To realize its ideal expanded campus, Grace Bible Church pivoted on an uncertain project, unified its people (physically and spiritually), and created all the space the next generation could want
By RaeAnn Slaybaugh
When Grace Bible Church moved from downtown Nacogdoches, Texas, to a site beside the local university in 1950 — 10 years after the church was established — the decision might not have made perfect strategic sense. At least, not on paper.
Missionally, however, it made all the sense in the world.
The church wanted to establish a substantial, multigenerational presence beside the campus of what is now Stephen F. Austin State University. Today, Grace sits directly across the street, with residence halls visible all around it. That location has shaped the church’s ministry for more than 75 years.
It also complicated Grace’s options when growth began pressing against the limits of its facilities. With about 590 people in worship plus 160 children and supported by seven full-time and nine part-time staff members and a 2026 budget of $1.6 million, Bullard describes the trajectory as “steady,” “slow,” “healthy” and “consistent.”
By 2022, Grace had a sanctuary with available seats but children’s classrooms rapidly approaching capacity. Its ministries were dispersed among repurposed buildings on both sides of a public street. Parents crossed the street to retrieve their children, then crossed again to reach their cars. For new families, leaving children in a building entirely separate from the sanctuary could be uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, the Texas heat — or a sudden rainstorm — left little opportunity for people to linger. Even coffee had to be served outside beneath the drive-through canopy.
To this end, the other main challenge was inadequate gathering space; what square footage Grace did have was too small to accommodate any fellowship before or after services.
“There was very little opportunity for that, even though Grace has always been a relational, caring church,” Bullard says. “We were that way in spite of our facilities.”
Grace needed more than added square feet
To accommodate growing ministry needs, Bullard and his team needed a plan grounded in reliable costs, an honest assessment of the existing campus, and a clear understanding of why the church was committed to its location in the first place.
Enter: Master’s Plan Church Design & Construction and its founder and CEO, Rodney James.
“Rodney really listened to our staff,” Bullard recalls of their first meeting. “Because he’d been a pastor, he was intuitively asking many of the same questions I was asking — and that our elder board was asking.”
According to James, the right solution would need to work architecturally, of course, but would also need to support Grace’s ministry model, earn the confidence of its elders, and — importantly — give Bullard numbers he could responsibly present to the congregation.
Pausing can be progress
Grace had initially consulted a large Texas-based firm and proceeded through the early design phase. The plans were beautiful, Bullard recalls, but they did not fully resolve the pain points the church had identified.
Leadership also became concerned that engineering realities had not been considered early enough.
One proposed idea, for example, was to expand the existing sanctuary. Only late in the process did questions arise about whether the concept was structurally or financially practical.
Then came a preliminary cost figure that church leaders did not believe was sufficiently dependable.
“We didn’t feel that we could stand before the church and ask, ‘Will you commit to this amount?’ when we knew how those numbers had been reached and weren’t confident in their accuracy,” Bullard explains. “We have a lot of financially conservative members. And transparency is very important to our leadership.”
By that point, the project had momentum, and leaders had a target date in mind. Yet, just before signing with the firm, the elders called the aforementioned halt.
“One of them wisely said, ‘We need to stop, breathe and pray,’” Bullard says. “We needed firmer information before we stood in front of the church and considered taking on debt.”
That pause became a defining leadership decision.
Church building projects naturally generate urgency. Crowded classrooms, multiple services and strained circulation are real problems. But, as Bullard points out, that doesn’t mean a building project should be rushed.
“We were losing sleep over it,” he says. “But I believe that a lot of the deadlines in life are ones we create in our own minds.”
The value of church-specific expertise
Bullard’s perspective on exaggerated urgency was borne partially by knowing how distracting construction can become for a church staff.
At his previous church in Warrensburg, Mo., he had participated in several renovation and construction projects managed largely through local contractors and capable church volunteers. Their work saved money, and Bullard says he remains grateful for it. But the experience exposed the limitations of approaching a ministry facility like a conventional construction project.
“Even though I wasn’t the lead pastor at the time, I saw how nearly every subcontractor who couldn’t reach the general contractor eventually found their way to the church office,” he recalls. “They would ask questions we simply didn’t know how to answer.”
The result was an enormous distraction for the ministry team.
At Grace, Bullard knew that working with a church-focused design-build partner would be important.
He first encountered Rodney James through a podcast and says James’s background as a pastor was immediately apparent.
Also, Grace’s capital campaign consultant spoke highly of Master’s Plan and its track record of delivering projects under budget.
From the first meeting, Bullard says, the approach felt different.
“While [James] sat down with our staff, another Master’s Plan team member examined the existing facility and its structural limitations,” he recalls. “I didn’t tell them what the other firm had proposed, but I did ask, ‘How would you expand the sanctuary?’”
Their answer was direct.
“They said, ‘You can’t. You have four giant structural beams in the way,” he recalls. “Then it was, ‘I mean, you can expand the sanctuary, but it’s going to cost millions of dollars to add only a handful of seats. That would be crazy.’”
That candor mattered, as did Master’s Plan’s evident commitment to designing around the building, budget and ministry problems Grace was actually trying to solve.
For Grace, the real constraint was not yet sanctuary seating. It was children’s capacity, connection space, and a fragmented campus experience.
Letting ministry data define the need
Grace experienced consistent, measurable growth in 2018 and 2019 and again after the disruption of COVID-19.
