What will it take?

OK, perhaps you can help me with this one. We are about to do our first mailer in January. I have avoided doing one because they are so expensive. So, if we are going to do a mailer I want to get as much out of it as possible. The goal is to get people to do the following as a result of the mailer we send out:

1. Notice it.
2. Go to our website.
3. Sign up to be added to our email list on the website.
4. Come to church.
5. Accept God's love and forgiveness through Christ.
6. Allow God to change their life.
7. Help others do the same.

Ok, so maybe that's a lot to expect out of a mailer, but that's where the process will start for some. How many are impacted by the mailer depends on the first three things. So how do you get someone to notice your mailer, go to your website, and voluntarily give you a valid email address? BRIBE THEM!!!

What would get your attention, make you want to go to your computer and enter a web address, and enter your name and email? Would you do it for an ipod touch? A flip video camera? A calender with 12 pictures of me on it, one for each month? Seriously, what would get you to take action?

Tag Lines

Ok, so I am exploring options and ideas for a creative and catchy tag line for essential church. One that would both capture the essence of who we are and also capture someone's attention and interest. Here's a few that I found:

• a community of God seekers, God followers, and God doubters


• experiencing the love of God and giving it away


• heal, grow, repeat


• Come as you are. Leave changed

In looking I found two things that made me almost fall out of my chair laughing, the first was a comment by someone else who was looking at tag lines and the other is a church billboard.

"I have no idea. I'm a Presbyterian. Our implicit tag line is 'Come because you were born here.'

Logo Design Tips

There are four elements that can be seen in every great logo:
It’s describable
It’s memorable
It’s effective without color
It’s scalable i.e. effective when just an inch in size

When people think about designing a logo, often they think about a stunning graphic image. But when you think about the world's most recognizable logos, they all very simple designs. Think about the Nike swoosh, McDonald's arches, Apple Computer's apple, etc. They are all very simple.

A complex logo can be difficult to reproduce and more importantly, difficult to remember. Further, overly complex logos can 'gum up' when reproduced as a very small image. Think business card, fax header. How about a key chain? Or a ballpoint pen? Complex logos also do not look good when printed in black and white or embroidered.

When considering a logo for essential church we had some artists submt some really stunning designs. But when I asked them to send me a black and white version, they lost all their appeal. Some of them looked more like an ink blot than a logo when done in black and white. Further, several of them were not scalable. When putting graphics on a webpage, often we are limited to images that are only 100-200 pixels wide. In case you're not familiar with pixels, that just means that it is a really low resolution image. Many of the fancy designs relied heavily on having a lot of shading or glossy effects that look aweful in low resolution.

So in the end, we went with a logo that communicates what is essential, loving God, loving others, and loving our selves. It is describable, memorable, effective without color, and scalable.

This post includes quotes from the following sites:
http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_design.html
http://www.davidairey.com/5-vital-logo-design-tips/

Logo

We have decided on a logo for essential church. We wanted something that looked modern and clean, but would not blend among other typical church logos. The logo is a combination of two images. The first is an atom, which is the most essential or basic element of everything. But what's really neat is that hidden/incorporated within the atom design are four hearts. Can you see them?

The four hearts relate to the foundational truth Jesus shared in Matthew 22:36-40 when he was asked what is the most essential or greatest thing God asks of us: His answer was to love God and love others as you love yourself. The logo is a representation what is most essential, love God, others, and yourself.

The heart facing up, represents loving God, the hearts to the left and right is loving others in discipleship/growth settings like small groups and loving others by serving. The heart facing down points to our need to love ourselves by respecting our bodies and making decisions that foster our own spiritual growth like prayer, bible study, and personal holiness.

Next time I'll share a little more about design concepts and principles that must be considered when designing a logo.

We Have Landing for our Launch!!!

I must say I am absolutely amazed!!! Honestly. I met with Mrs. Risney, the principal of North Landing Elementary School this morning and she has agreed to let us meet there next year. For those of you who don't know our history, this is the school at which our church was originally planted. Based on a mutual agreement we left there about five years ago. I honestly thought that was the last place on earth we'd end up. I thought there was no way that a principal who had a less than favorable experience with us five years ago would even be willing to talk to us. But after every other door seemed to be closed, I figured what do we have to loose. I drove over to the school, prayed in the parking lot for a while, and then went inside. Mrs. Risney welcomed me in and was willing to talk about it. Now two weeks later after talking with her staff they have welcomed us back. If you know any of the teachers or staff at NLES, be sure to thank them for opening up the school to us. This was truly a God thing.

