For many years, I’ve had the privilege of coaching Executive Pastors / Leaders who were new to the role, or just needed a second set of eyes during a season of personal growth. I’ve also enjoyed coaching Lead Pastors who were not in a place where they could hire an Executive Pastor or Director. With a heart for new church planters, it’s been my privilege to find ways to provide this coaching to you at an affordable rate. Since coaching is not my main gig, I’ve been able to provide executive level coaching for much less than those who do it full time. If this is something you are interested in pursuing, keep on reading and then reach out to me. It would be my privilege to help you grow in your ability to lead your church and staff well. Send additional questions or request a free 30 minute Discovery call to backstagepastors@gmail.com. 

Church Planting is hard work. Really hard work. Perhaps one of the of most tiring aspects of planting a church is the set up and tear down involved each week in having a rented worship space. It’s understandable then that many church planters are happy just to pull off a basic set up each week. Chairs, sound system, kids min, welcome table — done. What we at PlainJoe call Spatial Storytelling is often not on your radar when time is tight and volunteers are lacking. And yet, with a bit of planning and a small investment, you can really make a space your own. If you do this right, people might not even notice that you are a renter, not an owner. Here are five simple ideas that won’t break the bank:

1. Get creative with your signage—Really think through your temp signage and if possible, cover up existing signage for the venue where you meet. The standard church planter signage involves a lot of sandwich board signs and teardrops blowing in the wind. They are cost effective and available everywhere. But you can be more creative.  Look for ways to cover up existing signage with banner type materials. If you have onsite storage, you have options for having nicer signs made that can easily hang over the venues signage. Perforated signs go great on chain link fences around public schools. Branded tents can double as a welcome space and signage, and they give you something to use at community events that you take part in. Car magnet signs can be cut in any shape and stuck on metal doors and window frames. And don’t let anyone get lost. Really think through the user journey from street to seat. Give them a clear directional sign right about the time that they are wondering where to turn next. 
2. Consider the atmosphere you create— Owning your own building gives you options with furniture and decor that is harder to pull off in a set up/tear down situation. But don’t give up! Think through what 15 minutes of set up time could accomplish in the lobby at the welcome table or on a communion table at the front of the worship space. Give someone with a good sense of design that really gets your churches style a two-hundred dollar budget per qtr. and tell them to keep the look and feel fresh and consistent with the style of your church and the season you are in. Maybe that means you skip the stretch fabric table cloth with your churches name on it and go with an artsy look that might fit well in a trendy restaurant. If the same person does this job consistently, you’ll build up a bit of a library of tablecloths, candles, baskets, etc. that can be readily re-used over the years and also help with special events. Ask someone to build you a good rolling cabinet for storage and pad the inside to prevent glass things from breaking. 
3. Stage design still matters in a temp space— Again, it’s easy to feel like just having a complete band is a big enough win in a church plant and that stage design is too hard to pull off each week. I’ve been there. I get it. But a creative thinker can figure out stage design that is easily set up and torn down. Work with what you’ve got. Are you in a school theatre environment? Utilize the stage rigging to do a cool floor to ceiling banner with some seasonal and on-brand colors. Get an AVL person to figure what could be done easily with gobo lights. Even old school candles can be cool if used well. Work with the building owners to come up with something that will benefit you both. People are going to stare at your stage for 60-90 minutes. It’s worth some thought. 
4. Invest in the building— Sometimes you find yourself renting a less than great building that really needs some TLC, but the owner doesn’t want to make the investment, or can’t afford to. This is especially true when you are renting from an older dying church. You can offer to pay for some upgrades and along the way, you can guide the choices made. A new paint scheme and flooring can really help an old church lobby and doesn’t cost much. Fresh modern furniture from IKEA or Wayfair will really put it over the top (the trick is to make sure you get rid of the old stuff or it will find it’s way back into the lobby:) You might even be able to make a deal on the rent by covering the cost of these upgrades. Install flip frame sign holders with your images on the front and the building owners images on the back. It only takes a minute to flip them around after church. 
5. Work with what you’ve got — The most important thing to keep in mind in all of this is to work with what you’ve got. Is there a giant horrible bulletin board right when you walk in the front door? Don’t set up pipe and drape. Get something on-brand printed on fabric that can be easily pinned over it all in 10 seconds. Customize signage and atmosphere to the building you are renting. Move ugly outdated furniture into an unused room to tell the right story. If you are doing an evening service, you have a lot of lighting options to to change the vibe. 

It takes some thought and a small investment, but it can be done even on a church planters budget and volunteer base. Don’t wait to get your own building before engaging in telling a connected story with everything you do. If your church is large enough to really think through branding and spatial needs, let’s grab a zoom call and see if it might be time to work with me at PlainJoe Studios! Email me HERE and mention this article.

