My Experience With Portable Church Industries

There have been a couple of posts concerning Portable Church Industries lately. They even have their own blog. Over the past two years, I've talked with a number of church planters who have and have not used PCI. Just this week, I had a consultation and we are currently pouring over their recommendation. We've not made a decision on what we'll do. I thought I would share with you my thoughts and experience.

What Church Planters Should Know About PCI:

1. They're not for everyone. PCI has stated this a number of times and would be the first to tell you. When it is said they're not for everyone, that could be a number of different reasons. One of which may be price. Ask them why the price though, and they'll tell you
2. They are a ministry. I've talked with PCI about this at length. They're committed to the work of the kingdom and helping make churches better. I was extremely satisfied with our consultant and his broad knowledge of ministry, building codes, equipment, sound and video engineering to name just a few. Now some church planters may question what is meant by "ministry." After all, they're a for profit group and just because your committed believers doesn't make a company a ministry. However, from what I've been told, they refuse to work with non Christian ministry organizations. Throughout my time with them, they've demonstrated a genuine desire and concern to further the Gospel and equip churches to do so too.
3. Their target is: quality, portability and customization (my opinion). They're not going to build cheap cases. They're not going to recommend cheap equipment. You're probably not going to find American DJ on their product list. They have your volunteers in mind. They understand volunteer burnout and they want their product to be as portable as possible. They also understand that a movie theater is different from a school and a school cafeteria is different from a gym. There's not a product in America that you'll find these three characteristics that you also won't find a price to match. Their prices match their quality, portability and customization. They don't buy in bulk. They don't keep stock.
4. I've not heard one church planter whose used PCI saying they wish they hadn't. If anything, the guys I've talked with say they highly recommend PCI. However, I've also talked with guys who haven't used PCI and are doing great.

What PCI Needs To Know About Church Planters: (not implying they don't)

1. Church Planters are a resourceful group. Church Planters have to know how to stretch a dime. This will be your biggest obstacle as a growing company that seeks quality. Church Planters will choose lesser quality to make the dime stretch and may worry about the quality post launch. If we can find a $1000 video projector on eBay to get us through the first 6 months, we may very well go with it. We may spend more in long run only because we don't have the upfront money to get it in the beginning. We have to balance Outreach/Evangelism with Equipment. Any church planter who spends 80% of their budget on equipment and 20% on outreach would be doing the wrong thing. PCI knows that.
2. Church Planters struggle with the difference between quality equipment and quality ministry. We recognize that some guys have planted churches with very little equipment and grown rapidly and there are those who've had the best equipment in town and yet had very little impact in the community. Church Planters are some of the most tech savvy guys in ministry (I'm not one of them.) We want quality equipment but we'll sacrifice it in a heartbeat if we can reach more people. AND we also know that there are some people we may not keep if we don't have quality equipment.
3. Church planters are a competitive breed. Having said that, there can easily be a sense of the "haves" and "have nots". If you use PCI, you must have a highly funded church plant. If you're not well funded then you can't even get close to PCI, which may not be true.

My recommendations that I've shared with PCI: (I'm sharing them with you only because I've shared them with my consultant.)

1. PCI ought to support a mission. As a for profit group, they ought to share what they're doing for missions. Other companies like Chic-fil-a demonstrate their support. Since, I'm passionate about Church Planting, I suggested reimbursing Church Plants for the consultation if they purchase 50% of the $ on the final invoice. OR support a Church Planting organization. OR support some other mission.
2. PCI ought to setup a non-profit ministry called Portable Church Consulting. In this, they not only consult on equipment but also visioneering, target demographic and strategy and outreach. They visit hundreds of churches across America. They see all sorts of ideas and strategies. They have ministry experience that could be worth sharing if they packaged it right.
3. PCI ought to consider how they can offer a second product line that is lesser expensive product (a.k.a cheaper): It might be worth looking into a product that isn't as light, durable, high quality, so that guys who are still in need might be able to purchase and then post launch upgrade to higher quality if need be. You can buy the Ford or the Mercedes. Its a quality control issue.

My experience:

1. The consultation was extremely helpful. Especially, for a guy like me whose not a techy. It was also an opportunity for me to be asked questions that I may not have thought of. It was also an opportunity to envision and cast vision for StonePoint.
2. The consultant was extremely professional. I knew I had a guy who understood buildings. As soon as we walked in to a local restaurant, he immediately looked all around. He reminded me of myself. When I go to a new town, I immediately look for locations to start a new church and look at the people to identify the target audience. Not to mention, my consultant had served on staff in a portable church for a long time. I noticed he even pulled some demographics from Link2Lead.
3. As for their recommendation. I haven't found anything that is out of place or overpriced. That's not to say it can't be found cheaper elsewhere and/or that we couldn't get by with less. PCI knows that and even during their consultation the consultant skipped stuff that we knew we wanted but wasn't practical at this point. I appreciate the integrity of what they recommended.

So the big question, would I recommend them? YES and no. You know your plant. I don't. They're not for everyone as they've said and you can't recommend something to everyone that's not for everyone.