Leveraging spiritual partnerships in your community

Every Christian retailer is searching for cost-effective ways to increase the awareness of their store’s offerings to the best customer base in their community. One approach that is often overlooked, perhaps because it is not a derivative of the latest social media or advertising trends, is partnering with churches and ministries in your community. After all, most Sundays, the biggest block of your potential customer base is sitting in local church congregations; the challenge is how to reach them with the message of your products and your store.

Admittedly, having been a very involved partner in the spiritual community of our rather small town for in 60 years does give us an advantage, but these relationships and partnerships can and should be nurtured, whether you’ve just opened or have been serving your area for decades. It only makes sense and can be a win-win for both parties when done properly.

Understand this: Most churches and ministries are actively looking for ways to deepen the spiritual experiences of their members. As the local Christian retailer, you have resources that can help them do just that, at no additional cost to them in terms of dollars or time invested! In order for these partnerships to work, however, it requires some investment of time and work on your part.

We have had great success in the last eight to nine years, for example, by sponsoring an annual back-to-school party in our store parking lot. Named “PrayBack” by the local youth pastors, we normally have 500-700 middle school and high school kids gather in our parking lot in mid-August the first Wednesday night after school resumes. For many weeks prior, the youth pastors are announcing each week that everyone is to “meet at Christian Supply” for this event. In many cases, the senior pastor even announces it from the pulpit to the entire congregation, an invaluable endorsement of our store, not to mention the free word-of-mouth publicity it generates—in addition to good will from appreciative parents!

In order to make this happen, we have to invest in a small honorarium for a local praise band to lead worship, and rent a generator to run the sound system. We also have to coordinate the date by hosting a set-up lunch several weeks in advance with the local youth pastors, and secure a flatbed trailer (normally donated) for a “stage.” The entire event costs us less than $800 and brings hundreds of youth to our store at the very beginning of the new school year. It’s a great way for us to connect with them as their new year begins.

This fall, we will be hosting a church event for our entire community. When contacted by the publisher about having best-selling author Max Lucado come for an in-store signing, we instead offered to move the event to a local church to enlarge our prospective crowd. The event, which will be called “The Grace Event,” will not only serve to promote his new release, Grace, but will also give us a high profile in the community as the store that is the sponsor of the entire evening. The anticipated crowd is 1,500-2,000, far in excess of what we could have reasonably expected in our store for a traditional signing. As an added benefit, the local church that is hosting it will be promoting it for many weeks in advance to their entire membership of some 5,000.

While some planning, creative thinking and energy are all required in order to partner with local churches and ministries, the rewards can be highly productive and lasting. Summer is a slower time for most of us. Why not take advantage of this and use some of that “down time” this summer for you and your staff to brainstorm a bit about how you can better connect and partner with churches in your area, to the benefit of both parties?

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