Texas Baptist Builders building roads

“If you build it they will come.”

That’s a classic line from a movie. Unfortunately, that idiom doesn’t work in the church. The church, however, does need buildings for worship, fellowship and education. But churches have limited resources. And because it’s really God’s money we are stewards of, using those resources responsibly is a high priority.

That’s where Texas Baptist Builders?a ministry of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention?comes in.

The Texas Baptists Builders (TBB) formed last June to tackle church and church-related projects throughout the state?and anywhere else they may be called of God to help.

The work can be done for much less than what they might pay for a commercial building to be built by the private sector. TBB director Bill Ibos said the savings can be as much as 40 to 50 percent or more.

“Usually your building runs 50 percent material and the other 50 percent is labor,” Ibos said. The TBB is usually able to buy materials at contractor’s pricing or even distributor pricing. However, the majority of the savings for churches come from the labor that is donated by the volunteers that work with the TBB.

Ibos warns not to think that because a person is a “volunteer” they don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to construction work.

“It’s really a misnomer,” Ibos said of the word “volunteer.” “These people have been doing construction work from anywhere from four years to as long as we [Ibos and his family] have.”

Ibos and his wife of 49 years, Martha, have spent 40 years volunteering for construction projects like the ones the TBB takes on. Ibos said he learned the skills of the construction business while working for the Army Corps of Engineers.

The TBB currently has about 50 to 75 people involved on a regular basis. But with 23 projects underway, they are always looking for a few good men?and women.

“What we’re looking for is to recruit families, singles, college students, and high school students to be involved in construction and remodeling of church buildings as the Lord leads and directs us,” Ibos said.

The TBB has taken Texas and divided it into nine zones. Each zone is responsible for about 28 counties. Zone leaders make contact with associations in their zone to find out what the needs are. Work is then prioritized according to needs and plans get underway.

Churches also have responsibilities in the projects.

According to Ibos, the churches are responsible for buying the materials and having them at the location two or three days prior to the arrival of the work crews. They provide hookups for RVs for the volunteer or arrange other housing and provide two meals per day for the workers.

There’s good news for those who aren’t able to swing a hammer without bending a few nails: the organization needs you, too.

“We’ll train you,” Ibos said. “We’ll train you in both metal stud construction and wood construction.” Each site will have at least two or three people who are professionally-trained construction workers. He said speed is not an issue, they just want to train the novice to “do it right,” Ibos said.

What about the person who can’t commit a week or more to construction projects?

“It’s going to take not only volunteers, but prayer warriors,” Ibos said. “If they can’t go out and work, they can pray for the groups that go and pray for the projects to be accomplished.”

If individuals or churches want more information about serving one week on a project or if churches are interested in having TBB assist them, contact Ibos at 817-625-9391 or e-mail him at baptistbuilder @juno.com.