Good news – Portable churches are meeting live again!

It has still been slow in coming but the momentum can be felt across the country now. Like light at the end of this COVID tunnel, our teams are being asked by church planters and multisite leaders about what seems to be working. Many have been waiting and watching as others ‘go first’… we are now feeling that others are optimistic and taking the next step.

So here are 7 observations from the world of today’s portable church!

1. The new front door

Digital is a HUGE new front door to your church. People investigating a church start digitally. They used to just check out the website. Now through social media, they have easy access to what your church and see what it ‘feels’ like through your streaming services. And churches have upped their digital game!

However, it has been made clear that digital is not going to permanently replace live. It lacks the full expression and power of the church body. There will always be something significant in gathering live that absolutely cannot be replaced.

Looking forward: Do not fall back into the trap of making you digital audience a secondary focus. It’s a huge front door and a way many will continue to connect with you.

2. Be relevant more often than just on Sunday!

Churches are still seeing great success at connecting with the church through midweek ‘check ins’, vision casting and/or devotionals. Some have the lead pastor reaching out each week, mid-week, some mix it up having elders, other pastoral staff or leaders join in.

One church we spoke with recently talked about the great success they had individually calling their entire database to check in on everyone and they are planning to continue these check ins. They have been highly effective and is resulting in a deeper engagement by members and attenders alike.

Looking forward: Plan for a process of personal check in by phone, text or other form of communication throughout the year. Review the effectiveness regularly with the leadership team and be flexible as to what you want out of these touchpoints.

3. Digital is not naturally friendly to the friendly church

Some church leaders are ROCKSTARS at embracing those that walk through the doors and making them feel loved – like the long-lost friend they had not met yet.  A hospitality driven church or pastor who is gifted with warmth, personality, and genuine deep-felt hospitality may not have gifts that translate digitally over a streaming network.

A church with a strong digital presence is likely aided by great performance – yes in worship, but even more so with the delivery of The Gospel. The problem is that there are a ton of performances for people to choose from.

Looking forward:  To navigate the “phygital” balance well, churches are using the chat feature during services, having their best engagers asking deep/thoughtful questions, giving well thought answers, offering offline text connections to deepen budding relationships. A second yet equally effective opportunity is to host “First Time Visitor” digital classes – giving out $5-10 Starbucks cards (via the Starbucks APP). For example, if your church is strong in family ministry, continue emphasizing opportunities available through your digital channel. Drop off a note talking about being all about families and give them coupons to free sundaes at a local place for their family.

4. Consider new launch methods

Several church planting organizations are advocating that launching a new church digitally before physically is going to be a wave of the future. Simply put, a core team is developed using both face-to-face AND digital methods. That core team helps network and launch the digital expression.

Geo-target the city through social channels:

• Use to publicize what you are about and launch your interest meetings
• Use to showcase sample teaching
• Launch digitally and build momentum and attendance size
• After many months, then launch a physical expression

This is the Amazon strategy…. The church becomes well known and familiar digitally, and then launches a physical expression that is everything and more than the digital engagement promised.

5. Churches burdened with debt are moving out and going portable

While this offers a “church reset” of sorts, it also has great potential of reactivating people that have been lost in the pews.

6. Churches that were portable going permanent

While this makes our Portable Church Team sad… we also get excited that the portability strategy has been successful at developing great momentum – enough to plant long lasting roots!

The COVID Crisis has changed things. Some of those changes are good and some just are not!  The real estate market for newly available commercial properties will see an up-tick as some businesses just won’t survive.  Likewise, and unfortunately, some churches won’t survive as well. To that end, it is being forecasted that there will be an increased number of churches that will merge, most of which will involve worship facilities of some sort.

Many well-managed churches will be able to respond appropriately and make the jump into better facilities or into a multisite strategy.

7. Considering the venue as a tool

Soon, we will launch another blog that addresses various venue types that are working well when schools are just not available. The adage is true, “necessity is the mother of invention!” The need to meet again is getting churches to become innovative… thinking outside the box. Indeed, some facility-types (High School, Middle School, YMCA, Theater) are more ideal for meeting spaces. However, as these natural rental facilities aren’t available churches are considering and finding some amazing alternatives.

