today.

Aaron Stanski — Sure.

Rich Birch — Hey, let’s assume that our churches are growing, and I come to you and I’m like, hey, we’re growing. What should I be thinking about? What are some kind of questions we should be wrestling with?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. And I mean, I get that same thing too, Rich. I mean, I had ah an interview with a potential employee last week, and he was like, you guys just work with churches and Christian schools. He’s like, is there going to be work like next year? Are churches doing well?

Rich Birch — Yes. Aren’t they all closing? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And I was like I was like, well, first off, we’re working with amazing churches that are like rolling up their sleeves, that are getting after it when it comes to evangelism and discipleship and serving their local community. And I was telling this guy, I was like, man, I don’t put a whole lot of stock in like political solutions for some of the problems that we’re facing.

Rich Birch — Right. It’s so true.

Aaron Stanski — But man, when I see the local church just rocking it and engaging their community…

Rich Birch — So true.

Aaron Stanski — …wrestling with tough questions, serving the poor, preaching the gospel. I mean, those churches, they’re growing.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Stanski — And we see those all over the country um in really difficult, ah you know, downtown urban environments, all the way out to rural ah people driving 45 minutes to an hour to experience what God’s doing. So it’s really exciting.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. It’s true. The local church done well is an unstoppable force for good.

Aaron Stanski — It is.

Rich Birch — I really do believe that. And, you know, it’s a privilege to serve some of those folks. But I know, like, let’s try to get in the head of a growing church.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Like, you know, maybe you’re ah maybe you’ve gone from two services to three services and you’re like, oh, gosh, I and how many services are we going to do? Are we going to end up with 25 services? Or like you stand out on a Sunday morning, you just happen to come in late and your parking lot is like completely full.

Aaron Stanski — Right.

Rich Birch — Or like your kids ministry people are sending you pictures mid-service of like, there are way too many kids in this room. What what would what are some of the questions? How would you help a church like that start to wrestle through this question?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and those are great questions. Those are great problems to have. Right?

Rich Birch — So true.

Aaron Stanski — But one of the things ah that we’ve been working on a little bit is, is kind of what we call our, the constraints framework.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Aaron Stanski — And this certainly isn’t original thought with Risepointe. I mean, this is just a business principle that says, Hey, ah if you had to, if you, if you had to grow or double the size of your business, what would be the first things to break? What are the constraints that are preventing you from doing that?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — And you take that first constraint and you throw all your resources, you attack that first constraint until it’s solved, and then you move on to the next one.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.

Aaron Stanski — And I’d say so, you know, we’ve been walking a similar process through with churches and saying, OK, you know, if you had to double your attendance over the next year, like what would break first?

Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.

Aaron Stanski — Or if you had to bring online twice as many seats in the next year, like how would you go about doing that? And so to, you know, predictively look at, okay, what breaks first, certainly like their systems and their strategies, there’s people processes involved in there. But when we’re looking at buildings, right, when we’re looking at projects and facilities and sites, those problems tend to take years to solve.

Aaron Stanski — And so we have to look at those things and say, okay, when is the building, when is our parking, when do seats or kids space, when do one of those things become the lid? And then start to plan around that solution.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Aaron Stanski — And there’s lots of different solutions, right? I mean, multisite and add like you mentioned, adding services and stuff. But measuring the cost of those and figuring out what we are going to do in order to continue to grow.

Rich Birch — Are there… Well, first of all, I love that. What you know, what would happen if your church, if your attendance doubled in the next year, what would break? That is a compelling question. That’s, man, that’s a great even let’s pull our leaders together for an afternoon and ask that question together and say, hey, let’s let’s think about this really clearly.

Rich Birch — Because, man, what I would hate is that it’s actually constraints we’ve put in. Maybe we’re we’re actually preventing that growth because of the way our facility or whatever is built. Now, are there areas that you’re seeing on the facility side that are just common constraints that are like, you know, man, we just see people bumping up against this issue or that issue time and time again. Is there an area that you would kind of direct people to be thinking about?

Aaron Stanski — Well, the easiest ones to just sort of see and observe, ah you know, if you’re in church leadership…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — …you know, parking lot is pretty easy to see and observe.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — Like you’ll probably have some volunteers report back to you or even your first impressions guests say, hey, we saw some people drive through the parking lot, not find a spot and drive out.

Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.

Aaron Stanski — And that’s just heartbreaking, right, on the ministry side of things.

