Company Profile: Talking With Bill Couchenour & Bryan Miles
As published in Worship Facilities, Jul/Aug 2010
Expansion can mean a lot of things to a church these days—from new building to multi-sites and mergers with other churches. Expansion can even mean building out and renting a second-generation retail site, or taking your church’s ministry to Facebook or another social medium.
No matter what type of expansion a church is embarking upon, Cogun, based in North Lima, Ohio, has helped churches grow for 40 years, calling itself “a national church development firm.” Or as Vice President of Consulting Bryan Miles puts it, “We’re an end-to-end solution for churches thinking through leadership, ministry alignment, development, design and construction.”
According to CEO Bill Couchenour and Miles, that 40-year growth and development process has led to some fail-safe wisdom the company is poised to share with growing churches today.
Worship Facilities Magazine sought out Couchenour and Miles leading up to the company’s anniversary celebration. Our goal: to provide highlights of the knowledge and experience that Cogun brings to its church clients.
WFM: July marks a special month for the company—tell our readers the history behind Cogun.
Couchenour: My grandfather was a pastor, and in his last pastorate [he] got into a building program that had some of the traditional challenges that churches run into that we see all the time—it was under-funded and over-designed. And my Dad got involved to get them through that building program.
So when Dad was sitting with an architect in 1969, and he said there should be a company that helps to keep churches from getting into this kind of a mess, it gave him an idea. Dad started Cogun in 1970. The whole purpose was to serve Christian ministries and churches.
WFM: What are some of the key ingredients that have helped the company grow so strongly over the years?
Couchenour: We offered a broader view in the beginning. [The goal] was not to have a construction company or to build buildings, but to help churches expand ministry. It was Kingdom-focused from the very beginning.
In addition, Dad’s background was as an engineer. He used to design and build equipment and machinery for different industries to create products. The whole approach [of his previous work as an engineer] was to bring everyone together to work toward a unified goal, so he took that same approach with churches.
This goes back to the 1970s when design/build wasn’t prominent at all, but it makes the most sense—bring everyone together from day one. This idea of collaboration, often called IPD [or Integrated Project Delivery], is something that has been part of our DNA from day one. In fact, most people are surprised when they realize we do not have architects on staff, doing design. From day one, we are expected to collaborate.
WFM: It seems like everybody’s trying to figure out the terminology. Everyone is interested in the potential benefits of IPD.
Miles: Design/build doesn’t represent our firm in the market; we’re far more of a teaming effort. We’re a trusted advisor to the church. Early in the consulting process, [church leaders] need to know who to bring to the table for a capital campaign, way finding, finance, audiovisual and lighting, etc. An integrated practice methodology or teaming environment is really what Cogun has offered in the past 5-10 years.
Couchenour: Sometimes design/build meant you’re dumbing down the design process. Our approach has been to team with the best church architectural firms across the country, and then to bring in other partners that make custom sense for the church to effectively execute. To develop a project that fits a ministry—it’s more than nice-looking; it fits a vision. It’s helping cast their vision, funding, strategy direction, leadership development, and we have connections that are the best in the industry to bring to a church for its given needs. We’re really talking about enhancing ministry—not just about building a good building at a cheap price.
WFM: What has proven to be the most invaluable key to helping churches move forward and grow throughout the years?
Couchenour: What makes us unique is that right from the beginning, up until today, it’s about the ministry and not the building. It’s about helping a church expand its ministry.
The people who work for Cogun feel this is their calling—whether they are in accounting or in another role, they feel they’ve been called to this work to serve ministries. That has driven us into the research that we do with Cornerstone Knowledge Network (CKN). That’s what we’re passionate about.
Miles: Coupled with what Bill is saying—our focus is on the church world exclusively. In and of itself, that’s not necessarily unique. What is unique is our custom, end-to-end experience that equals a growing church.
In the church world, you need a lot of patience. There are a lot more questions these days; a lot more ‘owners’ involved in an expansion project. There’s a high level of patience and expertise that’s needed. That’s what sets us apart. Our ‘win’ isn’t a good building, it’s when a church does something partnering with us that impacts their ministry and people come to know Jesus and develop a personal relationship with Him.
A lot of contractors would say they want that, but they don’t back it up and resource it with staffing and consultants that do that. We do, and it sets us apart.
WFM: Consistency is an important ingredient in business—making sure the experience of working with a company is the same trusted experience across time. What can churches expect when they work with Cogun?
Miles: We ask a lot of questions to get at the heart of a church’s DNA before we ever start designing. We consider demographics, financial feasibility, timing, jurisdictional issue, and [so forth]. For example, how does your church celebrate life change? How do you integrate your age-specific ministries with each other? Besides attendance, how does your church measure success? Cogun will lead this process. Contractors usually don’t do this; they just want to build a building.
We’ve completed 670 Christian-based facilities across the United States. We’ve worked with thousands of churches in a consulting capacity throughout the world. With that experience comes knowledge that is very nuanced to church world. For example, does your lead pastor have a highly visible office to other staffers to avoid issues? What’s the typical width needed for a chapel door if you have to roll a casket through it? What measurements are needed for a good bride’s room? What about a green room? And what about security? Child check-in kiosks? There are things we know that others won’t. We can get to the heart of the matter with architects quickly. We can get to the ministry concerns quicker. We help churches [quicken] their speed to ministry.
WFM: What important areas—whether site selection, new building trends, finance challenges, etc.—do you envision that Cogun will be leading church leaders through within the next few years? What do church leaders need to know to be prepared?
Miles: Without a doubt, we’ll be taking more and more church leaders through a path of renovation vs. net new construction. It’s proven in most cases to be more of an economic win for the church. Some mainline churches on the south side of town are selling their building and going to renovated retail storefronts, for example. We’ll have an opportunity to lead churches through that critical thinking.
Another area is really helping churches with funding before they design and cast vision. Funding is all over the place right now. There are other options beyond traditional [approaches], and we’ll be seeing more and more churches through the funding process, because that is the baseline for setting a right-sized total project budget.
Couchenour: I’m seeing that we’re in a post-Christian society here. It’s the most exciting time in history to be Christian in North America. God is working in so many different ways. There won’t be one prevalent model. God will work in different ways.
One example is multi-site. This method of church growth will continue. It’s already been a movement for 20 years.
The legacy for the church is the idea of dying churches giving birth to new churches in their facilities. We’ll see more in terms of missional communities. These can lead to mixed use, where 10 years from now we’re doing retail/residential facilities for churches going into an urban or suburban area, with community centers used in partnership with the community.
There are lots of different ways for the church to manifest itself in the future. We have to really understand and help churches think through the best options to expand their ministries.
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