Your Core Mission Transcends Your Organization

by Brian Koehn

Back from lunch two days ago, my second voice message sounded energetic and professional:

Hi Brian, my name is Jennifer Buckles. I’m the recruiting manager here at Caribou Coffee. If you would please give me a call back, I would really appreciate it. My number is ###. Thank you very much.

As General Manager at Portable Church Industries, I get a lot of spam voice messages that never get returned, but this call intrigued me. Who knows? Maybe they’re looking for a new CEO. I’ve been told I’m good (but who told them?). I called Jennifer back.

Thanks for calling back, Mr. Koehn. I’m completing a job reference for
William Shuman.

Not Billy! I didn't want to lose Billy! I told her that he was a great team leader, well-liked, conscientious, and that I was going to go give him a raise. I told her that she ruined my day. I didn’t tell her that he was out sick that day.

Then I called Billy and got his voice mail because Jennifer was already calling him.

...I thought about a recent blog entry at Planters Wives about people coming in and out of your life like underwear… it happens, it sucks, suck it up, stay open to people, and give it to God.

...I thought about a recent article in Inc. Magazine about how hard it is when a good employee leaves… it happens, it sucks, celebrate it anyway, know that the departed are never really gone, be the kind of boss that makes resignations as hard for your employee as they are for you.

...I thought about five years ago when I left my church of fourteen years. The pastor, Steve Andrews, celebrated with me, as he had with every other core team member that had left over the years. I still meet and mentor five leaders in the church on a monthly basis.

..I thought about four years ago when I left my job at OnStar to come work for PCI. My old boss joined my monthly mentoring group.

I have learned that when your Core Mission Transcends Your Organization, it is easier to:

Forgive People Who Hurt Your Organization, (but not your mission,) by Leaving

Maintain Relationships That Serve Your Mission, Even if not Your Organization

Consider Other Organizations as Partners in Mission, not as Competitors

Here at PCI, my organization’s mission is to help churches achieve maximum impact with minimum capital. Billy is not going to be helping us with that any more. My real mission, however, the one that transcends this organization, is to see God enter more and more fully into each minute of my life and all the lives that I can touch. And from that perspective, Billy has graduated from this organization and is ready to extend this bigger mission as a manager at Caribou Coffee.

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Choosing the Right Equipment for Your Portable Church

Installment #1: Portability and Cubic Volume

There are many things to consider when purchasing equipment for your Portable Church. With all the financial pressures a church planter faces, it is easy to focus only on economics. In truth, your equipment purchases must not only reflect the creativity, vision and personality of your new plant or campus, but the equipment must also be safe, efficient, professional and easy to use.

We have found the equipment purchases for new churches to be simultaneously the most exciting and stressful times in the church launch experience. As such, we are beginning a new series on Portable Equipment – designed for both our clients and for the DIY Church Planter.

In this first series, we’ll cover the different aspects of making sure that your equipment is as portable as possible. The portability installment will cover the following:

Cubic Volume

Ease of Set Up & Teardown

Durability

If your new church (or new campus) is going to be in a rented facility like a school, movie theatre, art museum, community center, etc – it will be imperative to make sure that your equipment will pack up & move out easily, is light enough to install easily and can handle the consistent packing and unpacking, road noise and travel.

Today, we’ll just concentrate on the Cubic Volume Conundrum. This is a ratio of space to cost.

Let’s say you are purchasing chairs for your new church. You have found one that is relatively comfortable (comfortable enough, at least, to get you through a forty-five minute sermon), it’s padded, it stacks and it’s even lightweight – making it perfect for your volunteers. The cost of this chair? Only $20 per chair. You want to purchase 225, and the price tag of $4500 fits the budget quite nicely. You’ll even have money left over to buy that ping-pong table that the Youth Guy has his heart set on.

The other chair you’re considering is considerably more expensive. It is $42 per chair. While the chair seems more sturdy and durable, you’ve not noticed anything considerably better about this chair than the other one. It has all the features of the other one – it’s lightweight, it’s stackable and it’s comfortable, but at a substantial additional $4950 more than the other chair, it doesn’t seem worth it. Is that additional cost really worth the durability?

Surprisingly, you may find consultants like us encouraging you towards the $42 chair. Economically, the choice is clear, so why would we encourage you towards the more expensive chair?

For an average church of 225 people, the cost per cubic foot of storage space is about $10 per cubic foot*.