After working out all the details this morning I shared with her how thankful and even kind of surprised I was that she was willing to invite us back. She told me she was a little surprised herself, but said she just couldn't explain why she felt it was the right thing to do. I said that sounds like a God thing. She agreed. We serve an AWESOME GOD!!!

My New/Old Friend Paul

This past week at our state missions training center I got to talking with some other church planters about our location dilemmas. I had just received a call from... (well I'll tell you from who tomorrow, but it was an exciting and amazing call). We got to sharing ideas on how to make the best use of a school facility to set up for church. I mentioned that our ability to meet at North Landing is dependent on finding two teachers that are willing to let us use their rooms on Sundays for our nursery and preschool. Two guys in the room looked at me like I was from another planet. "What do you need rooms for, the hallways work so much better!"

This was another one of those G-incidents (God/coincidents). I had just thought of using the hallways last week on my own, but didn't think it was practical or would look nice. I shared my concerns with them and then got an education. They started telling me how they did there set up in the hallways and who else I could talk to that does it also. Then another church planter walked in and overheard our conversation. He chimed in, "hey we use the hallways too, here's how we do it."

One of the guys in the room was Paul McDaniel, the pastor of Family Life Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Paul's the kind of guy that you're convinced you've known for years after spending five minutes with him. Why, because he treats you like you're a friend that's he's known all his life. He said to me, "Hey my church equipment is on you way home, you want to stop by and look at what we use to do our set up?"

I of course took him up on the offer. I tell you what, they know what they are doing at Family Life. They share my same heart for making something look like a million dollars, but finding a way to buy it for a million dong. (Dong is the currency of Vietnam. One million Vietnameese Dong equals about $60.) I can't thank Paul enough for taking the time to show me what they do and how they do it. And I am simply amazed at how God contually puts me in the right place at the right time.

Leadership Team Meeting

Next week we are going to have a leadership team meeting at 5:30 @ Beacon Baptist Church. All church members are invited to come and be a part of the meeting. We will be discussing the latest news concerning our future and Essential Church. I will be laying out more of the vision and the plan moving forward. I look forward to seeing you all there.

North Landing Update

I talked with Mark Jones, the assistant principal at North Landing, this morning. He said that they discussed the idea of having us use the facility in the new year with their department heads. The department heads are going to talk to the teachers this week. I will touch base with them early next week to see where we stand. If you know any of the teachers there, it might not be a bad idea to ask them to put in a good word for us.

We're looking at a lot of possibilities, but at the current time North Landing is the most promising. If we go anywhere other than a school, we have to get a conditional use permit from the city. That usually takes about two or three months depending on the timing of the various committee meetings that would all need to approve the permit.

Possible Locations

Here are the locations that we have looked into to date and the status of our inquiry:

1. North Landing Elementary School. Yes, that's right, NLES. This is the location that New Hope started at. In the summer of 2004, we moved to Red Mill. Pray for Julie Risney and her staff as they consider our request. She and I talked for a while on Monday and she was very open to the possibility of us returning to North Landing.

2. Strawbridge Elementary School. After two visits and two phone calls, Principal Coon was not willing to allow us to have a custodian who is not on her staff open the building for us. At the current time, none of her custodians are available so she has denied our request.

3. Ocean Lakes Elementary School. I stopped by there on Monday morning of this week and the principal was not there. The office staff told me that Principal Grindle is not even open to having a church meet in their facility.

4. Former CHKD building in the Strawbridge Market Plaza. The realtor said they wanted $21 per square foot (which is very expensive). This puts this location out of our budget.

5. Corner retail location behind Hooters. The realtor for this location is based on Washington state. He said that the parking situation there would most likely not allow for a church. The parking lot is kind of small.

6. Club Mystique on General Booth across from Chik-fil-a. I haven't gotten a hold of the realtor for this location yet.

7. Vacant church on Holland Rd. This used to be an Episcopal church. Currently they are looking to sell the 4 acres for $1.1 million. I wished them good luck.

