Visioning Case Study - Aurora Advent Christian

Aspen Group helps a church determine its readiness to build

Sometimes choosing to build can be the wrong decision. And the best time to determine that, is long before you start construction.

Like most churches, Aurora Advent Christian was looking to grow. According to Senior Pastor Ken Latimore, although the church’s sanctuary was adequate, their youth ministry and Christian education spaces weren’t meeting their current needs, let alone allowing for future expansion.

Seeking solid planning information, church leaders attended a Cornerstone Conference church building seminar. There they met members of Aspen Group, and later met to discuss their ministry plans.

“Aspen Group recommended a four-stage process, and then helped us evaluate where we were,” says Pastor Latimore, referring to Aspen Group’s proven Firm Foundations process.

That process starts with Visioning, which includes a vital examination of the church’s health, leadership, vision and financial resources. The result is a determination of the church’s true readiness to build.

At Aspen’s recommendation, Aurora Advent began the Visioning process by completing a Transforming Church Index, a survey of church membership that measured the church's organizational competencies, such as church culture, leadership effectiveness, ability to change, member satisfaction, communication and much, much more. The results were eye opening.

“After surveying the congregation, we realized that we weren’t as unified as we would have liked to have been,” notes Pastor Latimore. “We realized that we had basically two churches in one… a split… between a great number of people. That was just key for us because… in order for us to move forward as a church, we can’t have two churches in one.”

Aspen Group met with church leadership and told them something rather surprising for a construction company: stop the building process. Address the problem issues before moving ahead. That impressed Latimore and his building team. As he says, Aspen Group did not try to push through an initiative just to build a building, “they are more interested in the ministry, in furthering the Kingdom of God.”

Although the results of the Visioning stage were initially disappointing for Aurora Advent, it is truly a blessing in disguise.

“We could have built a building in one or two years and at the end of that building found out we made the biggest mistake in the world because our people weren’t unified behind it,” says Pastor Latimore. “If and when we do build, it will be unified. And we will be a much healthier church and ministry than we would have been.”

That, in a nutshell, is the benefit of Visioning.

A word of advice for fellow pastors from Pastor Latimore
“If I were to speak to other pastors about the visioning process with the Aspen Group, I would tell them that you are going to receive an accurate assessment or evaluation of where the church really is. It will not be sugar-coated. It will be the facts, but if you want to do something as monumental as building a building, that’s what you need.”
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If you are ready to get an honest appraisal of your church's readiness to build, call Aspen Group today at 888-241-9980.

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