Why Co-stewardship of CCS Kendra Property Can Serve the Best Interest of Both Ministries

Written in 2019 during discussion of the pros and cons of leasing to a local church to help offset the cost of owning the building (which became true for several years).

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A building is a tool, and like tools, it is designed to accommodate certain tasks or functions for its occupants. In many cases, such as school facilities, building codes and zoning ordinances help ensure the effectiveness and safe use of the building/tool. Beyond safety and functionality, an architect adds artistic and ergonomic elements so that beauty and form complement function. Ideally, the building that meets these goals is located in place that serves the anticipated market with ample parking and room to grow with the vision and objectives of ministry. An added bonus is high visibility to high volume traffic. The home of Calvary Christian Schools is such a building at such a location.

After spending the summer of 2012 considering four other properties as temporary locations for the 2012-2013 CCS school year, we have never been more aware of the architectural and geographical statements in that first paragraph. The lessons learned through that summer of displacement are still helping us in decision-making processes. While it is true that a building is a tool, it is also true that buildings like houses can acquire emotional and spiritual connections based on events and relationships formed within their walls. We could not be more grateful to God for allowing us to return to the building that was and is the intended long-term home Calvary Christian Schools.  

During the past two years, CCS has been the sole occupant and custodial guardian of the building and grounds. All costs have come from the school budget and school accounts. All costs associated with maintenance, contracts, insurance, inspections, utilities, snow removal, trash removal, improvements, in short, every dollar of overhead as well as a monthly lease payment to the bank [which later became a mortgage] has been paid by CCS. The school operates on roughly a $1M annual budget (copies available) and roughly 12.5% of the budget goes to facility-related overhead that had never been in the school budget prior to becoming an independent school in July, 2012.

Through the generous support of the CCS family and donor base, over $700,000 of non-tuition income has been raised since becoming an independent non-profit organization, but much of those funds were raised in the context of the transition and the enthusiasm of securing the building. Those funds have been used on overhead, lease payments, facility improvements, and other transitional expenses other than curriculum, staff compensation, and program improvements. In other words, we are doing a great job of maintaining through this transition, but it has put stress on our staff and program. It is in that sense, that the present two-year model without a separate, co-steward ministerial partner does not seem sustainable.

For this reason, CCS welcomes the opportunity to be co-stewards of this ministerial tool with a thriving, like-minded church that is focused clearly on its own mission, but willing to share this space… with the school for future God-honoring, Bible-based, Gospel-driven ministry for the 21^st Century. We not only see this as a more sustainable “shared-cost” model, but we consider it a complementary, compatible, win-win arrangement for both the church and the Christian school.

The existing facility is Phase One of a church/school location that was designed to meet the needs of both a growing church and a like-minded (now separate) Christian School. Phase Two of construction has been on hold for over a decade.

Some ministerial tasks are so similar in function that they can make use of the same building by co-stewarding a facility, cooperatively managing some resources associated with ministry such as time, space, certain classifications of equipment (maintenance, furniture, etc.) and separately managing other elements of the two separate ministries (budget, human resources, etc.).  The purpose of this discussion is merely to point out the advantages of co-stewardship compared to “sole occupancy” of a campus and facility. The paragraphs below are for illustration only and not meant to serve as a basis for the actual financial terms of co-stewardship.

The average church building of an active healthy church organization maximizes full capacity/functionality only about 8 to 10  hours per week.  The rest of the week, (though a portion of the church is used each day) up to 90% of the building is vacant and unused or in various states of cleaning, maintenance, or set-up for upcoming use.

For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that because both a church and a school are daytime service industries, (for lack of a better term, but the point being that they are unlike factories or industries such as hotels, motels, restaurants, rescue missions, hospitals, etc. which sometimes function 24 hours a day), the “business hours” of a church or school building typically fall between 7:00AM and 9:00PM, with the building being “closed” ten hours per 24-hour day. This results in 98 “potential use hours” per week; let’s call it 100.

The average school building for a typical K-12 school program is used to its maximum capacity/functionality about 40 hours per week from 7:30AM to 3:30PM for nine months of the 12-month year (basically when classes are in session). After school hours, during athletic seasons, about a third of the building is used for an additional 18 hours per week for both school-related athletic practice and home athletic events. During such events, the non-athletic portions (2/3) of the building are typically available for use but unused from 3:30 on. Theoretically if 1/3 of the building being used 18 hours a week after school while 2/3 of the building is unused, this amounts to “full use equivalent” of six hours, for a total of 46 hours. Let’s call it 50 full-use hours, but remember this is only during inside sport seasons (volleyball and basketball) which is basically 2/3 of the nine-month academic school-year from September through May and half of a full calendar year.

Assuming a church and school occupy the same size building (or even the same building as co-stewards) those ten dormant hours represent the same cost of operation to both an empty church and an empty school. The fourteen hours of daily operation are also very comparable between a fully used facility (i.e. The difference between the cost of operating and maintaining a school building that is fully used 46 hours per week (let’s call it 50) and the cost of operating and maintaining a church building that is fully used 8-10 hours per week and partly used (office hours, various groups and functions) is virtually the same with two exceptions: custodial services and “wear and tear” on facility.

(1)   Custodial services cost go up in proportion to the hours of usage and the size of space occupied. These costs include cleaning and hospitality supplies.

(2)   “Wear and tear” on user-contact items such as kitchens, drinking fountains, carpets, painted surfaces, and furnishings is greater during maximum use than minimum or non-use. (This is not true of HVAC, roofs, parking lots, and other infrastructure overhead costs not directly related to user-contact or hours of occupancy.)

Items 1 and 2 reflect what can be called the Proverbs 14:4 principle:  “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.” In other words, the purpose of ministry is not to have a clean, unused building but to use it to the fullest for the sake of the harvest and those called to prepare soil, plant, tend, nurture, train-up, reap, etc. metaphorically speaking, which are among the shared tasks of both a Gospel-centered church and like-minded Christian school.

[For further clarification see “3M: Mission, Management, and Marketing document from 2011.That document was presented to the former host church to clarify the distinct differences between a church and a school as the beginning steps of launching CCS as a separate 501(c)3 organization, keeping all historical identification. That separate status was legally achieved in December, 2012, with guidance from the Community Foundation for Muskegon County.]

Preliminary Review of Facts:

CCS has been in operation for 34 years. Opening its doors as a K-2 school in 1980 and adding an additional grade each year, CCS has operated 24 years as a full K-12 program. This means that the 2014-2015 School-year is the 25^th Anniversary as a K-12 school and the 35^th Anniversary as a school.

At present 60% of its history, 15 of its 25 years as a K-12 school, have been spent in the current 60-acre campus on Kendra Road.