Aaron Stanski — Also seats in the auditorium. That’s a really easy one to measure and see just because we can observe it. I’d say we we tend to look out at a 60% full auditorium and think like, man, this is it’s pretty full. There may be some capacity there. So you do want to like actually count, ah but seats are a little, an easy one. Obviously kid space. If you’re If you’re like, hey, we had to start turning families away. The second grade classroom was you know at capacity for volunteers or something.

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — So those are those are the easy ones. I think the the second tier of things tends to be a little bit more difficult. And that tends to be like, hey, like meeting some of the you know maybe specific needs in and around your community. We’ve had lots of churches say that, hey, we didn’t realize there was such a need for you know special education, ah you know, you know, people with disabilities and things like that for our kids ministry. And so opening space for them actually really grew that ministry because we we weren’t even thinking about it.

Aaron Stanski — Same can be true for like adult education or like, you know, providing small group space for people that might not want to meet in homes, ah maybe people who recently accepted Christ, you know, young Christians, things like that. So there’s sort of a second tier of space that we take a look at to say, hey, is there something else where if we if we could provide that space, we’d help we’d see our ministry grow.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah, you can see, you know, the kind of those big three, the adult space, the kids, the parking, how those would bubble to the top pretty quickly. But there might actually be some of these other, you know, special needs for kids or adult meeting space that could that could actually be holding us back that that we’re not seeing clearly.

Rich Birch — Is this related to, I know there’s this whole area in your, I’m going to sound dumber than I actually am on this question. So, because I want to be like, I know a little bit about this, but just enough to be dangerous. This connects to like site plan type stuff too. I often wonder, like I’ve heard of churches, they’re like, oh, we’re going to add on to this thing. But then they bump into a site plan issue.

Aaron Stanski — Right.

Rich Birch — What is a site plan? And why is it that why should we be thinking ahead on that when we think about here are these things that take multiple years to wrestle through. I’ve heard of people like, oh, it took us two years to get the site plan sorted out with our town or, you know, X number of months whatever.

Aaron Stanski — Right. Right.

Rich Birch — How does that relate to this issue?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, part of it is just like, it it’s a process of planning ahead, right? And so being intentional and strategic with our planning.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Aaron Stanski — Hopefully the site plan doesn’t take a couple of years to pull together. That seems a little ridiculous to me…

Rich Birch — Excessive.

Aaron Stanski — …just as a church guy out here. But what we really need to do is is start to measure and say, okay, what are what are some of the need, once we have the constraints, what are the options that we have to solve those constraints? And if you go to try to start solving those things, whether it’s parking lot flow or access or more kid space or something, and your site taps you out, that’s an indication that you might need to relocate or look at a different strategy, multisite or something else like that.

Aaron Stanski — And so that master planning, that needs analysis looks at all of your needs and that would include like deferred maintenance, roofs, air conditioning units, all of those things, and then future planning, and then combining that with costing…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …and saying, okay, what are what are the steps we’re going to have to take to continue to make room for more as we grow? And so when we see churches doing an amazing job of this, they’re planning ahead. They have a strategy for their facilities, like they would um their programs and things like that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, groups ministry or whatever, yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And they’re saying, OK, over time, this is where we want to move to. And those same churches, I mean, they’re due they’re overlapping the the strategy for their physical spaces with um like hiring leaders, right? And getting the right staff people in place, people who have been there before, have gone through projects, have led multisite stuff. And so it’s ah it’s a planning, it’s process, and then it’s the the physical as well. And and having sort of an all-inclusive strategy for all three.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve I got to be honest. I feel like a lot of the projects I’ve been involved with are mostly reactive. It’s like, we’re like, oh my goodness, we’re growing. Or like we had this building given to us. Or we’re thinking about, you know, this opportunity and we’ve kind of scrambled rather than, I love that idea of kind of being, hey, let’s be a bit more thoughtful, methodical. Hey, when we hit this, you know, we hit this level that should really trigger us to be thinking about that sort of thing. Is that what that looks like when I’m literally trying to imagine…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …what would it be like to be proactive on the facility…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …side rather than just constantly reactive.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, if we’re fighting fires, that’s a, that’s a bad sign, right?

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. True.