The shutdown has prompted many leaders in the church to consider the effectiveness of their ministry. There have been changes in leadership, ministry methods, discipleship, and evangelistic outreach. In some cases, there have been wholesale changes to financial fitness and the role that property plays as tools in the ministry.  On the journey back to “normal” (whatever that was), churches are evaluating it all!  As Peyton Jones from Exponential states “Churches are still born out of a desire to draw a crowd, but the future belongs not to churches that can draw a crowd, but churches that can penetrate one.” 

What do you think? What are you seeing as new trends and future trends? Comment below!

by Portable Church Industries: Our new resource – The Ultimate List of Portable Church Venues – talks about all the different potential spaces you could use for your next campus launch or your church plant.

We developed this resource in response to the question we get all the time – where should our church launch?! So – if you find yourself wondering that very thing, this was created with you in mind.

Outlined in the resource are 63 potential spaces you could set up a portable church in. The bolded venues are the ones that are commonly used for portable churches and all the other venue options may not be used all the time but they are all locations that we have helped churches launch in. Something to note is that not every location on this list is going to connect with you as personally, but they are locations that will get your mind thinking about all of the types of facilities that you have available to you in your community.

Not only does this resource provide you with a list of options but it also has pictures that show how well it can actually look once you set up your church in one of these locations.

To talk more in-depth about a particular type of facility or to see more pictures don’t hesitate to give us a call at 800.939.7722.

The multisite movement has taken the world by storm! In fact, the multisite model has already multiplied and revitalized thousands of churches in the United States. And, this method has only increased in number since then.

With that in mind, here are seven reasons why multisite churches are no longer the exception but the norm.

1. They enable untapped talent to emerge

Mobilizing a team of volunteers is essential for the running of any growing church. Launching a multisite campus encourages greater involvement of people in various growth, outreach and service capacities. In fact, studies indicate thatlay participation increased in 88% of multisite churches!

You might just find the least likely church members taking on unexpected responsibilities and ownership at your new campus. Are you ready to tap into the hidden talent of your church community?

2. They improve the stewardship of resources

The multisite strategy is a more financially responsible to growth than a huge building.

Yes, indeed! Why spend millions on a bigger building, when launching a new campus allows you to reach a lot more people? It’s little wonder that 52% of multisite campuses launch in rented spaces.In addition, a multisite church model fosters a culture of generosity and giving among the different campuses. Is your church channeling its resources to areas that matter?

3. They enjoy the benefits of both big and small churches

According to Dave Ferguson,Community Christian Church, “Multisite is a proactive strategy for reaching more people, not just a reactive response to more crowding.”In essence, a multisite church grows bigger, by growing smaller!

Multisite churches enjoy the benefits of larger churches, including a wider support system and network, while retaining the close community environment of a small church. Therefore, a multisite church offers the best of both worlds, doesn’t it?

4. They help struggling churches thrive

Did you know that merging with a multisite church is seen as one of the best strategies for the health and survival of struggling churches? That’s why many churches facing a slow yet steady decline choose to be adopted by multisite churches and re-emerge as new sites.

The multisite church model, therefore, is a practical solution for struggling churches. Do you agree that merging with a multisite campus is a good strategy for churches to transition from surviving to thriving?

5. They create a platform for intentional leadership development

Building up and releasing leaders is a key responsibility of any healthy and God-centered church. However, this is easier said than done! In fact, developing leaders sometimes takes a backseat in many churches. However, it is not so in the case of multisite churches! Churches with multiple campuses are compelled to raise and release leaders.

In fact, most multisite churches have a formal leadership development process. No wonder that multisite campuses seem to do a better job at raising leaders from within their congregations. Does your church have a formal leadership development process in place?

6. They protect against a cult of personality

Critics of the multisite church movement have argued against the dangers of putting the senior or lead pastor as the common denominator in the“one church, many campuses” equation. However, J.D. Greear, pastor of Summit Church, says that multisite churches actually protect against the cult of personality.

Multisite campuses facilitate the exposure of their congregations to several Spirit-filled leaders whom they can look to for leadership and ministry. Such leaders are available to offer advice and minister to the community on a one-to-one basis. On the other hand, the presence of the lead pastor at a single-site church is often seen as necessary for any matter at hand.

