Latimer Church's Project Director Jeff Banks describes the seven-year journey to build a new church home
Tim Capill, Associate Pastor at Latimer Church, interviews Jeff Banks, the volunteer Project Director who oversaw the construction of Latimer's new church building.
Summary
Tim Capill interviews Jeff Banks, a structural engineer and Latimer Church member who volunteered as Project Director for the church's seven-year building project. Jeff explains how his engineering background, his experience assessing earthquake damage to the original Latimer church, and — remarkably — the discovery of his own signature on forty-year-old drawings of the Rosebank site all drew him into the role. He outlines the original brief set by the congregation in 2019, reflects honestly on which objectives were and weren't met, and walks through the four stages of the project from property search to construction handover, with the building due to be handed over within two weeks of the recording.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and how Jeff came to lead the project
Tim Capill: Welcome back to Latimer Life. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Tim Capill, and today's conversation is a little bit different because I've got a guest here with me. The building project has been underway for seven years now, and Jeff and I were just chatting. Jeff is the person here with me. Jeff Banks has overseen the project for the last seven years as the Project Director. Jeff is married to Gay, and they are members of our 9am congregation, and when they can't be at church in person, they often listen online. Jeff has a background in civil engineering and has kindly volunteered hours into this project. So thanks for joining me today, Jeff. Do you want to tell us how you started the project? How did you end up the Project Director — did someone twist your arm, or did you put your hand up for it?
Jeff Banks: Well, Tim, I think the project actually chose me through a series of events. As you've mentioned, I studied engineering, becoming a structural engineer for some years, but around 2010 I'd been trying to quietly step back from my role as I was getting a bit older. But then the earthquakes happened. That was a one-in-two-and-a-half-thousand-year event — it's what you train for but never expect to happen. Our family had joined Latimer about ten years earlier, and with my engineering background, I was happy to assist with advice on the damaged church building in Latimer Square. During that work, I came to really appreciate what an enormous amount of work and sacrifice it must have been for the original congregation to have built that church in 1864 — by people I'd never heard of. There was a time capsule buried somewhere, but they forgot to tell us where it was, and we never found it.
So when the congregation decided to get on with a new church building in 2019, I was drawn to getting involved. Around that time, I also saw a presentation by Tim Keller on a gospel view of retirement, comparing a cruise ship lifestyle to that of a battleship. He quoted that a battleship mentality views the community as being on a unified mission — everyone on board has a specific role, a specific job, and active duties, because they're engaged in a larger spiritual purpose.
So to answer your question, I can't pinpoint who asked me what and when exactly, but whoever it was, I knew the answer was yes. I'd been given a career that filled a role that was needed. Finally, as if to cap it all off, when routine checks were done before buying Rosebank, I was reminded I'd worked on the site four decades ago — my signature was found on the original Rosebank drawings of what has now become the new youth hall.
Tim Capill: That's amazing. So you've actually been involved in this project for forty years — you started well before the rest of us. It's amazing, isn't it, when you can look back and see how God has brought things together in a way that you would never have guessed. Hearing how God used your experience as a structural engineer and then brought you to using those gifts as you have — and I also think you're a wonderful example of someone who uses semi-retirement to put yourself to work for the sake of the kingdom.
The original brief and what has been built
Let's go right back to the beginning. Some of us have only ever seen the building from the outside, or maybe seen photos on the screens in church presentations. Tell us a bit about what the project actually is and what we've actually built.
Jeff Banks: Well, the project really started with a congregation meeting in 2019, which concluded with three key objectives. The first one was a home base for Latimer — which we didn't have at that time — that enabled growth for God's glory within the next two to five years. The second one was that it needed to bless not only the existing congregations, but those for the next hundred years, and to be welcoming. The third one was around the budget. The budget was established as being $10 million for a 2,000 square metre building on a 5,000 square metre site, but a fatal flaw would be if it happened to cost more than $15 million. So that was the initial brief.