Aaron Stanski — Especially since, I mean, and I deal with this a lot. I mean, churches will call us and say, Hey, we’re out of space. And I’m like, shoot, if we had started a year and a half ago, like we could be having a much, a much more productive conversation around some of this…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …rather than ah putting together a plan to get us through the next couple of years, instead of putting together a plan, they’ll actually like multiply impact over the next couple of years.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. And this is what this is, you know, editorial note for folks that are listening in. This is part of the reason why I love Aaron and his team is really, you you should see them as like ah a facility partner, a, you know, somebody that’s going to journey with you over an extended period of time. You actually do this thing called Needs Analysis that I’ve I’ve recommended multiple friends do. Can you kind of tell us about what that process is? I find, I you know, I bet you every couple of weeks I’m in conversation with somebody like, do you know so Aaron Stanski at Risepointe. You should talk to him about Needs Analysis. What is that? That’s

Aaron Stanski — Well, thanks for telling people about us, Rich. I appreciate it. No, um the Needs Analysis is a customized process for each individual church or ministry…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — …where we get on site with you and your team for an entire day. And we really wrestle to the ground ah the issues that you’re facing with your facility, the questions that you have. And we we come back to you 30 days later with sort of a master plan, some some sketches, some recommendations around how to move your facility forward. And we do that alongside of some costs. So what are most churches spending in order to solve these issues? And so for a lot of church leaders, that’s what they need, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — They need a report that says, okay, here’s the three options. Here’s what it costs. Great. Now we can pray through those things and figure out what God’s calling us to move forward. So ah most churches that work with Risepointe, like have us do a Needs Analysis at some point in time.

Rich Birch — Right

Aaron Stanski — It’s a great first step if we’re you know trying to get out ahead of things and really plan.

Rich Birch — Yeah. And it’s, it’s, uh, I think, as an outsider, as I’ve seen churches that have benefited from that, it’s the this great kind of peanut butter and honey or peanut butter and chocolate of it’s high level enough that, Hey, we can make some strategic decisions on this thing. Like it’s like, Hey, we’ve, we can see. But it’s detailed enough that we can dive in and get a real clear sense of where things are at. Obviously it’s not a full plan it doesn’t drive to the you know the the the final paint color on a wall somewhere.

Aaron Stanski — Right, right.

Rich Birch — But it does give you enough it gives you a enough knowledge as a leader to say, okay here’s something we should be thinking about. Here’s you know here’s here’s where here’s some decisions we need to be making in this next step. I think it would be great for folks.

Rich Birch — I’d love to pivot in one other direction.

Aaron Stanski — Sure.

Rich Birch — And then actually two other things I want to talk about. One, it’s little bit of a curve ball. It’s up on, you know, the tip of our tongues. Tariffs, ah you know, is this impacting on the facility side? You know, we got to but buy lumber. We had a project that we were a part of…

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …where we literally delayed, because of the price of steel, we delayed the project by six months. Because we thought, hey, that we can, and we it worked out. The price of steel went down and we, because we we’re buying this giant hunk of steel for the roof for the roof of this building.

Aaron Stanski — Wow. That’s great.

Rich Birch — Talk to us about, you know, are you getting those calls? What do you think it’s going to impact your people? What do you think?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, we’re definitely getting that question a lot. I mean, you know, there’s a lot more, you know, energy and hype around the social media than actually exists…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Aaron Stanski — …when you talk to contractors and suppliers and some things like that. We’re definitely seeing some prices go up and some prices go down. And really, there’s more of an emotional response to the tariffs at this point…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …than than an actual physical response that we’re seeing. So, yeah, I mean, I’m sure it’s going to affect some things positively and some things negatively. For most churches that are going through a construction project, though, there’s enough variety in what it is they have to buy…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …that if one item was a little bit more and another item was a little bit less, it typically would offset each other.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Aaron Stanski — I mean, in the example that you gave where you had like this huge chunk of steel, if you have someone that can predict what the the market is going to do and predict what ah the president may or may not tweet, then I would definitely recommend that strategy. Wait until prices come down.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — But for the most part, I mean, it’s unpredictable. There’s definitely a cost there. We’re just paying attention to it. We’re just like leaning into the things that we can control and we’re leading out with what God calls us to do.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And, and we’re kind of leaving the the rest of him, you know?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very similar. I’ve said in other contexts around this, like, I don’t think we should let this hold us back. You know, they if you’re, we don’t want to be on the back foot. We want to be on the front foot.

Aaron Stanski — Yep.

Rich Birch — And, you know, the reality of it is, I think from a kingdom opportunity point of view, we’re in no better season than I’ve seen in my ministry career. I think it’s a great time for us to be out thinking about projects like this. And so, man, I I would hate for us to hesitate in this moment. I understand, even when I asked the question, I realized the tariff situation can change really quickly.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — It’s like, you know, by the time we do this, maybe there’ll be no more tariffs.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, who knows?

