The Beacon Church

The Building Project

We thought it might be helpful to have a brief guide to explain what the new centre is, what it will do and why we think it is important. This guide in is “Q&A” format; some of the questions are ones we have already been asked; some are simply covering information we think people in the church would like to understand.

How big is the new building?

It will be about 680 square metres. That is about 2.5 times the size of the current building. Our car park will also roughly double, with 27 spaces available.

How many people will it hold?

The building is designed to be very flexible. The main hall (upstairs – but don’t worry, there will be a lift!) will seat about 200, or will provide sit-down dining for 100-120. There is sufficient office space for all our anticipated needs, and there is another smaller hall (about the same size as the existing halls) and other meeting rooms.

Will we be using it for Sunday morning meetings?

No. At present, the hall at Kings has capacity for about 600 people. We could never build a meeting hall that size on our current site. So the new building is aimed primarily at our ‘Monday to Saturday’ church needs. That can actually involve more people than a Sunday morning; if you have never seen how busy the church building is during the week, have a chat to one of the staff – you might be surprised!

So how do the Elders anticipate we will use the new building?

Apart from desperately needed office space and some private counselling space we will initially host existing ministries in such a way that they can continue to grow. However, as we continue to develop our ‘mission’, the building will also provide a tool to developing new ministries to touch the communities around us – and not just on the Old Dean.

Why don’t we build the ‘big one’ – something that will do Sundays as well?

An interesting question. To build something that does the same as the new Beacon Centre and Kings together would mean first buying a large plot of land. But purely in terms of the building itself, it would cost an extra £1.5-2.0million. So, a ‘do it all’ building with a Sunday capacity of 600 would cost £3.0-3.5million. That amount of extra borrowing would cost around £150,000 per annum to service – plus the cost of the land itself. And of course we only need to use such a large hall for about 4 hours per week.

However, this way we get the same overall facility for a total of about £1.6m - £1.5m for the new Centre, and about £100,000 we invested to make Kings work for us. We do of course pay rent to Kings, but that is about £14,000 p.a. (about £270/week), making it vastly more efficient financially to operate on two sites. As Elders, we do not want to overburden the church with debt, and we feel this solution is by some distance the best stewardship of our resources.

I have some other questions; who can I ask?

Please email or speak to any of the Elders. If it’s about the building design itself, then Peter Wharrad is probably the best person to contact.

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