A message from Geni Hulsey, president of the Church Bookstore Network:

Since 1993, I have packed my bags and headed off for the CBA summer event that brings together vendors and store managers, frontliners, internationals, authors and artists and others affiliated with Christian retail.

Though I am always excited to see friends—vendors, store managers and workers—and to look for new products and talk with authors and artists, my anticipation was different as I made my plans to attend this year's International Christian Retail Show (ICRS).

The differences this year were that the leadership of CBA had changed, the format of the event was a bit different, and a lot of the familiar processes had been changed. I knew, too, that this show was operating on a far tighter budget than before.

Having been a part of planning The Gathering-a similar effort-I knew that it would be a challenge to bring the quality that we have seen in the past with fewer resources, both money and manpower.

But, you know what, they did it! All of the elements of a good retail show were there at last month's ICRS in St. Louis, and none of the extras that might have been there before were missed.

On the opening Sunday evening, we began with a time of worship, praise and thanksgiving. The music was diverse and well received. The entire program was full of challenge and encouragement. In a moment that was both tender and graceful, the association presented Bill Anderson, the group's immediate past-president, with a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award.

The evening set the tone for three more days that were upbeat, well-planned and had a constant air of, "What can we do to make this a better experience for you?"

I liked the venue in St. Louis a lot. Obviously, there were fewer in attendance and fewer vendors than in the early years, but because this was a smaller convention hall, it felt busy and active all three days.

The vendors seemed excited about the rebuilding process. It is no secret to anyone that they have fewer stores to work with and that those stores, in turn, have fewer resources. But as I talked with vendor after vendor, I heard them not whining, but asking for help in finding "win-win" answers, offering solutions and encouragement to stores that are committed to "hanging in there."

The store representatives seemed genuinely pleased with what they were finding in the way of new products from familiar vendors and totally new vendors.

In addition to seeing a lot of people who have become dear friends through the years, I also had managers of new church stores introduce themselves to me. Each vendor seemed sensitive to the special needs of church bookstores. There were classes that spoke directly to the operation of a church store as well as workshops that were suitable for anyone managing a store.

The overriding theme of the event seemed to be to seek solutions to the quickly changing face of Christian retail. Vendors were listening to retailers, and retailers were seeking solutions from vendors. The leadership team of CBA seemed to be glad to be the catalyst that brought the two together.

CBA Executive Director Curtis Riskey, Chairman-elect George Thomsen and the rest of the CBA team were constantly present on the floor, listening, sharing and being a part of all that was going on. I believe God has put each of these men in his particular role for such a time as this. The Church Bookstore Network is excited to be a part of whatever God has in store for Christian retail in the coming months and years.

At least half of the vendors scheduled to attend GABBS at the Hynes Convention Center, Aug. 19-20, will be offering popular Christian titles for as little as 10 cents on the dollar, according to GABBS organizer Larry May, who said about 40,000 book titles will be available. "This is a great opportunity for church bookstores to stock up for the coming winter holiday season, he said.

To take advantage of the free registration offer, church bookstore representatives should visit the GABBS Web site, www.GABBS.net, to register. GABBS is one of the three largest bargain book shows in the U.S., organized annually by L.B. May & Associates of Knoxville, Tenn.

Few retail stores ever get dozens of people suddenly flooding in at the same time—let alone several hundred. But many church bookstores see huge crowds cramming into their little spaces with surprising regularity, between or after services. How are you to deal with this?

During the week, your days probably involve waiting on one customer at a time and quiet periods of restocking the shelves and ordering more product. But during deluge times, everyone needs to grab a bucket.

Man your registers with your fastest volunteers. Have staff available to answer questions, and use stanchions to help form lines at the checkout. This is especially useful if you can get the line to move out of the store-leaving more room for those still making their selections. Have a volunteer guide customers to the checkout line and help encourage conversations within the line.

Having customers wait in a long line isn't always a bad thing. No lines can mean that people aren't buying. When your pastor begins to worry as your store line extends into the church lobby, remind him that his words inspire action and that life-changing resources are getting into people's hands.

Helping hurting customers can be one of the most difficult tasks during deluge times. What do you do when you have a customer who is at your church for the first time and is now crying in the grief section of your store?

If you feel led, take this person out of the crowd, and spend 20 minutes to an hour with them.
Another way to handle this situation is to take the customer to another church leader or member. Other leaders in your church may have gifts of mercy and discernment beyond yours.

With a little planning and a lot of deep breaths, you can survive the deluge.

-Cynthia Hoppe, a freelance writer, managed the Seeds Resource Center at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., for six years.

