July 8th, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
My final observation from McDonald’s free coffee coupons relates to how we as churches pull off big events. We obviously want to go all out when we are gearing up for an event designed to bring new people into the church. But what happens if the come back the next week and basically nothing is like it was at the big event?
After my first 3 or 4 iced mochas that I got for free they began to taste very different. I realized that they cannot make a consistent cup of coffee. This is probably related back to my first observation that there were people who were making the drinks who were not trained as well as they should and they were literally making drinks by the book. That is they were following along with a book step by step because they did not know how to make the drinks. The free coffee is a great promo, but if you can’t keep the quality up over the long term it will be hard get people to keep coming back.
I don’t think we have to have free food or a huge production every week to keep people coming. There are times when we have "regular services". The main thing I guess is the quality in everything we do. People realize that you are not going to have what you had at a big event every week, but if everything about the church goes downhill after their great first impression their second visit may be their last.
That wraps up my McDonald’s thoughts. I am really not bashing McDonald’s or their coffee. Most of the cups have been great and I have until the end of the month to enjoy it. These were just some thoughts that helped me in thinking about my own ministry so I wanted to pass them on to you as well.
July 6th, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
During my 6 years as a Youth Pastor I used the power of "free" as a way to attract new teenagers into the youth ministry. Free pizza, free events, free concerts, free stuff. Anytime you put the word free into the mix people seem to come from everywhere. It definitely worked to create larger numbers.
Even at the church I am currently at we have used free as well. However I learned something from my McDonald’s experience. First, when I started using the free coupons I had every intention of not purchasing my coffee from McDonald’s when the coupon offer is over. [I still have no intention of changing from Starbucks especially when the price difference is only about $1] So the only reason I am there is for the free and then I am gone.
I am very confident that many people have come to Christ through a free offer and I don’t have a problem with the concept at all. I am just observing what it felt like to be on the receiving end of the free offer. I will still probably use more of the coupons. But I am only in it for the free.
My point is that if we are just trying to get numbers for a big event the free will probably work. We just need to think past the big event and make sure there is a plan to be willing to pay up and make an investment after the free wears off.
That leads me to my final observation coming up in the next post…
July 3rd, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
When I used my first free McDonald’s esspresso coupon I should have known that I was in for some fake coffee. Like I said it is not that bad, but to draw people away from the Starbucks lovers you are going to have to create the coffee experience and that is difficult to create 30 feet away from screaming children in the McDonald’s jungle gym.
The first thing I learned from my first coffee coupon was not to show your ignorance. I handed the cashier the coupon and ordered the espresso drink. They turned to a coworker and said, "We don’t make espresso drinks do we?" Okay I can write that off to being a new employee, but it got worse.
The coworker said that they did make espresso and that she would make it for me. The cashier who obviousely has no idea what she is doing or how to make it [training is fairly critical to making good espresso] excitedly volunteers to make. She is freaking out wanting to make this espresso for me. And I am freaking out trying to figure out a nice way to tell her NOT to make it for me!
Why did this happen? No training and no communication. So many times in church I see the same thing. Unfortunately so many times I do the same thing. People in volunteer positions especially are left out of the information loop and looking ignorant in front of the guests and members of our church.
That experience was a great reminder for me to be sure to communicate [maybe even overcommunicate] to those who need the info so we can get present the best image possible to those who walk through the doors of our church.
July 2nd, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
I love coffee if that was not somewhat obvious given the design of www.illustratedmessage.com. So naturally when I see FREE COFFEE I take notice.
Even though normally I am a Starbucks fan and even purchase their beans to use at home in my espresso machine, I decided to give McDonalds free coffee coupon promotion a try. They ran three free coupons in a newspaper in our local news paper for a medium espresso drink. Suprisingly the first one I tried was really pretty good.
Then I had an interesting idea. I went to their website and found the holy grail of coupons. They have put the same free coupon on their website so you could print it off as many times as you want. It is good for an entire month! So naturally…I printed off 30 of them.
I thought I had hit the jackpot, but instead learned a few lessons that I think could easily apply to ministry and specifically how we do big events. I will talk about what I learned in upcoming posts.
June 7th, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
Check out Pastor Greg Rohlinger’s blog. The purpose of his blog is to communicate to his church. He uses YouTube video in his posts as well which is very easy to do. His blog is at www.gregrohlinger.com.
Greg uses the Wordpress blogging platform. I am going to show you exactly how to do the same thing on your website [or a brand new website if you do not have one yet]. You can do this almost free if you know how. You will just have to purchase website hosting for your site. If you already have a website with hosting then you will not even need that. Info on that will be coming soon.
June 2nd, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
Okay, I have to admit it. After posting my last post about how I was going to talk about Pastors and blogging I got extremely sidetracked and did not make it into the posts. However, I am back to posting and ready to start this series of information and links to blogging Pastors and Church blogs.
Most of these blogs have been created with the same software I use and recommend. At the end of this series of posts I am going to offer you free blog setup using the same software. I will personally set it up for you. All you have to do is purchase web hosting using my special link. That is how I am able to make this special offer. The web hosting is something you would need anyway. If you want to jump on that early just send me an email at resources@illustratedmessage.com and ask me how to access the link and how you can get started with your new blog.
Here is the first blogging Pastor. Check out this church planter named Gary Lamb at www.GaryLamb.org to see what he is doing with his blog to communicate to church planters and his church.
April 30th, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
Many of you who read this blog may already have blogs yourselves. Whether you have signed up for a free blog on Blogger or Wordpress.com or you have one pre-installed on your church website, you have taken the step to begin blogging. Some of you may even have the technical skill to custom install a blog on your website.
Over the next few posts I am going to provide links to Pastors and ministry leaders who have custom blogs as well as articles about the benefits of blogging to Pastors. Most of these use the same blogging software custom installed on their church websites. You can also use this software as your main church site as well.
A few posts from now I am going to throw out a special offer to you as a reader of this blog. Normally I would charge $250 for this service, but I want to offer it to your for FREE. All you will do is purchase web hosting through my recommended web hosting link. I will custom install your blog and give you my onscreen tutorials for how to install and use the blog as well as how to set up your own ITunes Podcast!
I will have to limit this to a few at first so if you would like to get in on this free offer early email me [Jeremy] at resources@illustratedmessage.com .
You can check out the first blogging Pastor example at www.garylamb.org . More about blogging to come…
April 21st, 2008 by Jeremy Phillips
Okay, it has been awhile since my last post. I had to upgrade the blog to the most current version of Wordpress to get things working correctly again.
Also, at our church we have had an extremely sad, active and busy month including a funeral for our Senior Adult Pastor as well as a complete makeover of our church facility and hosting nearly 1,000 Pastors at our church for our statewide Oklahoma All Church Ministries Conference.
Things should be getting back to normal soon and I will begin posting new resources. I have some great ideas and resources to let you in on. I will be back soon with more…
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