8. Vacant church on Princess Anne next to the cemetery near the Dam Neck intersection. From what I have been told Lewis Jones who is our vice mayor is the person to talk to about this building. I have called his office twice and missed him both times.

9. Movie Theater at Lynnhaven Mall. This location is about as far away as we have looked. I talked to the assistant manager there. She said we might get a better rate from their corporate headquarters, but she was only authorized to tell us the standard rental rate: $200 flat fee plus $5 per seat and we must pay for every seat in the theater we use. This would mean that using two or three theater rooms would cost us about $2,000-$3000 per week. I haven't called their headquarters to ask about a lower rate. If other locations don't pan out I may spend the time looking for the right person to talk to.

10. Vacant Movie Theater behind Lynhaven Mall. I have not called about this location yet. I have heard that another group called about it and it was rather pricey and needed a lot of work. If other locations don't pan out I may look into this one more.

11. Warehouse across from Taylor Farms on Dam Neck. There are some warehouse spaces over there that might work. The biggest problem with that area is parking, but it might work.

12. Kellam & Eaton Hardware Store. I actually got to meet with Mr. Kellam when I was over there looking in the windows. Unfortunately the building is in really bad shape. In order for us to use it we would have to bring all the electrical and pluming in the building up to current code.

13. Navy Federal Credit Unition/Former RSC Building. It's located across from Hunt Club Farms at the corner of Strawbridge and London Bridge. It's been sitting vacant for about two years or so. I'm guessing that with the current economic banking issues they aren't going to use the property anytime soon. If you have any connections at Navy Federal, let me know (Steve@ShareNewHope.com). Right now the only means I have of inquiring about the building is writing a letter to their main office in Vienna, VA. This would be a great location. It has plenty of parking and seperate rooms for nursery and preschool. It would take an act of God to get us in there by February of 2009. The good news is we know Him and He wants us to ask Him about it. So join me in asking God to do what only He can do.


I think that's all of them. Let me know if you can think of another place to look in to. It only takes one yes for us to find the right spot. If it was an easy thing to do, we wouldn't need God. Fotunately God has asked us to ask him for our needs, and he has promised to provide them. So let's keep praying about this and ask God to do what only he can do.

location, location, location

Being the son of a realtor I have heard the phrase "location, location, location" many times. Location is a major component of planting a church. There are four things we are looking for in choosing a place.

1. Size, Expandability, Flexibility. The place has to be big enough to accommodate our needs (parking, nursery, preschool, worship, etc.). When you could have as few as 75 or as many as 400 on your first Sunday, it's quite a challenge to find a place expandable enough. Flexibility is also an issue. Commercial real estate leasing agreements often ask for a 3, 5, or even 10 year commitment. If you're signing a lease that ties you to a location for 3 years, it had better be one that you can still use if you grow.

2. Residential Area. The location needs to be close to where people live. I have never understood why people are willing to commute 45 minutes to work, but will rarely travel more than 10 minutes to go to church. But it is what it is, and therefor being close to residential neighborhoods are important.

3. City Approval. This is an often overlooked factor. I have heard many horror stories over the past month about pastors that have signed a lease or worse yet, bought a building only to find out that the city will not approve the site for church use. In Virginia Beach there isn't a zoning label for churches. Rather the city grants a conditional use permit for a church to meet in a location that is zoned for business, industrial, etc.

4. Drive by traffic. Putting a sign out in front of where you are meeting is the cheapest form of advertising. Being able to put out a sign in a high traffic area isn't a must, but it is such a great thing to have that it makes this list.

Conclusion: This is why schools and movie theaters are the most common place for church plants. They almost always meet all four of the requirements.

Networking wih Austin Porter

I had the chance today to talk with Austin Porter who is launching Revive Church in February 2009 in Shelby, NC. He was nice enough to let me pick his brain for ideas.

I love the catch phrases they use to describe their church. These quotes are definitely buzz-worthy.
1. This church will rock your freakin face off!
2. Can't be explained, only experienced!
3. We're smokin' what we're preachin'!
4. Even Bob Barker can't neuter this beast!