7. They foster an effective evangelistic strategy

Did you know that the biggest reason for churches to go multisite is evangelistic outreach? According to pastor and businessman Dr. Steve Greene, no other approach to evangelism has witnessed such a high percentage of growth as the multisite church. The Leadership Network study also revealed that most multisite churches have grown since starting a campus!

The multisite model tends to spread healthy churches to more diverse communities. As a result, such campuses reach more people than single-site churches can. This is one of the greatest advantages of the multisite church strategy.

Is your church ready to leverage these amazing benefits of the multisite church movement?

If you are planning to launch your next campus soon – we can help you launch smoothly! Our experts at Portable Church have helped many multisite churches successfully launch their new campuses in all kinds of portable locations.

What’s more, we take care of the entire transition process – right from consultation and finding the right venue to providing equipment and training volunteers.

Give us a call today at 800.939.7722, and we’ll help you launch strong!

We also have an amazing FREE resource for you. The 7 Lessons From Multisite Church Leaders Micro-Course features short video interviews with experienced multisite church leaders.Get this awesome FREE resource today!

Sustain Multisite Momentum

by Portable Church Industries: In our last blog post, we talked about different ways to launch new multisite campuses and how we advocate for a healthy balance of these 5 different ways. Portability is an incredible and underused tool, however, we know that portability isn’t always the best solution to a new campus need. There are churches who are only launching permanent facilities and are having great success. There are also churches who are only launching in portable environments are also having great success. But we are finding more and more churches getting stuck due to money and time.

The reason we think a mix is so important for the church is that an imbalanced church can experience speed bumps in launching new campuses including hindered growth momentum. Every new campus has to land in someplace and space and in that process every church walks the balance of creating an effective, cost-efficient, and time-efficient campus. With that, every church has a pain point of debt and lethargy they are willing to live with. And if both of those are things you strongly want to avoid, developing sites for new campuses can be much too expensive and too slow.

When a church wants to multisite they have to decide where and what community they want to land in. It’s going to be one of the 5. Every church has to go through and process each of the different ways and an imbalance of those types will slow momentum. For example, if a church only does permanent facilities they know they are going to launch at a much slower rate.

Enter portability! Because all 4 of the other ways to launch new campuses are more expensive and more time consuming, portability is an option that more and more multisite churches are stepping into. Portability allows multisite churches to keep investing in new communities while maintaining the other types of facilities they already have.

Portability can address these 3 issues for multisite churches

1. Money

Let’s acknowledge that most leaders painfully understand the expenses involved in developing new sites for new campuses:  Land cost, building costs, equipment costs, cost of raising money, cost of debt service, and then ongoing maintenance. One of the key reasons we advocate for a balanced portfolio of property types is because of the burden debt and raising money places on ministry.  There are less expensive ways ministry can be done and done well – The most economically-minded way (almost always) to launch in a new community is through a portable campus.  And it can be leveraged in a way to launch and grow into whatever the next type of facility could potentially be.

The difference is a low 6 figures for portability and mid 7 figures for permanent. The Facility Cost Comparison Matrix talks about these financial pieces and breaks down each of the different campus types and we recommend every church executive team to go through this exercise.

2. Time

Raising money, designing & developing out any kind of facilities for the purpose of ministry takes significant time.  Here are the main ways portability is faster than any of the other options:

• From the time you decide to launch to the day you have your first service could happen in a matter of months.
• You also have faster entry into your community and can start engaging with its people before your launch even happens.

*Some churches have the misconception that it will take all day to set-up and have a service in a rented facility. This can be a real concern but it does not need to be the case. Every multisite church utilizing a Portable Church system is done with set-up in 20-90 minutes. The Meeting House in Canada with 18 locations finishes in just 20 minutes, while numerous other of our ‘6 trailer churches’ set up in 90 minutes or less.

3. Excellence

There is an unspoken fear that a multisite church campus in a portable space can’t be done with the type of excellence that the church is used to. However, we know that excellence is subjective and every multisite church has its own standards for their worship experience. We also realize that portability can certainly be done poorly, but at Portable Church we discover what each church’s standard is through the consultation process. We spend time talking with the directors and vision castors to figure out what each specific church requires. And we strive to make portability as efficient as it can possibly be.

