Building maintenance in most churches runs on the “someone will notice” system — a leak gets fixed when it’s dripping on the carpet, not before. The board of trustees is charged with the “supervision, oversight, and care of all real property” the church owns (¶2533.1), and a written schedule is what turns that charge into something that actually happens on a calendar instead of in a crisis.
The template
| Item | Frequency | Who | Last done | Next due |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC filter change | Monthly (or per manufacturer spec) | Facilities volunteer / vendor | ||
| Fire extinguisher inspection | Annual | Licensed vendor (required by code in most jurisdictions) | ||
| Smoke / CO detector battery check | Twice yearly | Facilities volunteer | ||
| Roof and gutter inspection | Twice yearly (spring/fall) | Vendor or trained volunteer | ||
| Water heater flush | Annual | Vendor | ||
| Parking lot / walkway inspection (trip hazards, striping) | Annual | Trustees | ||
| Pest control service | Per contract (typically quarterly) | Vendor | ||
| Playground equipment inspection, if applicable | Twice yearly | Trustees | ||
| Kitchen fire-suppression system inspection, if applicable | Per code (typically twice yearly) | Licensed vendor | ||
| Parsonage annual maintenance review | Annual | Trustees chair + SPRC chair + pastor together (¶2533.4) | ||
| Insurance coverage review against GCFA’s published schedule | Annual, reported to charge conference | Trustees (¶2533.2) |
Add rows for anything specific to your building — a pipe organ, an elevator, a commercial kitchen hood — each usually carries its own inspection requirement from code or an insurer, not from this list.
Adaptation notes
- The parsonage line is not optional if your church owns one. ¶2533.4 names it specifically: trustees chair, PPR/SPRC chair, and the pastor together, annually — a joint review, not the trustees alone, because it’s also the pastor’s home.
- The insurance line feeds a report the trustees owe the charge conference (¶2550.7) — don’t treat it as an internal-only checklist item; it has a downstream deadline.
- Small churches without a standing trustees committee: in a single-board structure this schedule still belongs to whoever holds the trustees function on your board — see the governance-model pages for how that merges.
- Vendor vs. volunteer: items tied to code compliance (fire suppression, fire extinguishers, playground equipment in most states) usually require a licensed vendor’s signature, not a volunteer’s good intentions — check your state and municipal code, and your insurer’s requirements, before assigning a code-driven item to a volunteer.
- Keep this next to the key log — an annual read-through of both together tends to surface the same gaps: a vendor who no longer has keys, a task nobody’s owned since the last pastor left.
Elsewhere
- GCFA / UMC Support — publishes the annual insurance-coverage schedule ¶2533.2 references, plus broader property and risk-management resources. (gcfa.org)
- Church Mutual — facility maintenance and risk-management guidance from a major UMC-serving insurer. (churchmutual.com)
- National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) — the code basis most local fire-suppression and extinguisher inspection requirements cite. (nfpa.org)