There were a ton of great insights that he shared with me, but these are the ones that are stuck in my mind:
1. If you're going to hype up your big launch day, you better deliver. You must be able to meet the expectations you create in the events, publications, and promises made leading up to the launch.
2. Planning how you are going to follow up with all of the first time guests that come to your big launch service is as important as everything you do leading up to the launch. (This alone is worth the price of admission to all things Austin Porter)
3. A quote from Perry Noble: "everyone should attempt something so great that it's doomed to failure unless God is in it."

It's Out, It's Official, It's Essential

Yesterday was a huge day!!! I took the bold step of going public with the vision God has laid on my heart over the past year and I must say that I am blown away by the response. There's no turning back, our course has been set. The response from our church was amazing!!! I think they are more amped up about launching a new church than I am. God is moving, we are following, and our community is going to be better for it.

Clutter Free - part 2

Remember now some of these are way outside the box, but the box is full of clutter and the farther outside the box you are the more it gets noticed.

6. Toilet Paper - this was a joint idea between Noah (our awesome worship leader) and myself. No, we're not looking to make custom printed toilet paper, but that would me pretty neat. If I did that I'd put on there something like "this won't wipe away your sins, but Jesus can.". Seriously though Toilet Paper would be a flyer or a sticky note on the back of public restroom stalls that had a message/ad for the church. It would definately be the most redeeming thing to read on the wall. Given the number of things written on some bathroom stalls it wouldn't be completely clutter free, but I'm hoping our posting will have better art work than the rest of what is there.

7. Keeping with the bathroom theme, here's one that I morphed from the BuzzMarketing book and from a John Piper book. I was looking over Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life" and thinking about it when I read that a creative buzz-maker was to make custom printed urinal screens. It might be a bit crude but it would generate a lot of buzz: "Don't piss your life away, go to essenialchurch.tv". My wife hates the idea. I'm trying to think of a slightly less crass message to put on there, yet still edgy enough to create some buzz. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
On a side note I emailed a guy who does custom urinal printing and told him what I was thinking of doing. I put my first and last name on the email. He responded with a sarcastic email with a vague price quote and signed his name "flush". I guess if your are an out of the box thinker and your last name is Swisher people from toilet bowl companies will assume you are poking fun at them. I emailed him back and told him it was my real name and we both had a good laugh. I haven't had someone make a toilet reference to my name since elementary school.

Clutter Free - part 1

Remember these aren't supposed to be the normal ways to get the word out about something. If everyone did it, it wouldn't be clutter free. I also agree with Mark Batterson when it comes to marketing and the church: we have the greatest message to tell and therefor we should have the greatest marketing.

Clutter Free Ideas for getting the word out about your church:
1. Door hangers, car windshields, personal invite cards. I know these are pretty common, but if what you put on them stands out they can get some mind-share.
2. Put on the items from #1 an incentive to go to your website. I saw one church planter that put a coupon for Starbucks on their handouts. You hand to register on the website to get a validation code. That gave the church contact info (at least an email address). That leads to:
3. Targeted email. I know most would say that spammers have cluttered up our email, but sending a validation code for starbucks would get noticed. This gives you three touch points for one marketing piece... not bad. I haven't checked with starbucks yet to see what kind of rate they will give me, but it would probably be worth it. I've also thought that a Chic-fill-a sandwich might be a good substitute. They might even donate the chicken for their own advertising. Is chicken a strong enough draw to get someone to register on your website? Not sure. Might work well on a college campus. I would do just about anything for free food in college.
4. Here's another idea I saw, have you church members write on their car windows with those white markers. When I was in school we used white shoe polish, but now they have actual markers for this kind of thing. It's a great way to promote a church launch or special event.
5. Servant evangelism. Doing good for goodness sake is a good thing and will influence the fat man in a red suit to bring you gifts next month, but it also a form of clutter free marketing. Jesus drew huge crowds when he met people's needs. I can hear the question now, "would you do a servant evangelism project for marketing reasons?". YES!!! Before you throw the stone with your mouse click hear me out. Isn't our mission as a church to share the gospel with as many people as possible? Well it just so happens that we do that every week at our church. So yes I would do an event that serves our community and intentionally try to get them to come to church. I believe that church is an essential part of everyone's life whether they know God or not. And yes I would also do events simply for the sake of serving people. We have been doing them at our church for years. But we also do strategic service events to intentionally influence people to come to church.

