Building Timeline Draft

FVUMC Building Project — Master Timeline

Fuquay-Varina United Methodist Church · Fairway District, NC Conference

Building Project & Capital Campaign — Master Timeline

The full process on one timeline, from the Building Study Team through occupancy. Colored bars are the working teams; red diamonds are the required approval gates under the Book of Discipline, shown in their mandatory order. Planning estimate

Coordination (SST → Lead Team)
Building Study Team
Building Committee
Capital Campaign
Advisory Groups
Discipline gate

2026

2027

2028

2029

2030

Quarter

Phase

Study & discernment

Authorize & prelim design

Campaign & detailed design

Final approvals & financing

Construction & occupancy

Now

Coordination — keeps every track aligned and on time

SST completes & hands off

SST

Lead Team coordinates all tracks

Lead Team / Brain — parallel-track coordination

Building Study Team — the ¶2544.1 study committee; precedes the formal gates

Form, onboard, build trust

Form & onboard

Needs analysis & listening sessions

Needs analysis, user groups, listening

Requirements & feasibility concepts

Functional requirements + light concepts

Study report & recommendation

Report & recommendation

Building Committee — elected at the authorization gate; one body that continues into construction

Preliminary plans + financial plan

Preliminary plans + financial plan (¶2544.5)

Detailed plans & specifications

Detailed plans & specs (¶2544.8)

Permitting & construction documents

Permitting + construction docs

Construction oversight

Construction oversight (¶2544.9)

Capital Campaign — conditioning early; formal pledges only after the church conference vote

Conditioning & debt-appetite discernment

Stewardship conditioning + debt discernment

Feasibility study (giving capacity)

Feasibility study

Pledge campaign: quiet + public

Quiet + public pledge phases

Pledge collection & follow-up

Advisory Groups — buy-in, early pitfall-spotting, paving the way for giving & permitting

Ongoing input & congregational buy-in

Ministry groups, influencers, long-time members

Gates

The approval gates

Charge Conference charters the BST Aug 2026
District superintendent presides; commissions the study team.

Authorization gate ¶2544.2–.4 · Q3 2027
Pastor + DS written consent, District Board site approval, and the charge conference that authorizes the project and elects the Building Committee.

District Board preliminary approval ¶2544.6 · Q1 2028
Reviews statement of need, preliminary plans, cost, and financial plan.

Church Conference vote ¶2544.7 · Q2 2028
All professing members; simple majority approves the preliminary plan, cost, and financing. Formal pledge drive launches after this.

Final approval ¶2544.8 · Q1 2029
Charge conference and District Board approve detailed plans and a reliable cost estimate.

Debt authorization ¶2541 · Q2 2029
Two-thirds charge conference vote plus DS consent, if the church borrows. Compare BOMI (3% fixed), UM Foundation, and commercial lenders.

Construction begins ¶2544.9 · Q4 2029
Only after final approvals and once cash, pledges, and any loan commitment assure payment (¶2544.13). Groundbreaking.

Completion & dedication ~Q4 2030
Occupancy and first services; a larger scope may push this into 2031.

Assumptions behind the dates

The timeline is anchored to two fixed points you already have: the August 2026 charge conference that charters the BST, and the Trustees’ reverse-engineered earliest groundbreaking of late 2029 / early 2030. Everything between is spaced to honor the disciplinary order, not to compress it.
The BST is the ¶2544.1 study committee. Its work and report come before the formal gates and feed the pastor + DS consent and the authorizing charge conference. It does not seek building approval itself.
One Building Committee, elected at gate 2, develops preliminary then detailed plans, carries the project through the votes, and continues into construction with members added. The “study,” “planning,” and “execution” labels describe phases of one body’s life.
The capital campaign is split: early conditioning and a feasibility study run during the study phase to test giving capacity and the congregation’s debt appetite; the formal pledge drive launches only after the church conference majority vote (gate 4), so people pledge toward an approved plan. Collection then continues for roughly three years.
Gate 2 bundles three close-together requirements (pastor + DS consent, site approval, and the authorizing charge conference). A church may take these as one cluster or spread them across a quarter or two.
The debt vote (gate 6) appears only if the church borrows. If FVUMC funds the project without a mortgage, that gate drops, though the gate-4 majority vote still stands.
Construction is shown at roughly twelve months. The master-class guidance of a two-year minimum from “decide to build” to first service is comfortably respected here; the gates, not the building, set the pace.

Dates are planning estimates for SST and Building Study Team use, not commitments. The sequence of red gates is required by the Book of Discipline (¶2544, with debt under ¶2541); the spacing between them is the church’s to set. Prepared as a working master view to sit alongside the BST playbook.