Industry News: Family Christian buyout, ‘Obamacare’ rulings top newsmakers

Two of the biggest stories of 2012 came near year's end—the contrasting mid-November rulings involving Tyndale House Publishers and Christian-owned-and-operated Hobby Lobby Stores and sister company Mardel Christian & Education. 

A Nov. 16 federal court ruling stopped enforcement of the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate against Tyndale, which filed a healthcare lawsuit against the government Oct. 2. Tyndale specifically objects to covering abortion pills.

GIFTS: Toys and Fair Trade grow category’s sales, while companies raise T-shirt prices

BY RHONDA SHOLAR

While gifts appeared to be an overall bright spot in 2012, a few areas stood out.

T-shirts continued to sell well despite rising retail prices. Some vendors’ decisions to raise prices to absorb increased costs has some worried as they remember a decade ago when shirts rose to $18.99 before the market collapsed. Customers are looking for quality shirts with clear graphics and are tiring of the logo “take-offs.”

Like its predecessor Fireproof, Courageous provided a significant boost to the home-viewing section of Christian stores.

The 2011 faith-based cop drama from Sherwood Pictures and Provident Distribution sold more than a million copies in the first 90 days—just as Fireproof did. Courageous was also the best-selling DVD in the country its first week.

BIBLES: The Message marks 10th year, King James continues to excel

Christian Retailing editors and writers reflected on what mattered and why in 2012. We share each of these segments with you online and in print in our January issue. In Bibles early in the year, Zondervan looked to former President Jimmy Carter who taught the Bible for years to join his lessons with the text of the New International Version (NIV). The result, NIV Lessons From Life Bible, features in-depth studies, application-oriented notes and prayers and quotations from the Sunday-school-teacher-turned-president.

NavPress marked the 10th anniversary of The Message with the advent of The Message Study Bible, adding Eugene Peterson’s insights to his colloquial translation of the text. In addition, the publisher celebrated the 400th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV) by producing the book of Proverbs with the KJV and The Message side by side.

BOOKS: Fiction marks a first-printing milestone; heavenly nonfiction still tops

Nonfiction titles including new release To Heaven and Back by Dr. Mary C. Neal (WaterBrook Press) and 2010 title Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo (Thomas Nelson) continued their heavenly sales in 2012.

Jesus Calling by missionary Sarah Young remained strong on best-seller lists, leading the way for her new devotional title, Jesus Today (both Nelson).

GUEST EDITOR RANDY DAVIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES AND MARKETING, PROVIDENT DISTRIBUTION

Mirroring the principles of evangelism 

Best practices in Christian retailing parallel communicating our faith

“Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-fishing. Fishing was their regular work. Jesus said to them, ‘Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.’ They didn’t ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed” (Mark 1:16-18, MSG).

The concepts of intentional relationship evangelism are easily understood, but they are often not as easily executed. The simple message of the Good News is that it is, well, good news!

Jesus likened evangelism to fishing. Grab your net. Cast your net. Go fish. Sure, there will be some you chase after and don’t catch. However, there will be many you don’t go after and catch anyway. But, you don’t really fish just standing on the bank looking at the water. You jump in the boat and row away from the shore.

Like this, relationship-based sales and service should be proactive, not reactive. Relationship-based sales principles may not come naturally to all, but with a little practice can truly have the greatest impact on your in-reach into your local community.

Today, technology offers so many new ways to inter-connect with others in the culture we live. Unfortunately, because of the ease of viewing life from afar, we can become more isolated in our up-close, personal relationships. Sure, we “post,” “tweet” and “pin” to dress the set of who are, or at least who we want the world around us to think we are. But we have shortened the experience of our interactions with others to the maximum-allowed 140 characters per tweet. We have become “safe for the whole family” as the tagline goes.

In business, we have followed suit. We strategize on the maximum content for strategically placed emails to get the highest open rate. We have dissected our market into demographic slices of pie of an infographic-laden meal served to our friends who consume the most. We know about their habits based more on zip code than on the personal history we have with them.

And, when things go south, as they do, we are often left looking—and eventually finding—the real relationships that will stand the test of time. Most often they are not the casual followers of our posts or readers of our blogs, but those whom we have with walked through life. Real life. Wind and rain, drought and flood, birth and death kind of life. They are neighbors and relatives. They are friends from school and parents of the kids you coach. They are people. You care for them and they care for you. They love you for it!