225 of the $20 chair takes up 600 cubic feet

225 of the $42 chair takes up 300 cubic feet

In the majority of our experience, we have found that the average church trailer is between 725 – 1010 cubic feet. A decision to purchase the inexpensive chair will use between 40% - 85% of your total storage space allotted for your all of your equipment purchases. In contrast, a decision to purchase the more expensive chair will use only 30% - 42% of the total storage space allotted.
If you can fit the rest of your church into 15% of your storage space - your choice is simple! Go with the least expensive option! If, however, you find yourself having to move into another trailer, or another Konix container, or pay another monthly fee to store an additional trailer somewhere, in order to make space for your other equipment, the numbers could add up to over & above the initial +$4950 for the more expensive chair.

That is the reason consultants like us might persuade you towards a more expensive chair. It may be more expensive in the short tem, but in the long term, your more expensive chair could pay off in a variety of different ways:

Staying In Your Allotted Storage Space

Keeping Your Storage Space Costs Within Budget

More Storage Space Leaves More Room for Additional Equipment, Helping You “Flex” With People Growth

One might argue that you can find a lightweight, comfortable chair for less than $42, but in our experience – durability is every bit as important as cubic volume considerations… I’ll save that for our next post!

Storage costs can vary dramatically depending on your situation. Many churches purchase a trailer and park it somewhere for free. Others rent a trailer parking space. Some churches have access to onsite storage at the facility they rent. Whatever the case, make sure you understand the upfront and ongoing costs of storage so that you can evaluate the cubic volume impact of your equipment choices.

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*This is based on Portable Church’s experience with churches across the nation, and is based on the average church trailer and / or storage space

Used Cases & Equipment for Sale (New York)

***THIS EQUIPMENT HAS BEEN SOLD IN FULL*** 08/16/07

Church at the Rock in Brooklyn, NY has just relocated into a permanent building. As such, they'd like to sell much of their used portable equipment to another portable church! For more information on the equipment - contact Eunho Hwang 718-241-0222 x 104. Pictures of the Church at the Rock equipment-in-action can be found at our flickr website!

Audio / Video Equipment
(1) Midas Easy Tilt Console Stand
(1) SKB Keyboard Case w/ Wheels
(2) 6' x 8' Fast Fold Projection System w/ FP Da-Mat Surface
(2) Video Valances to Match Above Screen (Black)
** Assorted and Miscellaneous Cords & Cables

Usher / Greeter Equipment
(4) Bases, Uprights 8' High
(2) Drape Supports (no panels); Drape Supports Telescope to 14'


Nursery Area
(2) White Wood Folding Rocking Chairs
(6) Portable Cribs
(1) Security Gate
(3) Cover & Play Bounders
(2) Wall Mounted Changing Tables (mounted into Kids' Case)
(1) Baby Inchworm Soft Shape
(1) Hop & Pop
(1) Bucket of Duplos
(1) Angel Fish Rocker
(3) Honeycomb Bins for Storage

Threes & Fours Areas
(1) Security Gate
(2) Cozy Time Loungers
(1) Set of Manual Dexterity Boards
(2) Buckets of Duplos
(1) Shopping Cart
(1) Ultimate Playland

Fours & Pre-K
(1) Easy Fit Security Gate
(2) Cozy Time Loungers
(6) 12 Gallon Honeycomb Bins
(4) 8.5 Gallon Honeycomb Bines

Elementary Area
(10) 6' Lightweight Portable Tables

Children's Backdrops
(31) Tripod Stands for Backdrops
(13) Drape Supports for Backdrops
(21) RED Panels
(21) BLUE Panels
(3) Bins for Storage of Panels

Children's Area Admin Items
(1) Portable First Aid Kid
(1) Bin for Storage
(12) Carpets... (4) in very good shape; (8) in good shape
(1) Folding Vacuum

Magliner Ramps for Stairway Access
(1) Magliner 3900 Series 4' Long
(1) Magliner 3900 Series Ramp, 12' Long

Portable Church (PCI) Cases
(6) Kids Cases
(6) Shelved Cases
(2) Hatch Cases w/ Access Panel for TV
(2) Table Cases
(1) Libarary Case
(1) Aviom / Monitor Case
(1) Drum Case
(1) Speaker Case
(1) Sound Accessories Case

Contact Eunho at Church @ the Rock for more information!