This blog post comes from our new resource The Kryptonite of Multisite Momentum. Download it for a deeper discussion of this topic as well as other important themes for multisitie churches.

by Portable Church Industries: This Fourth of July, churches across America will be celebrating and praying for the nation. It’s great to live in a free country, isn’t it? Well, did you know that your church can also enjoy greater freedom? Yes, that’s right! Portability can set your church free in more than one way.

FREE from debt:

Everywhere you look building costs are exponentially high. Moving into a permanent church building comes at a high price – literally! The cost of construction shackles so many churches with debt. As Rich Birch says, “Often it costs between three to ten times more to host the same number of guests in a permanent church facility than in a rented location.”

Launching in a portable venue means that your church can enjoy the same space and facilities, without worrying about taking on long term costs. All you need to do is pay a rent check. Embrace portability, and go debt-free!

FREE from ongoing expenses and hidden costs:

Considering a permanent building for your church means more added and sometimes hidden costs. You’ll be paying for utilities, roof, and air-conditioning repairs, and burglar and fire alarms, and more, all the things that come with owning a building. Let’s not forget the monthly salary of the janitor and security guards. In fact, you will be paying for any and all maintenance and repair work needed, big or small.

Or, your church could avoid breaking its bank on these hidden and ongoing costs. Affordability is one of the biggest advantages of a mobile church. Pay the rent on time. Let the landlord take care of the rest.

FREE to use your church funds for ministry and outreach:

If your church is free from the burden of debt and other costs, it has more resources for what really counts – ministry! Do you know that building, maintenance, and repair costs can comprise almost one-third of a church’s budget? Why let a church building swallow up such a big chunk of your resources? The money you save can instead be channeled towards outreach events, mission trips, and other ministry efforts.

FREE to move around:

A permanent venue locks your church down to a fixed location and space. In other words, you don’t have much room to upsize or downsize to keep up with the changing needs of your church.

You might find that the seating space is no longer adequate. Or, you might want to try a different space for the youth group. Portability lets you change things around as you need to. If a location no longer works for your mobile church, it’s easy to try somewhere else. You can even rent a space on a trial basis for a few months to see if it works for you.

FREE your church’s vision:

Often the church building and vision can get entangled. A lot of churches find that their building dictates what they can and cannot do, how many people they can accommodate, and what events they can host. Not just that, precious time and resources are spent on a permanent church building and its upkeep. In fact, the church building often becomes the vision of the church!

FREE to experiment:

Did you ever think that a church service could take place in a zoo, casino or a fire station? Well, a portable church gives you and your volunteers the creative license to transform any place under the sun – and have tons of fun while you’re at it!

You serve a creative God. Surely, shouldn’t some of that creativity reflect in your weekend services?

FREE to invite and engage:

According to Lifeway research, new churches that meet in public places experience 42-49% greater attendance than others. It’s no surprise that the unchurched are more comfortable attending gatherings in movie theaters, gyms, and schools, than in traditional church setups. Also, moving into such everyday spaces helps your church plug into the community and make an impact. A portable church offers the unique advantage of going to where the people are already gathered.

This Independence Day, you can help your church enjoy greater freedom! The decision to move into a mobile venue versus a permanent building might be the best one you’ve taken in a while.

We have been helping churches successfully launch in all kinds of venues for the last 25 years and would love to talk more about how portability might be the right direction for your church.  Give us a call today at 800.939.7722 to talk to an expert.

How to find success with lighting in your portable church worship room.

by Portable Church Industries: How does lighting apply to you and your church and what’s important to think about? Because you need audio and video before you need lighting, it doesn’t always get the credit it deserves. Lighting often gets put on the back burner and is not considered a necessity. But when it is needed, it can be a very big deal! Here are a few things to consider when picking out the right lighting for your worship environment.

Streamlining

Lighting, in general, is made up of a lot of little pieces put together. From clamps to cables to individual lights placed in very specific locations. One thing that can frustrate volunteers is not knowing what is what and where things go. This means a volunteer plan/blueprint of where everything goes is extremely helpful to streamline the package for your volunteers.

Reproducibility

We’ve mentioned this already in this series, but it really can’t be emphasized enough. Anything can be cool and exciting to do one time, but the key to having a successful portable ministry is having a system that is built to be put up and taken down every single week. If you have the greatest grandest lighting of any church ever, that’s awesome, but how long can you realistically keep it up? A difficult system creates frustrated volunteers which will hurt the church growth and overall sustainability. The best way to avoid that frustrating volunteer outcome is to plan and prepare a system for your least experienced tech volunteer. That doesn’t mean you have to have a boring system it just means having a simplified system, which is possible! And we are here to help you with that.