BuzzMarketing 3

p.134: The key to clutter free media is length of attention and undivided focus, those are what give you mind share.
p. 132: Before you can capture market share, you need to capture mind share.

Ok, so how do we do this for our launch?
I'll be sharing some of the ideas I've collected from other planters in the weeks to come.

Logo Design

Big thanks to Ben Arment for turning me on to CrowdSpring for a logo design company. It is a site where people compete for your business. Amazing graphic artists submit origional logos for you to choose from. The best part is you name the price you are willing to pay up front. Artists decide if it's worth their time to enter the competition. Great concept. We began the contest this afternoon and already have our first artist in the competition within two hours!!! You would never get that kind of turn around with a standard logo factory.

BuzzMarketing Part 2

Empowered Interactivity: creating buzz by allowing people to be a part of the product.

For a church there is a fine line here. Having the worship leader become more like a wedding singer that takes requests probably wouldn't work. For some reason it does work well with sermon series. Recently Gary Lamb at Revolution Church did a series titled "You Asked For It" in which the series was driven by requested topics. The topics were often in the category of taboo which is another thing that generates Buzz.

I'm wondering what other ways we can create Empowered Interactivity. Currently most of our mission projects are generated by church members not the staff. I am always encouraging people to go out on a limb and commit our church to meet the needs they see. I tell them to let their friends know that you and "one hundred of your closest friends" are there to help them. And it works. People do it and the church's response has always exceeded the need!!!

Let me know if you can think of any other ways to get church members or better yet the community interactively empowered by your church.

BuzzMarketing Part 1

Reading BuzzMarketing by Mark Hughes.

Ideas for church buzz marketing:
1. Distribute urinal screens that say something like, "Don't piss your life away on things that aren't essential." Then have essentialchurch.tv at the bottom. Hopefully it will piss some people off and get them talking.
2. Coffee distribution at a popular intersection in the morning with a message that somehow connects people's feeling that they need coffee (it's essential to them) and the truth that church is essential. It would have to be good coffee.

Quotes and thoughts:
p.viii-ix: we're seeing a mistrust of anything corporate... the solution is to abandon any appearance of a corporate look. Corporate looks slick. Corporate looks like there's something being hidden amid seeming perfection. So don't look corporate, but DO look personal. I wonder if people who do not go to church mistrust large denominations in the same way. The way that churches are dropping denominational ties from their name seems to point to this.

p.xii: create buzz by inviting you and me to have an Empowered Interaction and empowered conversation with your company (the church). How can we empower people to interact with our church? How far can we take this concept? Pastors struggle with allowing people to take ownership of things, especially parts of the worship service.

p.xv: Only when you've gt everything to loose do you really understand the need to think differently. Without the fear of God, you tend to tread the familiar paths. This one hit me right between the eyes. I'm in the middle of a series called Beware of God which is all about understanding what the Fear of God is all about. Right now I am in a situation were I have both everything and nothing to loose. This quote is true on multiple levels and in ways I doubt the author even knew. One of the things that has pushed me to take an unfamiliar path recently in launching a new church is studying the fear of God. Saying God is huge is the understatement of all history. Understanding just how BIG GOD IS has made me want to blaze new paths and attempt big things for Him.

p.2: Buzz Marketing Defined - it captures the attention of consumers and the media to the point where talking about your brand or company becomes entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy. Hmmm.... I have seen churches do this intentionally and by accident and by the hand of God. When God does it, it's amazing and it's unstoppable. When we do it, it normally takes a lot of time, energy, and money. Now the goal ahead is to have it happen before we launch in three months. I'll start with prayer. I can already see how God could do this and it would be huge if He does.

p. 49: if you plant your marketing seeds in an environment that fosters word of mouth (like a bar) you're ahead of the game. If you want people to talk about your brand (church), get as close as possible to a demographic that talks a lot or in an environment that talks a lot. Where do people around here talk a lot? While watching their kid's sporting events, at Panera Bread, fitness centers, at school. Now all we need to do is go there and get them talking about essentialchurch.tv