Summary

 

River City Fellowship is a lively nondenominational Christian Protestant church based in San Antonio, Texas. They have been in many locations over the past decade and have now realized their long term vision and goal - to be located within the "downtown" part of San Antonio to be a witness and ministry to the heart of the Fiesta city.

The project involves the purchase and conversion of a former light industrial warehouse next to the rail-road tracks, into an urban, stylish facility with exposed ceilings and concrete floors. The facility will have a frontage onto South Flores St. which will have a coffee bar with internet access, a book shop, church offices and a 24/7 prayer and worship chapel .

Senior pastors Billy and Angie Nuñez have a three fold vision for the church: A House of Prayer, A House of Healing and A House of Extravagant Worship. Music and worship is a major factor in the the new project and the new facility will have contemporary lighting, sound and recording systems. back to top

 

Vital Seed's Role

Any building project is a complex process requiring a great deal of communication, planning and discipline. Church projects are no exception and all to often church projects are handled by the church staff only having no construction experience and little to no business experience. There are many, many examples of failed church projects, wasted $10,000's and broken relationships because the needed skills were not implemented.

Churches need a trusted advisor to help them make wise decisions at the most early stages in the projects. Unfortunately many churches seek this advise from those who are not fully committed to Kingdom principles or who have little interest in the well being of the the church as the primary goal. Church leaders often have no way of vetting the advise given and establishing the other options. This leads to foolish and rushed decisions, contracts that are too one-sided in favor of the service provider or contractor and leads to great wastes of money that could and should be better employed in fruitful ventures

We are passionate about seeing church building projects reaping the benefits and predictability that most commercial building projects enjoy, so we are always keen to provide these commercial skills to churches as part of our ministry to church. These skills are not purely commercial, they are truly Kingdom in nature and in working closely with the local church leadership, we are able to sensitively apply these to the greater good.

River City Fellowship have empowered Vital Seed to act for them in realizing the vision of their new building facility and have embraced the skills and experience that we have in this field. We are delighted to serve them in the Kingdom to see the best stewardship of resources and skills. This coming-together of business and church is at the heart of our ministry and we believe is essential for the mutual growth and benefit of the Kingdom.back to top

 

Specific tasks

Our input to this project can be briefly described as:

• Helping in the contract negotiations and commenting as appropriate
• Providing a high-level risk analysis to make the church leadership better aware of decisions that must be made
• Helping provide a strategic interrogation into the plans for phasing and temporary location
• Advising on the various routes to procure the construction
• Becoming the point person for the project with fully project delivery responsibility to the church eldership
• Negotiating and appointing the design team
• Setting up and chairing the church's core users team
• Agreeing and defining the time scales
• Putting in place the financial management of budget and elemental cost break-down
• Helping define the project needs and holding those up against the project goals and constraints
• Keeping the project on time and on budget
• Providing information and data for communication to the church body
• Selection and appointment of contractors
• Negotiation of bids
• Monitoring the progress of construction against that which was bid
• Had-over and punch list advise and monitoring . back to top

Current Progress

Nov, 2004 - River City Fellowship have just completed the sale on the building.
Nov, 2004 - Vital Seed has appointed an Architect for the first master-planning stages
Nov, 2004 - Vital Seed has formed a church core team and is currently defining the project scope.