Rich Birch — But actually get it out. But but I wouldn’t want it to hold us back. Like let’s keep focused, friends, on what we, you know, what we’re called to do. And we want to be wise. We don’t want be silly, but I also don’t want us to to delay. I think we want to keep focusing on the future for sure.

Rich Birch — Related to that, would this whole idea of like, how do we keep you know leaning in and keep moving forward on this front? I was in a building recently that I was a part of. It was not a Risepointe project that was a part of. It’s it’s now 15 years old.

Aaron Stanski — Okay.

Rich Birch — I walked into that building and I was like, oh, wow, this feels very old. This feels out of date very quickly. When we built that building, it was like very modern. It felt very but it’s amazing how quickly things get kind of out of…

Aaron Stanski — Trend.

Rich Birch — I don’t know what. Trend, or whatever. And, and it didn’t, it wasn’t even that it was like we were using colors that… it just felt the thing felt tired. How do we avoid that? How do we, and are, are there rhythms we should be thinking about on this front? Like not always just thinking about the next campus, but going back and kind of backfilling, you know, our existing locations.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, ah design changes and it it feels like design is changing about as rapidly as technology is changing these days. You know, so you know one of the things that we’re really kind of you know trying to lean into, you know is this this idea of creating like almost canvases. So how do we create canvases? How do we create you know sort of these these neutral palettes where we can come in and accent those things with things that feel on trend, relevant, ready to go. But then we can actually, you know, kind of replace some of those things, whether it’s furniture…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …or, you know, materials or signage or some things like that, so that it doesn’t like sit stagnant for 15 years. Anything that just sits there for 15 years ah is going to feel old. Even, i mean, even car manufacturers and what they’re trying to do to reinvent car designs at a much rapider pace than they used to.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — So a car that’s like five years old looks like an old Honda Accord versus the ones that just came out. Right?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — And so we’re going to see the same thing. And so, yeah, I mean, just trying, you know, trying not to be too trendy to begin…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …with is actually really going to help you out.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I think that makes sense. I can see that. When we’re doing our projects on the front end, let’s think about the fact that five years from now, we’re going to have to come back and do something.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — So how do we design it in a way that, you know, we can make a few replacements, we don’t need to like, you know, rip out this entire wall or whatever, you know, it’s that’s interesting.

Rich Birch — You were telling me a story about a church. I want to make sure we tell that story…

Aaron Stanski — Oh, yeah.

Rich Birch — …to folks that are on, that are listening in. This is incredible. You should lean in friends. This is a really cool story of kind of how God has used this whole conversation ah to really help a church make impact.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I’ll go for a little bit here for sure, Rich. But yeah, I mean, I was just reflecting on the fact that, I mean, construction projects and raising money and and dealing with our facilities. I mean, this is not the reason most of us got into ministry, right?

Rich Birch — So true. Yes.

Aaron Stanski — And there’s definitely you know these seasons ah you know that God calls us to anyway ah that just require a different level of resilience and a different level of stick-to-it-edness.

Aaron Stanski — I was thinking ah ah back about Hebrews 10:35-36. It says, therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance so that when you’ve done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. Right? And the writer of Hebrews, it’s like, you know, um you know, really pushing this idea of resilience and living a life that glorifies God. Right? And he’s exhorting us to preserve, to persevere ah during hard times.

Aaron Stanski — And so I was just thinking about some of the most difficult projects at Risepointe that churches have kind of gone through. And one of them ah is actually the story of downtown Cornerstone Church. This is a church that we worked with in Seattle. And ah they were a church plant about 14, 15 years ago. So they did the whole portable thing for a few years. And then they actually leased an old nightclub. And so they moved into that nightclub, ah saw God do some tremendous things, but they really quickly, you know, kind of ran out of space there.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Aaron Stanski — And they’re just in a jurisdiction that doesn’t like church, right? Like they don’t they don’t they don’t like seeing, you know, very expensive real estate, you know, being taken up by nonprofits and things like that. And so they prayed for years ah to find a space, to find a building, and God provided this awesome building for them. That’s a story in and of itself.

