Construction

The last thunderstorm that blew through Plano was the coup de grace for two major pieces of the Underwood household infrastructure. Both our fence and roof have to be replaced. A number of you are in the same position and so I don’t have to do a lot of explaining about how expensive it is or how difficult it is to sort through the various bids and match them up so that one can compare apples to apples. If done properly, it takes a lot of time.

I am now working on my fifth church building committee, and I am discovering for the 5^th time (one would think that I would learn!) that construction of a church building is a complex and time-consuming process.  No matter how hard you try to be conservative with your time-lines, the construction schedule always falls behind. No matter how comprehensive the planning – and our planning has been very comprehensive – there are always surprises. No matter how conservative you are in budgeting, there are always difficult choices to make as you get close to ground-breaking.

You know how hard we tried to have the architects’ construction documents completed and bids in by the middle of May so that we could have our all-church conference on May 18^th.  The fact is that, in our attempt to have the meeting before the summer months, we were simply too ambitious with that date. So here is where we are: construction documents will be complete by June 3^rd. The bidding process should take approximately three weeks, and then some time will be needed to analyze and accept the bids.  What this means is that our all-church conference will not take place until the end of June at the very earliest, and may stretch into the middle of July. That’s not the best timing by any means, but what we can promise you is that by that time we will have good strong numbers and completed construction plans.

As I read this back to myself I can’t help but think, “How did we fall so far behind?”  And then I stop and think about my roof and fence. To tell the truth about it, the Underwood household project is much further behind than the Christ Church project! If I ever figure out how to keep a construction project on schedule I think I will hire out as a consultant to other churches. Meanwhile, I’ll keep my day job!

Don Underwood