To keep up with facility needs, Grace formed a campus development team. For two years, the team worked through smaller, more affordable options, making incremental “fixes” to accommodate more and more families, students and children.
Eventually, the church approached a crisis point. Small-scale building and renovation projects wouldn’t be enough any longer. Their data showed that children’s classrooms would be completely full by 2025, even though seats remained in the worship center.
“We were listening to our children’s minister, our preschool minister and our student minister,” Bullard says. “We were also looking at what was happening in the sanctuary. All these areas were trending in the same healthy direction.”
An uphill battle, won
Knowing with certainty that a large-scale building project was in order, the focus quickly turned to the physical site, which posed its own challenges. Grace is located on a hill, and leveling the proposed building area would have required extensive earthwork. Leaders were also concerned about encountering a spring during excavation.
The earlier concept called for removing the grade.
“Some of our people were skeptical, not only because of the sheer volume of earth that would need to be moved, but also because of how it could affect future expansion,” Bullard points out. “If Grace wanted to add on later, the next generation might have to build what would essentially be a two-story structure to reach the existing elevation. We were trying to think 30 or 40 years ahead.”
Master’s Plan instead considered how the church could build with the grade.
The first time he visited Grace, James walked the property and began to see how the pieces could come together. The resulting bi-level design uses stairs and a ramp to navigate the modest elevation change while maintaining a continuous visual connection through the children’s area, Gathering Space and sanctuary.
The broad children’s corridor functions almost like a foyer, with room for strollers and conversations without obstructing traffic. From the elevated children’s area, a person can look through the Gathering Space and into the slightly sloped sanctuary, all the way to the pulpit.
“It is elevated, but it’s not as dramatic because it’s all opened up,” Bullard says. “It feels like one large continuation.”
The design also joins two ministry buildings that previously operated as separate destinations. Plus, it added restrooms and brought coffee service indoors.
The new Gathering Space connecting the sanctuary and the birth-through-fifth-grade building has become, in Bullard’s words, “the nucleus of the church.”
Families can now retrieve their children without crossing the street, then sit and visit as more than 150 children come and go. Staff members remain visible and accessible in the same shared area. The space is even flexible enough to accommodate larger events, including a recent welcome-back lunch for more than 300 people.
“It’s just a swirl of life now,” Bullard says.
Making every space count
Rather than making Grace’s older facilities obsolete, the new construction allowed church leaders to use them more intentionally. Now, the former children’s building across the street is the Discover Building, with classrooms for discipleship pathways and Sunday morning small groups. Former early-childhood rooms are now student ministry space. An outdoor playground was converted into turf and a sports court for middle school, high school and college students, while a former fellowship area was reimagined to give the women’s ministry a permanent home.
The new project also benefited from Grace’s long-standing practice of acquiring adjacent residential properties when possible — or at least securing right-of-first-refusal agreements.
Two houses the church already owned were removed to create the site for the children’s building. After construction began, the owner of another nearby home — someone the church had previously approached — unexpectedly offered to sell. The elders acted quickly, and that property became a large playground for preschool and elementary children.
“We had been using those two houses to accommodate interns, and our youth group met in one of them. It was packed — we would have 60 to 80 students gathering in a house,” Bullard recalls. “We did the best we could with it, but it wasn’t really safe. And it definitely wasn’t inviting.”
Under budget, ahead of schedule
The original project estimate was about $5.2 million. According to Bullard, final costs landed around $4.8 million. Grace used the bottom-line savings for accessibility items identified during inspection and added upgraded acoustic ceiling tile to an archway leading from the sanctuary.
Bullard says he was particularly impressed by Master’s Plan’s transparency around contingency funds — the money reserved for anything the firm might miss or need to come back and correct.
“Several people on our leadership team said, ‘There’s no way the contingency can be that small,’” he explains. “But because of the way Master’s Plan handled the ordering and the rest of the process, the estimate proved to be very accurate.”
The schedule delivered another surprise. Grace expected to occupy the building around December, ideally by Christmas Eve. Master’s Plan turned over the space in August, allowing the church to use it throughout the fall — a crucial advantage in a university community. During summer, attendance can fall to about 60% of its in-session level. When students return, more than 1,000 adults and children might be on campus.
QUICK FACTS ABOUT GRACE BIBLE CHURCH:
Year established: 1940
Number of staff — full- and part-time: 7 / 9
Attendance: 750 (590 in worship + 160 kids)
2026 budget: $1.6 million
“A peaceful and exciting season”
Before committing to construction, Grace’s leaders asked everyone in leadership one final, foundational question: If a better property became available, would they be willing to relocate?
“Every single person said, ‘Absolutely not. The church is here for a reason,’” Bullard says. “That reminder — that this location matters so much to them — was key.”
Grace’s decision to stay put has greatly influenced its congregational life, with college students in regular attendance, just as they were at Bullard’s former church in Missouri. Today, 150 to 200 students are connected with Grace. Many are paired with church families who invite them into their homes and share meals with them.
For these students and every other member of the church family, their needs are now reflected in the physical facilities at Grace. And although the church retains right-of-first-refusal agreements on nearby properties, Bullard says there is no urgent expansion on the horizon.
“It feels so good to have reached a point where everything we need has either been updated or built,” he shares. “Now we can relax a little. We can focus on discipleship and on using the space as wisely as possible to make disciples.
“Honestly, it almost doesn’t seem real,” Bullard adds. “It’s both a peaceful and exciting season for us.”
