What Inspires Me (Joe Kalmanir)

My experience with the church planting movement in this country has been an eye-opening experience of Love and Determination.

I have met leaders and communities that are so true and genuine that I want to move away from friends and family to experience their passion and love for their communities. Here at Portable Church, with all of the eccentric workers and the common goal of impacting this world, the palpable Love from Christ runs from these dynamic and honest pastors & leaders, and inspires me and leaves me in a place where I feel Christ.

When I first thought about how this company could impact the world, I thought it was a crazy idea... that it was nothing more than a passing notion of logistics and muscle. I realized later that that was far from the truth.

God has done an amazing amount of work through this company to vitalize and inspire communities of believers to go out into their local municipalities and Love Others. Hearing, daily, about the amazing work he has done in different cities throughout this country and Canada keeps me coming into work every day.


Joe Kalmanir is part of our Tech Support & Customer Service Team. He has spent six years with PCI and has worked every post from carpenter to CNC-Machine-Fixer to Integrator to Trainer to Electrician. In his personal life, he is part of a church plant in the Metro Detroit area and is married to the beautiful and lovely Kim.

What Inspires Me (Brian Koehn)

"I Will Build My Church"
Brian Koehn, General Manager

Tagging onto Kendra's post about what inspires me, I thought I'd write about what inspires me about working with churches.

When I was in Junior High School, all the kids in my neighborhood fell in love with soccer (it probably had something to do with the fact that a large empty lot was turned into a soccer field). I remember always trying to get on Bruce Harrison’s team. He was four years older than me, and the best player. No matter how we picked sides, his team usually won.

Playing on Bruce’s team seemed to have a multiplying effect on my average talent and athletic ability - a pass to Bruce often turned into an assist. Also, Bruce wore cleats and the rest of us played barefoot, and it was just more fun to win than to bleed.

The thing that I like best about working with churches is the Team Captain. He has the most talent of anyone in the neighborhood. When he said, “I will build My church, and it will knock the gates of Hell off their hinges,” it was not an empty boast. After all, it is “in Him we live and move and have our being.” It is His power that holds the nucleus of every atom together. It doesn’t matter how you pick sides, His team is going to win. Joining His team has more than a multiplying effect, because without Him, I can do nothing.

I try to remember all this each day, each hour, when the teams are picked and I choose whom to serve. And when the team is winning, it’s always good to remember why.

A Reason to Celebrate!

Every once in awhile, it's good to take a step back and remember what inspires you.

In 2007, PCI had the great pleasure of equipping more than 135 church starts and supplying individual items to 300+ more. This translates to....

• 97 Consultations with Portable Churches
• 95 Training Teams
• 122 PCI Trailers with Gear Delivered in North America
• More than 2,250 PCI Cases Built & Delivered
• 135,000 Miles Driven by Car or Tow Truck
• More than 385,000 Miles by Air
• More than 75,000 Man Hours to Design, Manage, Build & Deliver Portable Church Systems

... and the most joyous one....

At least 54,000* Seats Opened in

Existing Buildings to Share the Gospel

Anyone else inspired by that? What is your story? What inspires you? What incredible projects have you been a part of? Submit it to me, and I'll post it to the blog!

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*This is based on the Average Venue Size. This number does not account for more than one service time.

Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment, Part 2

Last time, we talked about using signage to create comfort in navigation. Now, let’s talk about creating comfort in your foyer, lobby or commons areas. There are so many ways you can create a welcoming environment that are easy, affordable and simple!

The lobby is a great place to show off the personality of your church. Your lobby is, most times, the first impression of your style and personality that a first time visitor will have.

• Coffee Bar - Just like at home, good conversation happens over coffee. A Coffee Bar provides opportunities for connection. Show visitors you care about details by having the station manned or monitored to keep it clean and to ensure that you don’t run out of coffee, creamer, sugar, etc. Put small decorative touches on the coffee bar that stylize the area (remember – no easily breakable items – we’re in a portable environment!). Show visitors that you really care by serving coffee that tastes good. Noone likes a bad cup of Joe.

• Resource Table –Whether you choose to have this station manned or unmanned, make sure you have a place designated in your lobby that first timer’s can visit to get information on your church, your core values, your mission, your ministries and (this is key, especially in portable environments), volunteer opportunities. This provides an aura of helpfulness and allows a visitor the freedom to find out more about your vision for the community.
  

