This letter needs no explanation. So thankful that she sent it to me.
Blog Archives
Opportunity for Pastors and Church leaders
We are hosting a one day event: What We’ve Learned, on Monday, August 5th – 9am-3pm.
This is a great opportunity see our new facility, hear our story, ask questions, hang out with new and old friends. We are offering some topics and want you to pick the ones we cover. (see options below) We will have a lot of fun, and hopefully you will walk away with some new ideas.
This is free and only offered to a limited amount of folks. Please register if you know that you are able to attend and pick 3 of the topics offered. We will present the 3 most voted on topics at this event.
TOPICS
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Beyond the Budget – How, Why, and When we make financial decisions about staff, facilities, outreach, ministries.
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Weekend Worship – Our philosophy and process on designing the weekend worship service on a week by week basis and yearly basis.
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Spirit Led vs Well Planned – Our journey as a “Spirit filled” church with solid goals and thought-out plan. How it has been challenging and how it works.
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Theological Journey – What constitutes a non-negotiable doctrine? Our journey through changes.
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Marketing – Our philosophy and method behind getting our message out those inside and outside of our congregation.
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Small Groups – Our history of Small Groups over the last 10 years. Where we are now and where we want to go.
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Setting Goals and Taking Risks – Our path of challenge, risk, failure and reward. How we make a decision on change. (adding or subtracting: weekend services, facilities, staff, ministries, tech, etc).
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PSM Culture – What makes us unique and how we rest in our differences. (preaching style, music, skin color, attitude, leadership model, etc)
Special Lunch Session Eat a free, delicious lunch with us! Plus, We will be joined by an Israel expert, Munir Sayegh. Munir is a wonderful Christian from Nazareth and can offer up to date information about the Middle East.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Hotels in the area:
Embassy Suites
Hampton Inn
Church Location: 1650 Lime Kiln Road, San Marcos, TX 78666
Church Phone: 512-392-4357
Church Website: http://www.psmchurch.com
Examples of Randy’s Marketing and PR Philosophy
This blog is part 2 of a previous post. See the original post here
EXAMPLES
The Passion
When the Passion of the Christ Movie came out our church rented 4 theaters and had over 1000 people attend the day before it released to the public (a great ‘anchor store’). The news media was not interested in covering that story. However, Randy invited a Jewish Rabbi to watch the movie with him at one of the theaters. Since it was so controversial with Jews, the paper and TV channels were eager to cover the story of the Christian pastor and Jewish Rabbi watching the movie together.
PCD
In 1990, Randy had the ‘anchor store’/God idea to be a nationally known songwriter and recording artist. He had a lot of talent in both of those categories. However, when he went to Nashville and met with labels, they said they were not interested in signing a guy to a contract at that point. He went back and found 2 old friends that just happened to be amazing singers and songer writers (C & D). The three of them went back to Nashville and the rest is history.
Marketing and PR according to Randy Phillips
Randy Phillips has a keen ability to make things happen and then to get other people to get excited about what he is making happen. He was born with some of the talent, his father contributed to it, and a news editor at a local outlet put the icing on the cake. I sat down to lunch with him the other day and he shared with me his Marketing/PR strategy from the ground up.
Let me back up just a little and say that I used to be on his staff and one of my three positions of the church was marketing/PR. So, I am very familiar with his tactics and strategies as I used to be one of his key players on the team. This stuff will not only help you tap into the news outlets, but the same techniques are used to garner interest from those in your church that are on the outside looking in.
Anchor Store
As we sat at the table, he took the pepper shaker and stuck it at the middle of the table and said, “You start with your ‘anchor store’, and then you build off of that. Just like Walmart or Target is an anchor store in the shopping center with many smaller stores on the periphery, your ‘anchor store’ is the core idea that God gave you to begin with.” Maybe it is a concert, a new program, a outreach plan, a new business or ministry idea. God gives you an idea that will help accomplish his purpose. You get fired up about it because you felt it came from God. However, getting others to get on board is often a challenge. (Especially those outside of your core ministry circle.) Randy’s dad, Kenneth Phillips taught Randy a lot on this topic. Thinking of the big idea. Think outside of the box. Be creative. The anchor store is the foundation and in itself it needs to carry its own weight.
How We Plan a Year
We use Google Docs and map out the year. We are currently penciling in ideas for 2013. Sermon series, holidays, guest speakers, vacation times, all these help shape our plan.
There are weeks that we call ‘stand alones’ these are sermons that are not a part of a series. We often change the schedule in the middle of the year when things flow differently. However, we try to nail down as many things as possible early on.
Here is how 2012 has ended up.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar0DdqHAywQZdGlKczhXQnBQQml3TGZhekd4RVpCc2c
Robin Steele 