Aaron Stanski — But it turned out that this this building was historically protected. And that means that they had to go through, you know, yeah we had to walk them through a completely other process with the historic board in the city of Seattle. And then the building itself had some really difficult challenges with code issues and energy. And it just felt like it kept dragging on and on. We had to seismically upgrade the building. So it it stood it stood fine for 60 years. But if there’s an earthquake, we have to seismically upgrade it so it won’t fall down. And it was just like delay after delay, either on the permit side and stuff. And then, of course, this is right in the middle of COVID and trying to even get materials to the site.

Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.

Aaron Stanski — And, you know, ah we got to walk alongside them through all of that.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Aaron Stanski — And the week before they moved in, ah their senior pastor, Adam Sennett, he wrote he wrote this in a blog about what spaces mean to them as a church. And so I was just going kind of share this with your audience.

Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.

Aaron Stanski — He said, he said this about their experience: “We endured a once-in-a-century pandemic, political chaos and social upheaval all at once. COVID effectively cut our church in half. Yet by God’s grace, here we are stronger, more mature and deeply rooted than ever.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Aaron Stanski — “God uses spaces. Yes, of course, God uses people, but notice that he uses people in specific spaces. Gardens, arcs, prison cells, tents, deserts, whale bellies, castles, baskets, stables, islands, and more. Such spaces are unexpected miniature stages upon which his story continues to unfold in ways big and small. Recognizing the temporary nature of God’s stages helps us be thankful for them in every season, without growing too attached to them. After all as in any play the stage is merely a platform for the drama.”

Rich Birch — So good.

Aaron Stanski — And so then he goes on and talks about you know some their story and their buildings but then he comes back and says: “So DCC [Downtown Cornerstone Church], let’s remember this as we move into our new building this weekend. Let’s pray that the Lord will use this space as yet another stage for his unfolding drama of redemption in Seattle, and through Seattle to the nations. Let’s pray that he would use this space as a gospel outpost and megaphone for generations to come. Imagine how many people might come to know Jesus there. Imagine how many missionaries and church planters may be sent from there. Imagine how many hearts will be thrilled with the excellence of Jesus, sins defeated, marriages reconciled, and legacies forever redeemed there. Let it be, Lord.”

Rich Birch — So good.

Aaron Stanski — And so like when I when I hear that story and like, man, what a beautiful written testimony, but what it took to get him there was so hard. I mean, four or five years…

Rich Birch — Right.

Aaron Stanski — …of like slogging through it and wrestling through it and dealing with the city. But on the other side, is is even more room to be able to invite their neighbors, you know, invite the people of Seattle to, to come and hear the gospel. So it’s just ah an amazing testimony to kind of walk through that. We’re going to be posting some ah brand new pictures and stuff of that project up on our website pretty soon here.

Rich Birch — Oh, cool. We’ll link to it for sure.

Aaron Stanski — So, so stay tuned for that. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Dude, that’s great. I love that. What a great encouragement. Like these projects are like, we don’t want to make it sound like it’s just super simple. Like all you do, it’s work. Like it is a ton of effort. It’s literally, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands of, feels like hundreds of thousands of decisions. It’s like, you know, you you’re, you’re pushed through. They all have complexity in them. You got to raise money to make it happen. And then, you know, then the hard part comes, actually doing it.

Rich Birch — But I love that encouragement, even for maybe people that are listening in today that are in the midst of some of that push to realize, no, there is something on the other side of that. And I could say that even in my own church, where the campus I attend, we were portable for 17 years, and which is crazy.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And then now we’re in a, you know, we’ve just since last fall, we’ve been in a building. And just recently, we’re recording this shortly after Easter. And I was standing in the lobby of that location and, you know, record attendance. And I I was really struck by, we were giving away Bibles to people. And we’re handing out Bibles to folks. And I was like, so excited to see all of these people. And I thought, man, like all of that work we went through was worth it for this. Like all of that, if, if, if all it’s, if all of, all of this is comes at the other, at the other end of all of that comes this amazing life change, man, let’s just get after it.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Let’s, let’s figure out what it looks like and and do the hard work, do the heavy lifting to, to make it happen and not be super intimidated. Like, oh, there’s no way we could ever do this. Like, no, you can. You can get experts, friends like Aaron and his team to help you with it, uh, to get out the other end of that.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. And part of the hard work, right. Is just, is being able to navigate some of these like really difficult challenges.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Aaron Stanski — You know, like you mentioned, it’s like a, it’s a leadership exercise in walking your church through this. It’s a project management exercise in kind of walking through these things.

Rich Birch — Yep. That’s great.

