We are all looking for conversions as instructed in the great commission. However, the conversions I am talking about today are a little different; converting a commercial building to a church. If you have plans to build a church you need to read this.

Over the past several months we have all gotten an earful about the bad economy. There has been a constant drone about the banking crisis, home foreclosure crisis, car manufacturing crisis. If I have to listen to the details of one more crisis I might go nuts!

I think it is interesting that there are two characters in Chinese that make up the word CRISIS, those characters when taken separately translate into DANGER and OPPORTUNITY. There are plenty of people talking to us about the dangers of our times; I prefer to direct our attention today to the opportunities that are already starting to manifest themselves.

In March of this year I attended our national sales meeting. On the program was a discussion on the economy and the short run outlook by a panel of bankers and church lending experts. The bottom line was that there is a commercial foreclosure wave that should hit late this year or early next that could make the residential foreclosure problem look like a cake walk.

This led me to search for properties that had the potential to be not only bargains but also be great buildings for conversion to churches. In the past our company has been involved in multiple conversions of movie theaters, grocery stores, even some auto dealerships. Some of them are very impressive both in design and cost.

It didn’t take long, in a matter of days I had identified several. Some were already foreclosed, some were no longer needed by the commercial user, some were investor owned and the investor wanted out. This makes a good situation for the buyers, especially end users like churches.

Anyone that has worked with us knows that one of the things we always do is ask you to get prepared financially and that is more important than ever when you are looking at acquiring one of these distressed buildings to convert to church. The buyer that has their money in their pocket (or their banker in their pocket) are the ones that will be successful because usually the sellers will only deal with those they are sure can close the transaction quickly.

Next, surround yourself with a team of professionals. You need a real estate broker that understands the requirements of churches as well as zoning, parking issues etc. Hire the best you can get, it costs you nothing in the vast majority of cases.

In the case of a building conversion you will need a team that knows construction from A to Z. When we set out to evaluate the first of the buildings we found we partnered with a Construction Management group that is comprised of the project manager, an architect, interior designer all with experience in retrofitting buildings. Proper professionals will save you time and money and are often the difference between a successful project and a mess.