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Pete van der Harst
President
Portable Church Industries
Troy, Michigan
What do you do?
Our company is a nationwide outfitter for churches that meet in rental facilities like schools and movie theaters and other once-a-week rental facilities. It can be as bizarre as a pipe organ pizza joint or a bowling alley. About 80% of what we do is in schools – that’s the runaway favorite. Virtually ever bit of what
we do is for portable churches.
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Let’s talk about your credentials.
My degree was in Industrial Engineering and my early work experience was in Work Methods and Measurement.
Efficiency …
That’s right. I was hired by Kensington Church right here in Troy in 1990. My job as Operations Manager was to make the set-up and teardown process work as smooth as possible. We used some ideas I’d learned from UPS like containerized cargo, then added quick-connect sound systems and things like that. We were running
800 people per service. It took a crew of six people two hours and fifteen minutes to set up the entire church. Our parent church had 400-person services that were taking 25 people three hours to set up.
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Through a chain of events, we came to understand that this service was transferable and that there was a need for it all over the Kingdom of God. I left Kensington and started consulting with churches in 1993.
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And you learned that …
You can tell pastors what to do all day long, but pastors are life-change specialists. That’s what they spend their time doing. I can teach them the fine points of caster selection and tongue weight – but it’s irrelevant to them. So in 1994, we switched over from being a pure consulting company to also being an equipment
supplier. That has allowed us to say, “Would you like us to bring that out and make it work for you?” Right now, over 80% of our customers are doing that.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the number of “churches-in-a-box”. What do you think?
I can take a good guess – I’d say 24,000.
How fluid are they? Do some go ‘permanent’? Do others fade away?
With the exception of Honolulu and Manhattan, where land prices are so high that new churches will be portable forever, the vast majority of our churches move into permanent facilities somewhere between Year Four and Year Eight. I think there are probably about 2400 that are launched and another 2400 that move into buildings
every year.
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How do you figure?
I’m basing it on various circulation studies, where the core publications serving the church market state that 94% of their readers are in church buildings. There are 400,000 churches – 6% of that is 24,000.
We’re still growing.
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What changes or trends have you seen?
I could give you tons of them, but I think the biggest in the past 25 years is the professionalism expectation of the local church. In 1975, a well-meaning person with a bullhorn and a crib could probably be considered a church launch. That is no longer tolerated in our culture.
Look at it this way: if you waltz into a McDonald’s that just opened, you expect them to know how to cook a burger, how to clean the grill, to have a well trained staff that knows how to operate the cash register … all that stuff is there.
Churches have gone through the same change. Twenty-five years ago people might have attended a service and thought, “Well, that was nice. They meant well. We’ll come back again and see if it’s any better.”
People don’t tolerate that anymore and that’s what really drives the growth in our company. Our churches would rather tap into the experience we have had with 500 churches than have to “invent” the solutions themselves. But when we’re called in to “invent” something, there are huge parts of it that have already been mastered
– we’re just creating something unique for that church and that space.
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You actually sell “churches in a box” packages that include everything from audio and video gear to baby wipes for the nursery. Do you provide consultation services along with those sales?
No, those packages are really there to give churches the basics and a frame of reference – and for those with some skills, a way to save some money. But there’s a potential for error.
How so?
It’s like me buying clothes for you without ever having met you. You could be seven feet tall or two feet tall. Chances are you’re somewhere in between, but how close am I going to come? How well are these things going to fit? That’s the drawback. Every situation is a little different.
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How much do churches spend?
I had a church in Dallas that spent $30,000 in gear and seated about 300. Then, there was another church that met in a movie theater with the same size congregation that spent a quarter of a million.
Where does that kind of investment come from?
Many times it’s a parent church with remote locations that already has a brand identity.
What about start-ups, though? They don’t have that kind of cash. What if I want to start the Church of the SM58?
Let’s say you have a core group of 35 and you meet in a hotel ballroom. You live in a community of a million people and you’re going to advertise. You may attract 300 people. That, along with the characteristics of your audience, is going to impact your needs.
Sometimes it a matter of culture.
What’s the average size of the churches you serve?
Most of our churches are in that 200-300 range – large by North American standards.
Because the average size is …
Only about 100.
Number of churches growing. Congregations shrinking. The emergence of emerging churches, do you think?
Maybe so.
We thank Pete for taking time out to speak to Shure Notes and offer his perspective on the business side of Emergents. For a more complete listing of gear required for portables that range in size from 75 to 3,000 members, visit www.portablechurch.com |
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Whether you think of the emerging church concept as born in the 1990s or having its roots in the Evangelical movement of the 19th century, there’s a great deal of helpful information available.
Sound Contractors and Consultants
We’ve mentioned two here – Worship Resources and Portable Church Industries. Check with dealers in your area that specialize in audio, video and lighting for churches.
Magazines
We found useful information in leading pro audio and church publications: Live Sound International, Worship Leader, Christianity Today, Church Production and Church Business. Check out their online past issue archives for relevant articles.
On the Net
There are sites that offer a wealth of information – from theological perspectives to technical advice. Here are just a few:
www.theemergingchurch.org
www.futurechurch.net
www.theooze.net
www.churchsoundcheck.com
www.opensourcetheology.net
www.freshministry.org
www.emergentvillage.com
www.ginkworld.com
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