Tim Capill: So out of those three objectives, how many of them have we managed to achieve?
Jeff Banks: Well, we failed on two of them out of three, on reflection — I'd forgotten about this in the heat of the moment. Clearly it's taken more than two to five years; it's taken seven years to complete. And you might say that we've blown the fatal flaw budget of $15 million — until you consider that construction inflation has been rampant since then, to an extent of roughly 40%. So that would put that fatal flaw figure in today's terms at $21 million.
Tim Capill: Well, let's count that as achieved then, and thank God for the way he's very generously provided for us. Tell us a bit about the scope of the building — what is it we've built?
Jeff Banks: What the congregation agreed further was that in order to fulfil the mission, we needed a building that could seat together an absolute minimum of 300 people, ideally 400 — but that was later increased to 500, I think, as the congregation had grown during that period.
What's now built is a 2,200 square metre building on roughly one hectare of land, if you include the adjacent land we've also purchased. There are four zones in that building: the main auditorium, which seats 530, with acoustics for really clear speaking and singing; a robust youth area — a function hall with dedicated youth space; a kids' zone with multiple flexible spaces; and a great reception and admin area for visitors and staff. And in addition, plenty of outdoor space.
The four stages of the project
Tim Capill: It's been seven years since it first began as an idea. You mentioned the congregation vote, and that was seven years ago — seven years is a very biblical number, and here we are. Tell us a bit about how it goes from an idea to a building that we're actually about to move into.
Jeff Banks: Well, I could spend all day talking about this, but I'll try and condense it. The first stage was really critical — we had to see what properties were available, from a range of bare land to existing buildings. So a small acquisition team was formed, and we ended up looking at 26 properties over the next two years — perhaps quite an extended time, because it was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each month the top three options would be presented to the project board with an initial business case. The board finally settled on Rosebank after one unsuccessful offer beforehand.
So having found a site, there are then typically four phases of a building project. The first stage was the due diligence phase, when we had a conditional offer for buying Rosebank. Before asking the congregation to confirm the purchase, we needed to do some checking — making sure we knew what we were buying, what sort of building might fit on the site, and what the budget might be. So we researched site constraints, consents needed, and started to outline the building and parking areas. This was done around late 2021, and it also led to a rapid initial fundraise to be able to pay at least for the purchase of the property.
The second stage is the detailed concept phase — working out what we could build once we bought the site. That involved employing quite a number of consultants, from architects to traffic experts. It also meant asking everyone involved in Latimer what they wanted from the project, from must-haves to nice-to-haves. Thankfully, Barnaby was available to help with organising much of that work, which produced some quite long lists of priorities.
The second part of stage two was coming up with a concept design to provide a much clearer picture of what the building might look like and how it could work. In my view, this is the most important phase of any building project — gaining clarity on needs and priorities, and alongside that, a better idea of the budget. It's quite interactive as you try to match what you would like against what you can afford. For those who have built a house, it's much like that — you'll be familiar with trying to get those things to match.
For me at that time, the biggest concern was the risk of running out of funds before finishing the building — that would have been terrible. My experience is that this mostly happens when not enough time is spent on the concept phase. If you're just producing pretty pictures but don't dig deep into their costs, that can be a problem. So that took us until the middle of 2022 to resolve.
Stage three is the stage most people would think about — the detailed design. We were ready to start that in the middle of 2022, alongside reaching out to the congregation and others for full funding before committing to a building contract. We really needed to fully design all aspects of the project to be able to apply for a building consent and seek tenders with confidence. Short-cutting that would have almost inevitably led to taking more time and costing more in the long run. We applied for the building consent in July 2024, sought tenders the following month, and confirmed the contractor in October when funds and pledges allowed us to do that.
Stage four, you might say, is almost the easy part for the congregation — it was the builder building it. And handover is now less than two weeks away, on the 25th of September. Very exciting.