Our Needs Assessment Committee has been hard at work for most of this year. They have met numerous times. They engaged a consulting firm that helps growing churches plan for the future. They have toured other churches who have already been through the process of deciding on the best ways to move forward. They researched our growth patterns, studied the demographics of our community, and considered the results of a congregational survey. They have spent countless hours talking about possibilities and praying for God's direction.
They are now ready to make their recommendations!
Committee Proposals
- Relocate and build a new facility that meets near-term needs and does not restrict future growth.
- Create two new committees. One will lead the fund raising efforts, and the other will focus on planning and construction of the new facility.
As you can see, the primary proposal from the committee is that we relocate. They recommend that we take on that task in phases.
- Phase 1: Locate and acquire land
- Phase 2: Build a multipurpose building with space that can be used for worship, fellowship, and recreation. This phase would also include some classrooms.
- Phase 3: Build a worship center with additional classrooms and administration space.
We will raise money between phases and build each phase when we have appropriate funding.
Growing Trends
Generally speaking, we have seen healthy, steady growth over most of the past three decades. (The pandemic years were obvious exceptions.) This year we added a second worship service with additional parking and we saw an almost immediate increase in worship attendance. Our average attendance thus far in 2025 is about 325. We saw a 19% increase in attendance from 2023 to 2024 and based on the current trajectory, we expect the increase from 2024 to 2025 to be similar or higher.
Not only is our church growing, but the City of West is also reporting expected growth over the next decade, and our public school district continues to grow as well. West ISD and every campus in the district received an "A" rating by the Texas Education Agency this year. That kind of recognition will bring even more growth to the district.
Current Situation
The Southern Baptist Convention has some "Rules of Thumb" for the amount of property a church needs to provide adequate space for worship, eduction, fellowship, administration, and parking. Based on our attendance, the planners would expect us to currently need about 4.8 acres. This picture demonstrates that we would need to buy more property around us just to adequately cover our current needs. The areas in yellow are areas we already own. The areas in red are what we would need to purchased to have the space that is recommended.
Evaluating Our Options
The committee spent a lot of time talking with our consultants, planning, and evaluating different options. The top three options were:
- Remodel our current building. This would include rearranging our sanctuary, creating more hallway space and gathering areas, and establishing more security in our children's area.
- Add on to our current facility. This would include building a new sanctuary, renovating the current sanctuary into a multipurpose space for fellowship and recreation, establishing more security in our children's area, and creating more parking.
- Relocate and build a new facility. This would include finding property, building what we will need in the near future, and providing opportunity for more growth in the distant future.
Obviously, the third option is the most expensive, but the committee and the leadership team believe it is the best use of our resources and provides to best opportunities for the future of our church. In this table you can see a comparison of the three options. Relocating meets more of our needs, allows for future growth, and has the best "ROI" (Return on Investment).
Worship Capacity
Parking Capacity
Fellowship Space
Recreation Space
Enables Future Growth
ROI
Cost
Remodel
Build on
Relocation
Our Needs Assessment Committee presented these recommendations to the church on Sunday, Oct. 12. Click on the button below to see a video of their presentation and the discussion that followed. (note: There was a technical problem at about 50 minutes into the video. The problem caused the loss of just a few seconds of the video, but none of the content was intentionally edited.)