-Click here to read the complete article: http://www.thechurchbookstore.com/a.php?ArticleID=13022.

Those pesky cell phones. We can't even put them down to shop.

You can handle the situation in three ways. You can adopt a strong "silence, please" policy about cell-phone use and post it on signs at the entrances to the store and also around the store. Hopefully your customers will follow your guidelines and take a break from their phones. But many times even the most stringent signage will not stop the problem.

Another remedy would be to discreetly approach the customer and ask that they go outside the store to use their phone. This requires the greatest of tact, a sweet smile and a bold frontliner. The drawback to this form of confrontation is that some customers will be offended and possibly not frequent your store again.

The third method is likely the most common road taken. Just ignore the situation and hope that "dirty looks" and stares from other shoppers will encourage the customer to end the phone call or at least move out of the store to complete the conversation. Hopefully such incidences are few and far between in your store.

Got a question for Betty Bookstore? Write to her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Looking at expressions of "group" faith, such as church attendance and participation in small groups, adult Sunday school programs and church volunteering, the researchers found:

Women lead the way. They drive most faith participation. A majority of weekly churchgoers are women (53%). Small groups that meet for prayer or Bible study (60%) and Sunday school programs for adults (59%) are also more likely to be attended by women. Similarly, a majority of church volunteers (57%) are female.

Home churches are the only type of participatory religious involvement in which most attendees are men (56%).

Older folks dominate. Two-thirds of small group attendees as well as house church participants and three-fifths of church volunteers and Sunday school goers were aged 45 and older.

Bigger church, more involvement. Americans who typically attend a church of at least 500 adults were among the most likely to also attend small groups and house churches and to volunteer. Those attending a medium-sized congregation (101 to 499 adults) were among the most likely to attend small groups and Sunday school classes.

Small-groupers study more. Personal Bible reading is most common among small group attendees. Two-thirds of church attendees (67%) said they had read the Bible outside of church in the previous week, while small group attendees were more likely to read the Bible personally (84%). Bible reading levels for church volunteers and Sunday school attendees were both 77%.

"There certainly is a dominant demographic faith profile of Christians in the nation," commented David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group. "The typical profile of an involved Christian is a married woman in her early 50s."

Source: The Barna Group.

To read the full report, go to: http://www.barna.org/faith-spirituality/400-who-is-active-in-group-expressions-of-faith-barna-study-examines-small-groups-sunday-school-and-house-churches.

When we started our bookstore 10 years ago, we tried to be all things to all people. Whatever people asked us to carry we did, including shirts, hats, wall art, gifts, jewelry and church logo items. We really didn't know what people would buy. Staff members would ask us to carry certain products or keep a large quantity of a certain book on hand. We felt we had to carry whatever they asked.

Through trial and error, we found that just because one person asked for something, that did not mean there was a demand for it. We learned the hard way, as we got "stuck" with lots of nonreturnable product in the early years. We had to set a narrower focus and stop spending our time and money delving into departments of items that did not sell well.

Also, we were not good on returns in the first five years. Because we were continually growing, we didn't worry about books that didn't sell when they were new releases. We just added them to the backlist titles to help fill up our shelves. Over time we discovered that was a costly mistake.

Our church bookstore has many repeat customers, so if a book didn't sell well when it was new, it didn't sell well when it was old either. We had to begin cleaning out our shelves and discounting many unsold books and also posting them for sale at a reduced rate on Half.com, just to get rid of them and recoup some of the investment.

Diane Busch, manager
RiverTree Christian Church Bookstore
Massillon, Ohio

One big mistake is I have allowed reps to sell me too much product. I often get overwhelmed with all the choices when a rep comes in and rather than thinking through who will buy it, how it fits the mission of the store and (that) I can always re-order, I go with the price-break quantity.

This is so not necessary--the extra discount is not a discount if we are stuck with the product, have to return and pay shipping or practically give it away to move it.

Special-ordering of artwork is another area that I blundered in just last week. I allowed a church staff member to pick out a piece in the catalog. She made the purchase when it came in. After she took it home and hung it up, she found that she hated it and brought it back. This $160 piece wasn't one that will sell well to our congregation and will probably be marked down well below price.

After the fact, I called the vendor and learned that they do not take returns, a "totally my fault" for not checking ahead on their return policy, not having a special gift order policy in place for the store such as a restocking fee or a no-return-on-gift disclaimer when special-ordering. It may end up as a donation to an organization when they come calling for items....

Lorena Allen
Manager
Harvest Bookstore
Eastview Christian Church
Normal, Ill.

Prov. 3:21, New International Version