North of Normal

I’ve had a number of pastors and church leaders ask me recently how C3 was able to experience such a successful launch at Regal Cinemas. Obviously God’s favor was the overriding factor. I do believe there are some things he used that got huge results.

1. Buy in from our people. I’ve never seen a group of people so excited about ministry and reaching others. From the hundreds who’ve stepped up volunteering, to C3er’s investing and inviting - just getting people there - it has all exceeded our expectations.
2. Being prepared and planning for growth is huge. Sometimes I think we really limit what God longs to do because we don’t think big. The Management Team and Directors did an amazing job and we were ready.
3. PCI - Portable Church Industries. If you lead a portable church - these guys are awesome. There are some areas you can save money, but the way they package stuff for ease of use and saving time in transit is worth the cost. Sound, lights, kids stuff - all of it is excellent - in fact, it’s far better that what we had at our previous campus.
4. Publicity. You really have to study what works for your location. In some areas of the country there are things that work that don’t work in others. For us, the two avenues of publicity we’ve seen the greatest results, so far, are our billboards and mass mailings. For us, every time we do them we get huge results. Now we have the resources to do them more often. When doing mass mailings it’s important to remember a few things:

• Make sure you’re delivering what you’re advertising. For example, we will advertise hard about our Children’s Ministry because the quality is second to none.
• Realize there are church idiots who spend a ton of time thinking of themselves, even when you’re not. We got a few calls from people who wanted to make sure we knew they were not interested in coming to C3, and to proudly tell us what church they are attending (and they did it in a rude and ugly way). To them - don’t worry, we’re not interested in you coming to C3 either - it just wouldn’t work, we’re not building a culture of people that think only of themselves. Why is it these people don’t think, “Wow, that’s cool - a church reaching out. I wonder what my church could do?” Go ahead and call us to complain - we’ll ignore it because we can’t do a thing about it, it’s a list we buy, AND we’re busy reaching your neighbors instead of waisting time on the phone. (I wonder how many times these people call Walgreen’s when they get their flyer to tell them they use CVS… I really don’t need to say anything else about it other than -these people really crack me up. Hey, we’ve moved on, literally and figuratively - you might want to try it - cuz you’re about to get another one!!!
• If you do mailings, use a company that provides a zip code list. Our mailings include people’s names on them. It’s more personal.
• Also, most of the publicity will lead people to your website - make sure it’s crackin.

These are just a few things that have helped us jump huge. The bottom line is - go after people who are far from God. The biggest results come from personal invitations - so our advertising and marketing is simply to assist with that.

Invest and Invite - Sunday’s coming and so are your friends, right?