In Christian retailing, they are the guests in our stores—our customers. And, contrary to the old customer-service adage, they are not always right. But they are always our customers who, with a few simple reminders, will deliver a treasure of rewards, in addition to continued business as we engage and serve them.

RELATE

The first habit in Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is “Be proactive.” Know your customer. No, not just their buying habits and statistics. Rather, truly know your customers—their names, where they go to church, what they like and what they have purchased from your store. Ask questions. Listen. Remember.

Practically speaking, get out of the office and into the store. Engage customers and don’t be shy in recommending books, music and DVDs that are current in your community or have had an impact on your life. Get out of the store and into your car to make intentional visits to pastors and their church staff to offer to serve them, not just to get a quick sale, but to offer services that set your store and staff apart. Have each person on your staff be a specialist/customer service representative to individual churches and offer to drop off orders on their way home.

And now, the truly daring part—get to know your marketplace competitors—and not merely their pricing and promotion plans or corporate structure. But, purpose to know your competitor as an individual. What’s his life story? Where does she go to church? How can you pray for him or her? This is the part where you step into the boat and row out into the deep water. Be kind and never speak ill of them.

INVITE

• Share a relevant message … and a meal. You are on the cutting edge of now-trends in music, new messages through home entertainment and new books and studies on the truth of God’s love for the community you serve. When you find something you really believe in, share it! Really S-H-A-R-E it. Offer a free copy of the book or study to key influencers in your market. Invite them to join you for theatrical screenings of upcoming faith-based movies. Invite them to dinner. Invite them to lunch. Invite them to breakfast. Invite! Invite! Invite!
• Pray. Pray for yourself and your staff. Pray asking, not merely for God to bring customers, but for God to send you to meet the needs of others, who may just turn out to be customers in the end.
• Do a little. Do a lot. Do something! Like fishing, you do not have to begin after practicing and perfecting your plan. Start slowly and add a little at a time. My grandfather started me fishing with a cane pole and a bobble. Just bait the hook and drop the line in the water. Start fishing.

“After this, Jesus appeared again to the disciples, this time at the Tiberias Sea (the Sea of Galilee). This is how he did it: Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed “Twin”), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the brothers Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. Simon Peter announced, ‘I’m going fishing.’

The rest of them replied, ‘We’re going with you.’ They went out and got in the boat. They caught nothing that night. When the sun came up, Jesus was standing on the beach, but they didn’t recognize him.

Jesus spoke to them: ‘Good morning! Did you catch anything for breakfast?’

They answered, ‘No.’

He said, ‘Throw the net off the right side of the boat and see what happens.’

They did what he said. All of a sudden there were so many fish in it, they weren’t strong enough to pull it in.

Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It’s the Master!’

When Simon Peter realized that it was the Master, he threw on some clothes, for he was stripped for work, and dove into the sea. The other disciples came in by boat for they weren’t far from land, a hundred yards or so, pulling along the net full of fish. When they got out of the boat, they saw a fire laid, with fish and bread cooking on it.

Jesus said, ‘Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught.’ Simon Peter joined them and pulled the net to shore—153 big fish! And even with all those fish, the net didn’t rip.

Jesus said, ‘Breakfast is ready’ ” (John 21:1-12a, MSG).

Iconic artist is still drawn to Christian retail stores
Steven Curtis Chapman sees the work of Christian retailing as an ‘incredible privilege’

STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN shares his thoughts on Christian retail and this year’s Christmas release, Joy. Chapman has sold more than 10 million records, including two RIAA-certified Platinum albums and eight RIAA-certified Gold albums. He has amassed 46 No. 1 singles, 57 GMA Dove Awards; five GRAMMY awards, an American Music Award and more than 200 songs recorded on 17 original albums in his 25-year career. In 2013, Chapman will follow the Christmas release with his first full studio release of all new material since 2007’s This Moment.

You’ve been a songwriter and singer of Christian music for quite a few years now. I’m interested in finding out what a typical experience looks like for you when you walk into a Christian retail store.

