My church is interested in exploring housing development. Now what?

The following are 10 general steps any house of worship must go through to move from visioning to the completion of a development project. These steps were compiled based on dozens of conversations with housing developers, development consultants, representatives from churches who have engaged in development, and other content experts in this field.*

This is an introduction, simplified for brevity, designed to give you a birds-eye overview of the process, introduce terms, and help you wrap your head around the idea of development. Though we lay this out in a set of linear steps, the process is more cyclical and the “steps” will weave within one another, and in many cases happen simultaneously. Each project is different, but these general best practices can help guide your team. Let’s get started.