Maximizing your money

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Lee Stevenson here. I have the privilege to be the executive director of church planting and my co host here, Danny Parmalee. Say hey.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:16

Hello everyone. I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:21

And we are excited to kick off another episode of our unfiltered podcast, just having real raw conversations about church planting and the whole church planting world. Today we're going to talk about one of those hot topics that I find a lot of church planners just wrestle with.

And specifically it's how do you continue to move the vision forward when resources just don't seem to be there? Do you ever run into that moment, Danny?

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:44

Absolutely. It's one of my favorite subjects. So I can't wait to dish and hoot and holler and scream.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:52

I love it. And there's multiple facets to me of this.

You know, that there's marketing aspects of how do you continue to market the church when resources aren't there? How do you just handle normal ministry ins and outs of the day to day grind when you know that resources aren't there?

How do you maximize your volunteers as well when resources aren't there? So which piece of this conversation you want to start with, Danny?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:21

I think just even starting off generally, and I don't want to do a whole one on, on, on budgeting because I think that that, that deserves its own, its own episode.

But just coming from a standpoint as a church planner, especially those that have come from a ministry where they had budgets, that they just move into a church planning with the same mindset.

In other words, you came from a large church and you've got your admin, you've got your expense budgets, you've got all this and you can just kind of spend, spend, spend, spend, spend.

Well in church planting, you, you, you don't have that money and you don't even have the cushion, you know, you don't have the like, oh, guess what, I went over budget. Okay, well, kind of tone it down. It's like the money's literally not there, so you can't spend it.

So I think just, and I've seen this, maybe I've seen this a little bit more with church planners right now that there's this expectation that they get all the bells and the whistles and the best of the best. And again, you want to be really careful, not just say, oh, this is a, a millennial thing. And they're just, you know, millennials acting.

But I am seeing it as, as kind of this generation of church planners where there is that expectation. So starting off with the Mentality that you may not have the best of the best and you've got to. There's more bootstrapping involved.

So even if you look on Shark Tank and you still hear all of the, the stories on, you know, how I built this, you got a bootstrap from the beginning. And, and so if you don't have money, don't spend it and figure out what you're going to spend your money on.

And I think that the big ones are marketing. Rent and equipment are the ones where you can get in trouble, especially those that are long term things like, hey, we're going to sign this lease.

It's $4,000 a month. We don't have the money now, but we're pretty sure that that's going to come in because we're awesome.

And people are going to come in droves and they're all going to have a ton of money and, and they're going to be.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:14

So they're just going to be dying and running to the altar to give money to the.

Danny Parmelee: 00:03:19

Absolutely. So those are, those are really. And the same thing with taking on debt early. It's just like a church planner.

I mean you just, you shouldn't take on any debt. You just do not know. So be careful of even business credit cards. Be careful of, you know, basing off of pledges.

Pledges don't really mean anything, you know, until it comes in. And so, so yeah, so why don't you speak, you give your stuff and then I'll, I'll share some more stuff later.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:47

Well, I do think, I think the mentality, you do have to have the right mentality as you come in a church plant, especially if you're coming out an established church situation. And I liken it a lot to when I graduated from college.

Like there's an element I wanted to live at the same lifestyle my parents were currently living at. And it's so easy to bypass all the years of hard work and the years of saving for them to get to the place that they were.

I think the same mentality has to be true when it comes to church plants and beginning to distinguish the differences of what we can offer as a church plant versus an established church situation.

And so I really would say it begins in the conversation where you've got to begin to identify what are the things that we feel like are niche opportunities for us in our given community.

And even on top of that, what are the few things that we just have to do really well and those become priority number one then in how you Allocate the limited resources that you have, but it also gives you talking points to help people understand. Well, for now, we can't do that. For now. This is where we've got to focus in on. And so it begins to educate people. Yeah, we can't do everything.

I mean, I, I can remember week two in our, our previous church plant guys coming up to me going, hey, what do you guys got for men's ministry? And we're going, yeah, nothing. Like.

And I'm said, we, we do church that we hope men like, but we don't have a given ministry and designated budget and we don't have leadership. Like, that's just not reality to where we are as a church.

And so you do have to even educate the church people that may show up to a church plan after the grand opening, helping them understand as well.

