In 1248, they broke ground on a cathedral in Cologne, Germany.
They laid the foundations carefully, precisely, with extraordinary ambition. The plans called for a building that would be the tallest structure in the world. Intricate stonework. Soaring arches. Hundreds of metres of stained glass. A project on a scale that few had ever attempted.
And then life happened. Wars. Funding crises. Centuries passed. The project stalled for so long that a massive crane sat on top of the unfinished building for three hundred years — just sitting there, a reminder of something that hadn’t been finished yet.
The cathedral was completed in 1880.
Six hundred and thirty-two years after the first stone was laid.
Nobody who broke that ground was alive to see it finished. Nobody who laid those initial foundations walked through those completed doors or watched the afternoon light come through the glass. They built something extraordinary — and never got to experience what they built.
And yet they built it anyway.
I keep coming back to that story. Because I think it says something important about the kind of building God is actually calling us to.
The Question Most Leaders Never Ask
Most of us are building for the next few years. Which makes complete sense — we have plans to deliver on, budgets to work within, targets to hit. The pressure of the immediate is real, and it deserves attention.
But there’s a question underneath all of that which most leaders rarely stop to ask: Who am I building for beyond the people I can currently see?
Not just your team. Not just your current congregation. Not just the people in the room. But the ones who haven’t arrived yet. The people who will walk through a door you built, in a culture you shaped, into something you started — long after you’ve moved on.
This is the vision that runs through the book of Nehemiah, and it’s the vision that separates builders from managers.
Nehemiah looks at the broken walls of Jerusalem and says something deceptively simple: “Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.” (Nehemiah 2:17)
Three words doing enormous theological work: Come. Let us. Rebuild.
Come — it’s an invitation, not a command. He’s not conscripting people; he’s calling them into something bigger than themselves.
Let us — it’s plural. There is no version of this vision where one person does the work alone.
Rebuild — there’s history here. Something that was once whole. Something worth restoring. The vision isn’t to create something entirely new; it’s to recover what was always supposed to exist.
But here’s what I keep noticing about Nehemiah: he isn’t just rebuilding for the people who are currently suffering under rubble and open gates. He’s building for the city that will come after this moment. He’s building for the generation that will inhabit what he restores.
David’s Strange Obedience
There’s a scene in 1 Chronicles 29 that I go back to often.
David has spent a lifetime gathering resources for the temple. Timber. Gold. Silver. Precious stones. He’s been meticulous and generous, pouring massive personal wealth into this project. He calls the leaders of Israel together and makes one of the most extraordinary speeches in the Old Testament — essentially, “Here is what I’ve contributed, and here is what I’m asking you to give.”
The result is extraordinary generosity from the people. They give lavishly. There’s celebration, worship, joy.
And then David says something that stops me cold:
“Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” (1 Chronicles 29:14)
It’s a stunning statement. David has given colossal amounts of personal wealth. He’s led an unprecedented fundraising effort. And his conclusion is: I haven’t given you anything. Everything I offered, you gave me first.
But here’s the thing we have to hold alongside that: David never got to build the temple. God told him he wouldn’t — that task belonged to his son Solomon. David poured everything he had into a project he wasn’t permitted to complete.
And he did it anyway. Joyfully. Generously. Without bitterness.
That’s not resignation. That’s a particular kind of faith — the faith of someone who has genuinely understood that what they’re building doesn’t belong to them. That they are stewards of something bigger than their own legacy.
It’s one of the most countercultural leadership postures in Scripture, because so much of how we think about leadership is built around our impact, our vision, our era. David’s model completely dismantles that.
The Hall of Faith’s Quiet Secret
Hebrews 11 is one of the most well-known passages in the New Testament — the great “faith chapter,” the hall of fame of faithful people who trusted God in extraordinary circumstances.
But tucked in the middle of it is something that doesn’t often get the attention it deserves:
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” (Hebrews 11:13)
They didn’t receive what was promised. They saw it from a distance. They welcomed it from afar.
And it says they died in faith.
Not in disappointment. Not in failure. In faith.
I want to die like that, still looking, still building!
Because the theological reality is this: the promise was real, the inheritance was genuine, the building was happening — they just weren’t going to be the ones to occupy it. And they were okay with that. More than okay — they pressed on.
Abraham “was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10) He was building and journeying toward something he would never arrive at in his own lifetime. That was the nature of his obedience.
The question for every leader is whether we can hold that same posture — pursuing the vision faithfully, even knowing that the fullness of it may be experienced by someone who comes after us.
What This Actually Looks Like
Let me bring this somewhere practical, because this isn’t just a theological reflection — it’s a leadership question with real implications for how you make decisions right now.
Builders ask: what am I building that will outlast my involvement?
Not in a morbid way. In a focused way. There is an enormous difference between building a ministry around your gifts and building a ministry that will continue to run well when your gifts are no longer in the room. One centres you. The other centres the mission. The best thing you can ever do for an organisation is make yourself less necessary to its daily functioning.
Builders invest in people who will carry the work further than they can.
David gathered resources and then handed them to Solomon. He didn’t protect what he’d accumulated — he released it. Builders look for people who are younger, less experienced, and potentially more gifted in the next season, and they pour into them without jealousy. If you are the ceiling of your team’s potential, something is wrong.
Builders give generously, even to things they won’t benefit from.
David’s logic in 1 Chronicles 29 is theologically simple but practically demanding: it all came from God anyway. The moment you genuinely grasp that — that what you hold, what you’ve built, what you’ve accumulated, came through your hands but not from your strength — something in how you give changes. You stop protecting and start releasing.
N.T. Wright has a way of putting this that has stayed with me: “Look at circumstances through God’s purposes, not present limitation.” That’s builder’s vision. Not naïve optimism — not pretending the rubble isn’t there — but the capacity to see what this could become, not just what it currently is.
Nehemiah surveyed the ruins of Jerusalem by night before he said anything to anyone. He looked carefully at the walls, the gates, the damage. He saw it clearly.
And then he invited people into something bigger than the problem.
Come. Let us. Rebuild.
The Cologne Cathedral architects didn’t know it would take 632 years. They were just building the next section faithfully. And one day — long after they were gone — somebody walked through a finished door and worshipped in a space those founders could only have imagined.
That’s the invitation. You won’t see all of it. But you get to build it.
Come. Let us rebuild.
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Paul Benger 