From time to time, I am asked for examples of my teaching or communication style. Here are couple of examples.

Belief Within Community – A sermon on three categories of belief.

Expectancy – A reflective sermon at the outset of a new year.

Recently, Tony Morgan’s the Unstuck group turned an interview I had done for them into an article. I’ll share the link here so you can check it out. Enjoy!

Find the article HERE.

Over the next couple of months, I have the privilege of being at several conferences. Some of them will include teaching sessions, and others are just ones I’m attending on behalf of PlainJoe Studios. If you are going to be at any of these, let me know by emailing me at phil@plainjoestudios.com.

The Advantage Launch Day-9.14.23 The Advantage is a new ministry serving pastors in the largest churches in Pennsylvania. I’ve had a blast this past year helping them clarify their values, then determine an appropriate name and then a great logo/brand, all through PlainJoe Studios. If you are planning on being there, let’s connect!

Ignite Online Conference-9.20-21.23 Ignite is an online only conference for one of the largest church software companies in America. I’ll be leading two sessions. One will be on “A Year In The Life of Staff Development” and the second will be on “Storytelling through Spaces In Your Church”. It’s free! Hope to see you in the chat room!

Missio Nexus-9.27-28.23 Missio Nexus is one of the largest gatherings of Christian non-profit leaders. This years conference is in Orlando so it made sense for me to attend even though I’m not teaching at all. If you’ll be there, let’s plan to grab a meal together, or just some time chatting in the hallways.

Harbor Network Conference-10.3-5.23 Harbor is a great network of church planters and I’m excited to be sponsoring it this year through PlainJoe studios. In addition to sponsoring, we’ll also be leading a social gathering time for Executive Pastors on Thursday afternoon at 3:45PM. The conference will take place in Louisville, KY.

Recently, I had the opportunity to represent the great company I work for full time (www.plainjoestudios.com) on Tony Morgan’s Unstuck Podcast as we talked through five mistakes churches make with their physical space. You can listen to the podcast (episode 305) on your favorite podcast app or at the Unstuck website. Tony was a great host and we had a great conversation! If you want to take the conversation further, reach out to me at phil@backstagepastors.org.

For the last couple of years, I’ve had the privilege of working with PlainJoe-A Storyland Studio. We’ve helped a ton of churches and non-profits tell their story well through branding, new church buildings or updating existing buildings. This spring we decided to give away 200 hours of design time to one deserving church or non-profit. No strings attached. No catch! A church or non-profit will be able to utilize this for just about anything that we do. For example, if a non-profit really wanted to update it’s branding and website, that would be a great use of this. Or let’s say a church really needs to update it’s lobby and kids space and wants to raise money to do the work, they could utilize this to get blue sky design work done and then use the imagery that emerges from that time to raise the needed funds to implement the designs. If you want to enter, you’ll need to do so by July 3rd. It’s not hard, just upload a video. It could even be on your phone. You’ll find everything you need on www.plainjoestudios.com !

Church buildings are incredible tools for ministry, but often times they need a few tweaks to make them even more effective. Here are six questions to ask about your building—and how well it is actually meeting your goals as a church.

Recently, my good friend and fellow author, John Stange, asked me to contribute a chapter to a book he was editing called “My First Years In Ministry”. It was fun to take some time to think back on those early years post seminary around 2002-2005. If you know someone who is new in ministry, you’ll find the book on Amazon!

Eight Practices For Effective Online Giving

I’ve spent a lot of time on church websites recently. Like, dozens of hours on hundreds of websites! Along the way, I noticed some trends about online giving. Having grown by 21% in 2020 alone, this is an area of leadership that deserves our full attention. Here are eight online giving practices that effective churches are doing right now. 

Have you ever tried to read the Bible in a year? How’d that work out for you? I tried it once. I got behind after a few weeks, got discouraged, and stopped. Then I found a two-year plan. I stuck with that one a little longer, but still found that it left little time to wander into other passages that were not in the plan. Finally, I decided to look for a three-year plan and I’ve been doing it for almost ten years!

Having spent 17 years in the Executive Pastor role, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know many of my peers in ministry. At the risk of oversimplification, I have noticed that most XPs (shorthand for Executive Pastor) fall into one of two categories.

There were ferns and moss growing in between the tiles that had long since come detached from the concrete floor. Sunlight streamed through the leaking roof creating interesting shadows in this massive 78,000 sq. foot space. The smell of mold was overpowering even with the required mask. It was quiet, desolate even—the calm before the storm. Exactly one year later, on December 10^th 2017, 3800 people piled into this building for the grand opening of our new church home.