• Graphic or Original Art – The lobby is a wonderful place to show off artistry and creativity. Consider having a rotating art show on easels; utilize hanging banners with your logo to personalize the lobby; harness the raw talent in your church to provide such art and design. One church we've worked with has a different artist present at every service that creates a painting, drawing or sculpting that ties in with the service. At the end of the quarter, a small "art" show is held at a local coffee house. This gives the church an opportunity for outreach, the artists a chance to showcase God given talents, and provides an opportunity for sharing life-change stories in a casual environment.

• Music or Video - Consider piping in your worship service via a speaker or a Television into the lobby. This could be an "overflow" space for you - or ultra-cool seating for your youth group. Staff your "Video Cafe" with coffee and refreshments. This could be potentially very effective for the casual visitor who just wants to "see what this church thing is all about".

Think about your favorite restaurant, place to write sermons or meeting place. What makes it your "favorite"? Is it the seating, the lighting, the customer service? Is it the artistry, the music or the warm colors? Take notice of those things and figure out how to apply them to your portable environment. What makes you comfortable will likely make your visitors feel comfortable.

Questions? Feel free to call our Environmental Consultant for more suggestions and guidance.


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EVOLVE Conference Winners Announced

This morning, we held our drawing for FREE Conference Registrations to the Evolve Conference in Atlanta, GA (February 18-19). We had a lot of participants, and were able to extend the drawing to (10) Winners, instead of the predicted (5).

It is our pleasure to announce the following people as winners in our Go To the Evolve Conference Contest:

• Brad Ruggles - Ignite Church, IN
• Joshua Vance - Trinity Family Church of the Nazarene, KS
• Curt Wegley - Northwoods Fellowship, ID
• Thomas Pollock - New Life Baptist Church, AZ
• Sam Smith - The Fountain, VA
• Lynn Scott- Good Harvest Christian Church, KS
• Eric Dirksen - City Life Church, CA
• Dale Schaeffer - Bridgeway Community Church, IL
• Rob Parker - Cornerstone Church, NJ
• Mark Smith - Pleasant View Community Church, TN

As soon as Blogger's graphic uploader is back up... we'll post pictures of our historic drawing.

Stay tuned to the blog for more announcements for conferences, used equipment and other such resources for church planters.

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Practical Steps to Creating Your Environment, Part 1

Choosing to visit a church for the first time can be a daunting experience for many. Many first time visitors to your church can have their defenses up. Perhaps they have been hurt by a previous experience; perhaps they walked away from established religion a long time ago; perhaps they’ve never been to church. Regardless of their reasons for walking in our doors, it is our immediate job to “disarm” them, to prepare them to hear the gospel and to prepare them for praise & worship.

A quick and easy way to ensure their comfort in a Portable Church is to ensure that your signage is correct, helpful, easy to read and pleasing to the eye.

It’s possible that your first-time-visitor will prefer to remain anonymous and will not be comfortable asking strangers for directions. Even if they are comfortable with asking for directions, they may not always be able to locate someone (especially if they arrive late). Make sure they know where to park, which entrance to use, where to get information, where to get coffee, where to drop off their children, which door to use for the worship environment, etc.

Here’s a quick list of suggestions we make to all of our church planters (please note -the Blogger graphic loader is "down", so I was unable to post pictures; will do so later..).

• Menu Signs – place menu signs at all entrances that show locations for major routes.
  
  
• Destination Signs - Each room should have a sign in front of it, signaling “This is it!”
  
  
• Helper Signs - If visitors will have a long walk from one destination to another, make sure to place “helper signs” letting them know that they’re still heading in the right direction.
  
  
• Exterior Signage - Outside your venue, use signage to clearly mark parking entrances, main entrances and sectioned parking. Take the main entrance or the street-facing entrance and “claim” it as your own while you’re there!
  

Making these simple suggestions a part of your portable church culture can help you begin to create an environment of comfort and ease for your first time visitor.

As always, if you have any questions - especially regarding the right number of signs, the heighth, width, etc, give us a call.

In the meantime, check out the signs at the airport next time you are there. Pay special attention to the signs you use when trying to find the baggage claim at your destination. That’s good signage.


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Reflections on Embracing Portability as a Church

Guest Blogger – Rich Birch, Connexus Community Church

Last week I had the privilege of interacting with dozens of "church planting types" at the Next Church Conference in Ocala, Florida. It was great to meet up with leaders at various stages of their planting path. I could talk with church planters all day long - they are heroes in my books!

