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According to an article in Christianity Today 80 to 85 percent of people looking for a new church find it through a website. With this in mind you NEED a website. If you do not have a website please contact me as I will counsel you for free on how you can get your own website for about 10 bucks a month.

Now that you have a website, and you know people will be going their first, why not direct people their first by using business cards that in a non aggressive fashion point people to your website, which points people to your church, which points them to Christ?

Business cards are fairly inexpensive, and if you buy enough for your congregation to hand out they are very inexpensive (pennies a piece). Right now PSPrint has their business cards 50% off. (offer expires soon).

To find out more about promoting with business cards, check out the book from Reno Lovinson “Turn your business card into business.”

What is God’s Take on Money?

With the economy in such bad shape, people are watching every penny. If you are looking for a way to reach out to your community this may be a topic that really gets their attention. I did a small amount of research and found two companies that help promote financial freedom using principles in the bible.

Dave Ramsey

Dave Ramsey has been helping people with their finances since 1988. He has been a millionaire twice. I just got done listening to the “Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey, and this is a step by step approach to helping you get out of debt, and start saving money. Dave backs up his strategies with scripture references. One of his earlier books “Financial Peace Revisited” covers the attitude change that needs to take place to truly follow Gods principles. You can bring Dave’s “Financial Peace University” right to your church.  The leadership kit is around $300.  Each family member that attends need to buy the class membership for around $93 You can find out more at www.daveramsey.com

Crown Industries

Crown has been helping people with their finances for over 30 years. In fact in the book “Financial Peace” Dave Ramsey quotes Larry Burkett who was one of the founders of Crown Industries.  Crown Suggests that you start with their “Road to financial freedom.”  If you want to host this seminar at your church the kit is around $25. This kit will walk you through implementing the seminar at your church. You can order the materials for your church (a 4 week class) for $2.50 ea. Obviously ordering one copy and copying it would be stealing, and at $2.50 for each person, I found this to be absolutely reasonable.

The good news about crow is they have TONS of information. The bad news is they have tons of information (and it may be hard to find what you want). A call to their office had me listening to someone tell me to go back to their website.
UPDATE: I contacted my local representative and he was very, VERY helpful, and it turns out there are local meeting for leaders and for people looking to launch any of the many ministries crown offers.

You can find out more at www.crown.org

Chicken or the Egg?

I’m not sure who came up with the plan first, but if you compare Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Make Over” to Crown’s “Money Map” you will see they are almost identical (steps one, save $1000, step two pay off your debt).  If you want to investigate this yourself the Money Map is free (where Dave’s version has a monthly fee).  In general, I feel crown is more of a ministry that talks about money management. Dave Ramsey is focused on money management who happens to be a Christian. Both have great information.

T-shirt of the Week

One of the things I really liked about my honeymoon in Tennessee is I didn’t feel like a fish out of water. People were openly Christian, and I could see where sharing your faith would be easier in a more Christian environment.  So many times we feel like we are the only Christians on the planet. This is why I urge people to share their faith. Wear it on your body,  wear it on your car.  If we all don’t feel so out numbered we may have the confidence to be more open about our faith. This may be something as simple as handing someone a business card that points them at our church. The bottom line is we need to constantly point people to Christ in any way we can.  I saw a very cool static sticker that turns your break lights into a Jesus sign.

Music

Today’s music comes from Michael Jason Frost who is a great singer from Tennessee the song ‘God’s gonna give you a testimony” from the album “Sing Like it’s the last time”

You can find him at www.michaeljasonfrost.com

Tags: church growth, church marketing, Crown Industries, Dave Ramsey, financial peace, God, Money

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.