Usability

How are you going to use different lights? Why types of lighting fixtures and the amount of them can also play a big role in the setup and take down experience. This is one of those areas where spending a little more money on the front side can drastically change the experience on the backside. For example, key lighting (the lights that light up the pastor on the front of the stage) is one that you might have rigged to a truss and something that has to be refocused and re-aimed on a weekly basis. And once that truss is flying it’s very difficult to refocus those fixtures in a portable environment. The same is true when it comes to house lighting.  Figuring out if you have access to it, do you need it, what is it like, or do you have ambient lighting, and how do you supplement what is already there? Stage lighting is another element that can add to things on and around your stage. Understanding all these factors and how they are used is key to getting the right equipment. And the more engineering you do on the front end, the more efficient your lighting will be.

Storage

A factor that many people forget until it’s too late is the storage solution process for every piece of the lighting rig. Storage is important to make sure your gear doesn’t get broken but also to allow any new volunteer to walk up to a case and identify what is in it, how to use it, and where it goes. Through our many years of experience with this we’ve been able to, and continue to, design, engineer, and field-test the most efficient and volunteer-friendly solutions when it comes to storing and deploying a lighting rig.

Lastly, be aware of “gotchas”

While this is not an exhaustive list, here are some other things that are important when it comes to designing your lighting.

• Wireless lighting isn’t a great experience. It can be glitchy, and you don’t want to have to worry about that during a service.
• Consider your power needs for different lights. You don’t want to accidentally blow a circuit in the facility you’re renting.
• If you get the wrong type of hazer it could mess with the sprinkler system in your facility – make sure you check that first!
• Cheap lighting is usually built cheap. So make sure you know what value you are getting out of things before you buy.

We hope this series has helped your overall understanding of portable church audio, video, and lighting. If you have more questions feel free to call us at 800.939.7722. We’d be happy to help talk about how your church can thrive more through your AVL.

Go here to read about Smart Portable Video & Go here to read about Smart Portable Audio

Production excellence in portability

by Portable Church Industries: While teaching at SXSW, our friend and Portable Church client, Carey Nieuwhof, recently wrote about 7 things he learned about how the world is changing (again). He goes on to put this into the perspective of the church. He says “Production And Branding are Very much alive… You couldn’t look right or left without seeing banners and graphics everywhere… But it wasn’t saying look how cool I am. It was just cool.” Read more here. We at Portable Church have also been discovering the level of excellence changing as the world is changing. In this vlog, we specifically address these changes.

Because of the world we live in today, people expect a certain level of excellence in everything, no matter what it is. The church should be no different in people’s expectations of excellence. Excellence can mean many things to different people, however, these are specifics on how to achieve excellence in portable environments.

We can’t express enough the importance of clearly delivering your vision, mission, and culture at your launch.

Our friend, Jim Tomberlin, at Multisite Solutions, recently wrote about 16 mistakes he regularly finds multisite church campuses make. One of his main points revealed how the church can sometimes under- deliver the church experience. Tomberlin explains how difficult it can be for a church to deliver the same quality experience at a multisite campus as it offers at its sending campus. He goes on to say “we would not expect less from a new Starbucks store, so why would we expect less from God’s business?” This struggle of under-delivering is one of the main obstacles that will hinder you from expressing the DNA of what and who your church is. When it comes to multiplying your reach by deploying a church campus in a new city, remember the Starbucks approach – deliver the same experience just in a different location.

The right tools for the right job. The balance between replicating your churches DNA with excellence, and setting your team up for success week after week.

When beginning with a high level of production excellence in a permanent facility, transferring that same level of quality to a portable environment can seem like an impossible challenge. However, with today’s technology and innovative ideas, this task is not unreachable. A lot of the portable systems we create have a very complex backbone on the front-end to allow for volunteer ease-of-use on the back-end. We take care of that complexity, so the church’s staff and volunteers don’t have too. The right tools not only allow a church to replicate high-quality environments for the people attending, but also gives your team the ability to consistently create those quality environments on a weekly basis. Consistency and repeatability, with an outcome of excellence, has been our approach for 25 years and continues to be.

