Church on the Cheap
Let’s face it - Churchin’ aint easy, and it ain’t cheap either. Especially if you are a young start up where the only reality you know is “bootstrap” (not sure we should ever loose that kind of creativity and dependence). We want to do Church on the Cheap. We are finding that limited resources = Higher Innovation!
Cheap, however, does not mean Low Quality. It means Low Cost in every sense of the word. In other words - How do we do the Absolute Best we can with the seemingly little we have.
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Here are a few things that we have found or done along the way to keep Soul City Church a Church on the Cheap:
1) Ask God to give you stuff
- I know this seems like the right thing to say when talking about church, but I can’t tell you how few times in the 14 years I’ve spent in established churches NOT asking God to provide. We just sorta knew it would be there one way or the other. Those days are done and we ask God for the things he already knows we need By Name and To The Penny.
2) Ask People to give you stuff
- This is sometimes harder than asking God, mostly because people can look you in the face and say “no”. They might, but they also may say “yes”. We’ve asked for Videos, Graphic Design, a Blog, Photography, Adobe Creative Suite, a Warehouse, people’s time, people’s help, and people’s prayers. We have been amazed at people’s generosity and willingness to give to God (not us). Don’t be afraid or ashamed to ask people to partner with what God is doing through your church. If you believe in the vision of what God’s doing, you shouldn’t hesitate to ask.
3) Do what only you can do best, outsource the rest
- We have been amazed at how many resources there are out there to accomplish huge tasks simply, professionally, and cheaply! Here’s a few of the things / places we outsource
- PS20 – ALL (and I mean all) of our accounting is done though PS20 (a business set up to do this FOR churches at an incredible rate). Instead of us paying “someone” a full time salary to do our books, we pay PS20. We’re not that good at math (which is why we use PS20) and they are passionate about partnering with churches to be their accounting department.
- Wordpress Blog – This blog is our most active and effective source of communication about the church. More people have heard about the church through this blog than any ad or announcement or mailer ever could and it cost us $0.00.
- Clover Sites – Instead of paying $4000 for a website that you don’t know how to work, Clover sets people up with a beautiful website that is incredibly easy to use and is only getting better later this year all for $1000 (+ $20 month).
- Free Web Services such as Mail Chimp, Jotform, and Picnik have saved us $1000’s in software and have changed the way a Start Up can get a Leg Up. I can’t say enough about how much we use them and how much we love them.
4) Staff Creatively
- Big Dreams don’t always require Big Teams. We’re exploring ways to Staff ONLY the positions that demand full time work. The rest comes from a combination of Part Time, Contract, and Volunteer. We’re exploring ways we ask companies we know to hire out members of our team on a contract or part time basis. We’re exploring creative ways to cover the high cost of Health Insurance. We are encouraging some of our staff to work Part Time in the community and Part Time for Soul City – this way we are engaged in the day to day life of the neighborhood.
5) Say NO
- This is an everyday battle. Some of our best ideas we’ve had to push back or shut down simply because they did not have the absolute highest ROI (Return on Investment). This demands of us clear Vision, great Wisdom, and deep Dependence on God that he will lead us through sifting out all of our Cool Ideas for the very Best Ideas.
These are just a few of our thoughts and some of things we’re working on right now. We’d love to hear what you’re learning or doing to keep you church a Church on the Cheap.
Jim
wise tips…ROI is key
Aug 07, 2009 @ 3:49 am
JessePhillips
Love your ideas and philosophy about doing church on the cheap! It's refreshing to hear that you're concerned about that – I've seen sooooo much waste of money in some churches. I attend a house church that meets in homes. It's actually SUPER CHEAP and has an EXTREMELY high ROI. and we do a lot of good with our tithes.
Thanks for the technology tips! Regarding Clover sites – isn't there a picture of you in some of their ads? I swear I've seen you in that animated gif ad on Los's site.
Aug 07, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
Jarrett Stevens
I would love to hear more about your House Church. It's hard to get a higher ROI than that!
You HAVE seen us on the Clover ads. We're one of the faces of Clover this year. We love what those cats are doing and honored to be Repin' em all over the interweb.
Thanks for all your comments Jesse. It means a ton to us.
Aug 07, 2009 @ 6:25 pm
hsojeel
Awesome thoughts Jarrett, thanks for sharing the knowledge on how to do church on the cheap not the crappy.
Aug 07, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
Dave ©
Awesome thoughts, Jarrett. Just out of curiosity, what led you to use Clover instead of Wordpress?
Aug 07, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
Picnik: Web Photo Editing | Student Ministries Beta
[...] Sometimes those of us that are techie forget how hard it is to create a basic picture. I was reading through some blogs and saw Jarrett Stevens was using Picnik for photo editing at his upcoming church plant (Soul City Church). So I went over to the site and starting noising around. It was really cool and I decided to get a membership to see how we can use it for our church. I can say the first Picture I scrapbook of my daughter went really good and looked great. You can check it out HERE. Also check out the Blog post that start me out in Picnik and other things HERE [...]
Aug 07, 2009 @ 7:05 pm
stephenbateman
I saw the animated clover ad the other day and was like…where have I seen them before.
Aug 09, 2009 @ 8:04 pm
@lindsaypolyak
We are looking for a cheap way to implement eVites on our website. Got ideas?
Aug 11, 2009 @ 4:03 pm
Jarrett Stevens
ROI IS everything, and we keep finding that idea in the Bible…God calls it Stewardship
Love the tension of ROI and Generosity. Might blog about that…
Aug 11, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
Jarrett Stevens
Perhaps a better title "Church on the Cheap…not the Crappy" Love It!
Aug 11, 2009 @ 4:09 pm
Jarrett Stevens
We chose Clover beacuse to be quite honest, the look and feel was DONE. We just don't have the skils and techniqu to lay That out as well as a Blog out. And we like the way their sites Move. AND we've seen sneak peaks at all the advancements they're working on and we love it.
AND we love the Clover team. They've become great friends and fans.
Aug 11, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
Jarrett Stevens
To be honest, Evite is great but they lack ANY API that allows you to incorporate it smoothly into your site. AND they're ads are annoying as all get out.
The question is, do you want people to register for something OR do you want people to SEE who's registered for something.
We are HUGE fans of Jotform for simple registration.
We use Evite personally, but can't imagine using it for the church.
Any other thoughts?
Aug 11, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
sredden
Jarrett,
I can't believe you did a whole post on 'church on the cheap' and gave no love to Google!! At New Denver Church we use Google's hosted services for our email, calendering, and shared documents. We also use Google Analytics to keep up with who's coming our site and what they're reading.Plus thanks to Google Voice I now have a local Denver number without having to change my cell phone. All that stuff is 100% F-R-E-E. Love it.
I understand the appeal of Clover sites, but I'm still a huge proponent of Wordpress. With all the template designers out there now it's so easy to get a site up and going on the cheap. We bought a Wordpress theme for $70, paid a designer a couple hundred to design our logo and update the theme to match, and we were done. Admittedly not quite as slick as Clover sites, but way more flexible, customizable, and changing our look is as simple as getting a new theme.
Excited to see you guys launching out. As someone here told us, "Church planting is way more fun and way harder than you could ever imagine!"
Aug 15, 2009 @ 4:39 pm