Nearly 100 supplier and church representatives from across the country met in Florida last week to discuss ways of encouraging and better serving the growing church bookstore community.

The first-ever Gathering of Church Bookstores was hosted at its Orlando-area headquarters by Strang Communications, publisher of The Church Bookstore, a new magazine launched as a supplement to Christian Retailing magazine.

The two-day event featured training sessions on bookstore management, book and product presentations, and panel discussions on topics including church-supplier relations, merchandising, inventory control and promotions. Participants from churches with well-established bookstores and those planning to open one also paid site visits to bookstores at two large Orlando-area churches.

The Church Bookstore Associate Publisher Dave Condiff said the gathering had been organized to help “start building a network for what has clearly become an emerging channel of Christian retail” that complemented, rather than competed with, other Christian retailers.

“We are not out to compete with any other organization,” he said, “but as we hear of more and new church stores, we want to keep finding ways that we can serve them better.”

Dottie Setran, manager of Parables Christian Bookstore at Biltmore Baptist Church in Arden, N.C., said: “I learned so much; things I never knew that I didn't know. I'm going back to do a lot of things differently.”

Crystal Powell, manager of Upper Room Bookstore at High Pointe Church in Thompson, Conn., said she had been encouraged by the gathering and from hearing ideas from others.

“It's a much-needed thing,” commented Beverly Hudson, manager of Grace Bookstore at Grace Community Church in Houston. “Communication is so vital. Not everybody you work with has a clue about retail, and I have felt isolated in that. It has been good to meet others with the same dilemmas, joys and frustrations.”

Suppliers taking part in the event were Appalachian Distributors, Baker Publishing Group, Bookstore Manager, Cook Communications Ministries, Crossway Books, IntegraGP Design, Integrity Media, Lemstone, NavPress, Relevant Media Group and Strang Communications. A second annual gathering is planned for next year.

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