Aaron Stanski — And, you know, I mean, we’ve seen inflation kind of go crazy, right, over the over the course of the last couple of years. Tithing hasn’t gone crazy like inflation has, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Aaron Stanski — And so we have this situation where, you know, we have less dollars than we used to, and those dollars only buy us half what they what they did a few years ago, right?

Rich Birch — Right, what they used to buy. Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Stanski — And so we have to be really clear about how are we deploying those dollars and and what are we accomplishing with these projects…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Aaron Stanski — …versus all of the other things we could spend on.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And that reinforces if it sounds like I’m trying to get you to call Aaron and his team, trust your instincts. All of that is because, you know, in an environment like we’re in that you just described there, it’s even more reason why early in this process, you need to find friends like Aaron to say, hey, how can please help us with this?

Rich Birch — You know, this for most church leaders, a process like this is a, you know, it could be a once in a career experience. It’s a, it could be a once every decade or once every couple decade experience. And you need to get someone like Aaron and Risepointe on your size or them specifically. There’s a resource we’re going to link to. I want to make sure people pick up on this. This is 10 Things to Get Right Before You Build. Tell us about this resource and we’ll, we’ll make sure we link to it.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, we just wanted to, I mean, we polled a few of our previous clients and said, Hey, going back, what are some things that you wish you would have gotten in place first before you started the process?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Aaron Stanski — And some of it’s pretty self-explanatory. Some of them, you might be like, man, I’m doing good. Check, check, check. Oh, that’s something I didn’t think of before. And so just kind of trying to provide a resource to kind of get your head, start thinking about if you think you might have a project coming in the next couple of years, definitely grab that resource. Think that through. Walk that through with your leadership team. If it if it elicits questions, if there’s things that you’re not sure about, reach out. We’d love to connect with you um on that.

Rich Birch — That’s great. You can look for the link in the show notes here. It’ll be in the email and all that we sent out this week too. Yeah. Number two, I thought was interesting team consensus and this I would echo. You know, we’ve got to make sure we have the conversation upfront and get a real clear picture and be all on the same page. Because when we say we’re thinking about a project like this, we can have multiplicity of different ideas.

Aaron Stanski — That’s right.

Rich Birch — And that’s, that’s where having a trusted partner like Risepointe actually can help you with that process. Let’s get let’s do a needs analysis, get a sense of where we’re actually at. What are the actual constraints that are that we should tackle first? Here’s what that could look like. Here’s the scope scale of that kind of thing. Could be super helpful for sure.

Rich Birch — Well, I want to give you the final word here, Aaron. What would you say encouragement or challenge would give to church leaders today as we wrap up today’s episode?

Aaron Stanski — Oh man. I just say, you know, as I get to travel across the country and and hang out with a lot of your amazing listeners and a lot of just amazing churches, it’s so cool to hear the story of life change that is happening at the local level.

Rich Birch — So true.

Aaron Stanski — And I think keeping, you know, keeping our eyes and our perspective on what God is doing in and through our communities. We were sharing at staff meeting today, one of the one of the churches that we worked with, they baptized 47 people last weekend.

Rich Birch — Amazing.

Aaron Stanski — And I mean, we can get really excited about like building launches or projects or some things like that, but man, 47 people making a decision…

Rich Birch — That’s incredible.

Aaron Stanski — …to follow Christ and getting baptized. I mean, that’s what, that’s what it’s all about. And so, I mean, if you’re, if you’re scared of going through a big project or you’re not sure, you know, where to turn to, we would love to come alongside you and partner in with you in that, so that you don’t have to carry that burden alone, so that you do have a trusted partner that can walk you through a difficult process, ah but one that we’ve done hundreds of times before. So you have any questions on that, we’d love to connect, you know, definitely reach out.

Rich Birch — Yeah, where can people go online if we want to send them to to connect with you?

Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, just go to risepointe.com. That’s Risepointe—we got an E at the end there—dot com. There’s a “schedule a call” button. You just fill out some information about your church and where you’re located and then that just links right up to our Zoom account. And then myself or one of our other architects will get that call scheduled with you. We want to hear about your church uniquely. What are some of the unique challenges that you guys are facing and really kind of understand that to see how we can serve.

Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Aaron. Appreciate you, sir. We’ll have to have you back on. I’d love to have you on in the future.

Aaron Stanski — Yeah, let’s do it.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Appreciate you being here today, sir. Take care.

Aaron Stanski — Thanks, Rich.