To be completely honest, I always feel a little overwhelmed when I walk into a Christian retail store because I’m immediately reminded how many great books there are that I don’t have yet. It’s a little bit of a problem because I usually have a stack of books sitting on my night stand that I haven’t finished yet, but as soon as I walk into a store, I start wanting to add more to the stack. I’m a sucker for a cool cover. Then there’s the music and the video/DVD section! Seriously though, I am always encouraged to see and be reminded how many great resources are available to encourage people on their journey (OK, sometimes I covertly check to make sure they have some of my music in stock, too).

In your entire music catalog, which record or records do you feel were most embraced by Christian retail and why?

That’s a tough question. I’ve been grateful to hear stories of how each of my records have been used by God to encourage and minister to people in unique ways. I guess if I had to pick out a few, I’d say More to This Life was one that I felt was particularly embraced by Christian retail probably in part because that record had “I Will Be Here” on it. That song seemed to connect with many people and has been used in many weddings, which has probably brought a lot of people in looking for that song and that album, particularly before the iTunes era. Then I’d say The Great Adventure was another one that seemed to be very strongly supported by Christian retail. Why that was is hard for the artist to answer, but I’d say [it] was partly because of the excitement the song “The Great Adventure” itself created among Christian music listeners and particularly youth groups and church groups. I think records like that one and Speechless created excitement among my friends at Christian retail because of songs like “Dive,” “Fingerprints of God” and “Speechless” that really seemed to connect with people.

If you could offer any advice to the readers of Christian Retailing—many who are Christian retail owners and employees—what would that be?

I’d probably just want to encourage them to know how important what they do every day really is to the building and growing of God’s kingdom. I know it’s a business and work, but we have this amazing opportunity with what we do to point people toward the eternal and precious truth of God’s love and grace, expressed in music and books and, ultimately, the Holy Bible, and that’s an incredible privilege! I would just want to remind Christian retailers to never forget what a gift we’ve been entrusted with and know that what they do really matters.

Anything you want to offer to our readers that may or may not have anything to do with Christian retail?

As always, I’d just encourage them what I need to be reminded of everyday—we are loved more than we can imagine by the God of the universe! I’d also want to remind them that the One who loves us has entrusted us with gifts and abilities that we can use uniquely to worship Him and bring Him glory, and that is ultimately what we were made for.

The music industry has shifted quite a bit in the last 10-15 years. How has this impacted you? Does this at all influence what you’re thinking about writing or recording?

Well, I can tell you I’m more humbled than ever to still be doing it. I’ve been doing this for 25 years! Can you believe that? I started when I was very, very young, of course, a child prodigy of sorts you might say. Actually, no, I wasn’t. But I have been extremely thankful for the opportunity to record and release these 17 albums and counting. I still feel God has things for me to say and share, and I want to be faithful to Him in doing so. From the beginning my goal has been to know Him and make Him known, and I want to try to be true to the writing and storytelling God has given me to do. I plan to keep doing that as long as you’ll have me.

You just wrote and recorded a Christmas record called JOY. Tell us about it; what influenced you and a couple of your favorite tracks (and why)?

After recording re:creation, I wasn’t quite sure what next step to take in my creative journey. I started exploring the idea of writing and arranging some new Christmas music. I have to admit I was kind of surprised by the joy that began to surface in the process, considering the journey my family has been on these past four-and-a-half years with the loss of our daughter Maria in the accident. I think that I just started remembering my childhood and then really celebrating my family. Even as hard as things have been, and as bittersweet as it relates to things like celebrations and holidays, we have begun to experience that the sweet is starting to trump the bitter for us more and more each year. Christmas is becoming a less hard thing for us each year. It’s not that it’s easier to get through because we are forgetting. It’s like we can remember now without it just being so painful, and the memories can be sweet. So when I started writing these new songs I was really excited. I’ve written a couple songs on this Christmas record that sound like they could of come off a Nat King Cole record or an Andy Williams album. They sound like the old stuff that I love. One of my favorite Christmas songs is Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song.” I just love that song and I love the A Charlie Brown Christmas record. Joy has seven classics I’ve redone and six new ones I’ve written, and much of the album has that cool vintage sound that just says Christmas. I can’t wait for you to hear it.

You have a new studio record out in 2013. Can you give us a sneak peek at its theme? What can listeners expect?

It’s still a little too early in the incubation to share specifics. I can say I feel like God is giving me fresh things to say and I’m emerged by the music I’m writing and the ideas that are coming.

Read more of this Q&A at www.christianretailing.com/chapman.