As we chatted about many of the practical issues facing leaders in today's climate, the issue of how to "do church well" on a portable environment came up. In reality, many, many churches today end up in portable situations where they are moving in and out of a rented facility every week. I see portability as great strategic advantage. Portability, as I see it, is not a "phase to be grown out of" or a "burden to be avoided".

Here are some thoughts on the advantages that portable churches have over the old school "bricks and mortar" churches.

Move into the "Up & Coming Places"
One of the hallmarks of an area considered “good” for church planting is a community that is growing quickly and is attracting a lot of new residents. Often, when people are in the midst of the life change that comes with moving, they are open to new things like trying out a church.

Portable Churches can capitalize on that growth by renting a pre-existing building (as opposed to building one). Being portable gives you an incredible opportunity to jump into those new & fast growing communities both quickly, economically and effectively.

Be in Two Places at Once!
Have you ever wished you could be at two places at once? Churches experiencing rapid growth can go portable and host services in multiple locations on a single weekend. For instance – you could host Saturday evening services in one community and then Sunday morning in a different location. This flexibility allows you to reach more people in more locations than when you are restricted by a building (and I haven’t even mentioned the new opportunities that the multi-site approach opens up!).

Grow Your Environments as Your Community Grows
There is something about going to an event when the room is packed out. You know that feeling of "we're not going to be able to fit many more people in here?" This “feeling” is a great irony of human nature – it is a part of what makes us want to come back and to invite our friends. When you are portable, you are able to start your ministry environments in small rooms and then grow to larger rooms as your community grows.

I've seen this dynamic work first hand as we've been meeting in movie theaters for years. When we launched a new location, we started in a room that makes the community feel "full" from the beginning and then slowly moved into larger theaters as needed.

"Go and Be" rather than "Come and See"
There is just something great about "invading" space every week that is used for another purpose for the rest of the week. We can see Paul doing this in Acts 19 as he rented the lecture hall at Tyrannus. By renting a space that is "out there" you are going to where the people are rather than convincing them to "come here" into a foreign space that the vast majority of the people you are attempting to reach have never been.

Churches spend huge dollars on making their facilities look like "public spaces" - why not just rent a public space and convert it for your use? When considering where to plant a church, don't restrict yourself just to schools and movie theaters - what about bars, casinos, bowling alleys or strip clubs (Don't laugh I know I church that converted a strip club!)? The weekly reminder about "what's it's all about" is powerful when you meet in a portable environment!

Return on Investment
Let's face it . . . we all are caught in between the vision of what we believe God wants to do in our church and what our resources on hand will allow us to do. We are always looking for ways to maximize the donor investments that have been made in our churches.

Simply put . . . you are able to serve more people in portable venues than you are in traditional physical environments. I have seen this first hand in the churches that I've been a part of. We built a great facility that was both a home for our congregation and a video production facility for our multisite vision - it cost us $2,300+ per person to build. This fall we launched a portable location for $450 per person to totally outfit that location including video production for our multisite approach! (You can do portable for a lot less than that per person as well!).

The savings are huge when you do a "cost per person" analysis of getting starting in a portable church rather than a "buy and build" approach.

I've been leading in growing churches that have chosen a portable strategy for over 350 weekends now (But who's counting!). I know, first hand, that there is a lot of hard work involved in this approach to "doing church" but I think the investment that is made is a wise one.
What do you think? I'd be interested in hearing your reflections on being portable.



Rich Birch
rich.birch@connexuscommunity.com
Executive Director of Operations
Connexus Community Church

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Go to the Evolve Conference on Us!

What are you doing in 10 days? If you didn't answer "Going to the Evolve Conference", then consider joining us in Atlanta, GA for a dynamic experience at Mountain Lake Church.

The Evolve Conference, (February 18-19), under the leadership of Shaun Lovejoy & David Putnam, and with such inspiring leaders such as Darrin Patrick, Steven Furtick, Bil Cornelius, Mark Batterson (to name a few) will give you insight, encouragement and practical applications for your church planting journey. PLUS, you can join PCI's own Pete van der Harst and Kevin Jones for a breakout session called Building Churches Without Buildings.

Here's the best part - PCI is giving away FIVE FREE Conference Registrations* to this incredible conference. Just send me your name, church (or organization name), and email address. Alternatively, you can nominate a church planter to attend for free by sending me their information. On Tuesday (February 11th), I'll do a random drawing and will notify the winners.

This conference is an incredible opportunity to learn best practices, network and visit with companies making a huge impact in the field of Church Planting. For more information, visit http://www.churchplanters.com/.

Hope to see you there!

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