Like, we cannot offer everything that maybe you want in a church because it just takes time, it takes energy, it takes effort to build and establish all of these things. I think too, when it comes on to the spending side of things, anytime you spend less than you make, you're going to be okay.

And so you just gotta keep that in honest perspective. Whether or not it's in marketing, whether or not it's the equipment purchase, whether or not it's in personnel.

Spend less than you're bringing in, you're gonna be okay.

Danny Parmelee: 00:06:09

Yep. And in the marketing thing.

Cause I think that's where a lot of guys in the beginning can just either feel defeated or they actually just make the mistakes and just kind of overspend. And there can be a tendency to really work hard at the mass marketing. Like you're trying to reach as many.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:26

People as possible, direct mail, all that kind of stuff.

Danny Parmelee: 00:06:28

Whereas, like, if you don't have a large budget for those things, think of how you can do on a smaller scale, things that are very, very specific and local. So I think of even, you know, that means even, like the T shirts and stuff that you buy.

So, yeah, so maybe you can only buy, you know, 25 to 30 T shirts for your launch team, but then you wear that, you know, to the park, to an event, you know, that you're doing, or some sort of outreach where, you know, maybe there's a Fourth of July parade or Memorial Day parade and you're giving away something.

And so instead of reaching, you know, 25,000 people with mailers, there's a thousand people at this parade that you're giving away, you know, whatever it is, chip clips or frisbees or Whatever those types of things. And you're maybe able to have, you know, a little bit more conversation.

But again, a church planner's mind is almost always thinking, you know, big billboard, tv, radio, and if you don't have the money on it, don't spend it, do smaller scale, but it'll have more significance each kind of transaction because people have a greater connection to it.

Lee Stephenson: 00:07:35

Yeah, I think that's great.

The more personal you can be on the marketing side, especially when you have limited resources, it's going to really benefit you in the long run when it comes to, you know, gaining traction within the community and seeing new people, new faces show up to Sunday morning.

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:51

Yeah, my. For, for marketing ones when guys say, hey, I have, I have such a limited, you know, budget on marketing.

tever. They're, they're about: 1200

And then put the name of the church on the side with a, you know, $20 vinyl sign that you get printed you that thing up in the park and you, you will have more awareness and you'll have more conversations with just parents, with kids dragging their parents type of thing that way. So yeah, think even just on a small scale of how you can do some of that creative marketing that way.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:32

Yeah.

And I think what you're hitting upon the principle here is when resources are limited to me, that's, that's not a time to wallow and a time to feel defeated. That's a time for creativity to arise.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:44

Absolutely.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:45

And so it really comes down to mindset, realizing, well, we, I'd like to do this, but we just, it's just not reality. We shouldn't do that right now because we don't have the resources.

So spend some time definitely in prayer, but spend some time even with your key leadership team and keep people around you, your coaches that you know, and just brainstorm, think through, you know, hey, this is the area that we feel like we want breakthrough and we just don't know how to actually make that happen. And a cost effective way. And some of your greatest ideas of breakthrough come out of those type of moments.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:19

Yeah. And I think when you. And you'll never have enough resources, I always thought, bingo.

Okay, as soon, as soon as we have, you know, an operating budget of $75,000, oh, it's going to be so much. And then you hit 75 and it's like 125 and then, you know, 500,000, a million, whatever. You never have enough to do what you want to do.

Because that's how God continues to expand and grow the vision, grow the kingdom. But during those times, and we've talked about this before, don't forsake generosity and don't forsake savings.

So always, even at limited resources, put that in. Because that is a culture thing, a DNA thing that will last for, you know, throughout the time.

And so even if you don't have a lot, continue to have that built in, that you're always saving, you know, and that you're always continuing to be generous.

Lee Stephenson: 00:10:13

I think that's well, well said. Live on the edge of creativity, guys. I do believe that some of our best ideas have never actually been founded out at this point.

And so leverage that resources are always going to be at a minimum. That's the reality. And oftentimes the vision is a whole lot bigger than the resources.

And I think that's what the thing that God uses to keep us living by faith. Press forward. Don't be discouraged in that process.

I appreciate you tuning in to this episode, specifically just talking about limited resources and carrying the vision forward. My name is Lee and this is Danny, and we will catch you until next time. Keep it real, guys.