The art of capturing and replicating who you are for a portable environment.

Our Portable Church® design consultants have both a permanent and portable background. This gives them a well-rounded and objective view when designing a system. They know what aspects of a permanent system are needed to deliver a quality experience and how to replicate that into a portable space. Our design team will meet with you and take a strategic look at the “why” of what your church is wanting to accomplish. Once we discover the “why”, we can create the “how”. Collaborating with your team allows us to dive deep into who you are, the vision God has given you, and the atmosphere we want to create to accomplish that vision.

To read more about our consultation process, click here.

For some examples of how we provide excellence, watch this video.

Principles of Portability

There are hundreds of principles required to being a portable church and doing it well. In this Vlog episode we want to discuss 6 of the most important principles of portability.

The first one is to consider the weight. Equipment choice is such a crucial piece of being portable. However you always have to be mindful of the weight of all the gear you’re buying. The reality of how much something weighs will determine if people can move and pick up the equipment you buy. And if you have to wheel it everywhere, you’ve got to get special dollies or lifts and that really kills your efficiency. So let’s make sure that we’re choosing stuff that’s easy for people to set up and tear down and doesn’t weigh a ton. Also, when you think about trailers and you start thinking about how much does a trailer actually weigh, you have your trailer weight, then you got all the gear weight that goes inside the trailer and before you know it, your trailer’s overweight. Pay attention to that.

The second principle is to measure cubic volume cost. If you buy huge chairs because you love the look and but they don’t stack well, you have to include the cost of how much space they will take up inside of your trailer. Therefore, it may make more economic sense to get stack-able chairs that will work well in a trailer. Sometimes you will want to spend more money because it ends up costing you less cubic volume wise.

The third principle is ease of use. As a rule of thumb, if after setting up and tearing down a produce you want to punch someone, it is NOT easy to use. Think about your volunteers in this situation and how it will be for them to use on a typical Sunday. If it is too hard, they just won’t use it or if they do, they will hate it.

Fourth principle of portability is system reproducibility. There may come a time when you need to reproduce your system in another location or with another campus. You want to make sure that your volunteers understood the system, and that they would be willing to reproduce it. Which leads to the 5th principle, volunteers are your most valuable resource.

The last principle of portability is to break down invisible barriers. Make your church a place where new people can be comfortable and somewhere people want to come back to.

To read a more about the effective principles of portability click here.

Kevin Jones & Jesse Reed

by Portable Church Industries: Last time, we talked about using signage in creating your environment to provide comfort in navigating with your church launch.

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 afirst timevisitor will have.There are some things that will become obvious to your visitors from the moment they walk in, so you definitely want to take advantage of this space. Let’s talk about 5 of the most important elements.

State your Mission

 Of course they will hear your vision from stage, but the mission that your church is on can be reinforced in your lobby through branded graphics that drive that point home! It makes a great first impression, and serves as a constant (and beautiful) reminder every week.

Coffee Bar 

Just like at home, good conversation happens over coffee.  A Coffee Bar provides opportunities for connection. We are designing Coffee stations now with tall, conversation height, bistro tables with branded table tops, branded cups (or sleeves), and pour over stations and mugs for sale with your church logo/message. You will need to monitor the area to keep it clean and to ensure that you don’t run out of supplies. Put decorative touches that stylize the area (remember – no easily breakable items – we’re in a portable environment!).  

Resource Table

Mini Stations with a bistro table and sign or simply a team wearing T-Shirts indicating they are they to help are a newer way to give first time people a clear place to go with questions. That doesn’t eliminate the need for the standard Information table though. This station manned or unmanned, is where visitors go for detailed information on your church, your core values, your mission, your ministries and (this is key, especially in portable environments), volunteer opportunities. Thisprovides an aura of eagerness to connectand allows a visitor the freedom to find out more about your vision for the community.

Restrooms

The restroom offers an incredible opportunity to show how much you care! Beyond ensuring cleanliness, be sure to include many fine touches to the space. Many churches put out a bistro table with mints, nicer hand towels, business cards of the pastor or their spouse (Husbands card in mens bathroom, wives card in the women’s),  Others will print magnetic signs with encouraging or thought provoking message that get placed to be read when a stall or main door is closed.

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 – orultra-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.