Launch Brochure

Because we have a number of church planters asking us about how we started, I thought I'd post our pre-launch fundraising brochure. We had this professionally produced. Feel free to use any of the ideas in this brochure... just as we have borrowed ideas from other friends that have successfully planted churches.

Yes, it cost a lot to print this (the initial printing cost was about $2.00 per brochure), but one of the marketing points Robin always makes is that you've got to spend money to make money. We eventually figured out how to get it printed for less than $1.00 per brochure, but it took some research and a lot of favor with a printing company manager.

The point is that serious investors are used to having something professional in their hands to look at and think about (and pray about). The more professionally done it is, the more it captures their attention. And the more it presents us as legitimate church planters that have the ability to succeed... a cause worthy of their consideration.

No one wants to invest in a losing cause. They want a return on their investment, even if that return is souls won into the Kingdom of God and churches planted.

We ended up printing about 350 of these and handing them out to pastors and people that had the ability to give sizable donations.

Please don't misunderstand me... we handed something to everyone that showed interest in supporting our church launch. But our relatives and friends didn't need a fancy brochure to convince them that we were legitimate. They just needed to be able to get to the information, which was already online in the form of a website. We had sharp business cards printed up with the relevant contact information and website address on them.

The brochure below is just a web-friendly version. Click on the link at the bottom to download or see the high-quality version.

Click here to view the high-quality version, or right click here to download this brochure (choose Save as...)

Encouraged, yet frustrated…

As with any startup church, one of the biggest issues is finances.  And especially with a church like ours that is focused on reaching the unchurched and the “de-churched” (those that have walked away from traditional churches), we have to fight the typical stereotype that churches only want people’s money.  This has been a frustration for us, but we knew this was a part of church planting.

But in the things that truly count – people committing their life to Christ, changed lives and people getting excited about using their gifts to impact Freiburg – Watermark is doing really well.  Last Sunday we saw one of our church neighbors give her heart to Christ.  She was invited by one of our team the week before.

And the week before that, a man that told me he is NOT a believer came to church because an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him to come visit our church.  He loved it!  He took a bunch of business cards and said he would invite all of his friends.  He came back last week and was just as excited.

Please continue to pray for Watermark… God is doing great things here and we’re excited to be a part of it!

We have a building!!!!

We finally signed the building lease!  This picture gives you an idea of how big it is.  It used to be a fitness training center for kids.  We’re in the rezoning process right now.

It even came with a homeless guy that lives outside, next to the building!  It was quite a shock to us.  We believe the lawyer that was there with us took care of it.  But we’ll get him help, if needed ;-)

We still need about $11,000 USD before our launch date (Oct 24) in order to prepare for the precious people God will send us.  If you feel God would have you invest in unchurched people in Freiburg, you can donate through our website.

Please also pray with us for wisdom, favor and creativity as we prepare for an amazing church launch!  If you’re interested in being a part of the Launch Team, please contact us!

Evolving websites...

As we said, this blog will record the thoughts we’re processing as we head into our first church plant in Germany.  Two main website thoughts today:

1. As our church plant transitions out of the initial fundraising phase into the recruiting and branding/marketing phase, we need to adjust our website.  Up to this point the website has been a lot about us, since investors need to buy in to the leader before they’ll seriously consider supporting a church plant.  We still need to raise a large amount of funds just to launch the church, but it’s time to start looking at the people God has called us to reach.

So we’re changing our website focus from investors to our target audience: young adults and young families.  We don’t want this to be a personality-driven church... it needs to be a Christ-centered, people-driven church.  This means it must be about more than just the Perrin Family.  Which also means that our website has to change.  You should start noticing some of these changes soon.

2. Our ministry website needs to change... as we look to attract more shareholders in the corporate vision, we have to step it up in  the area of our personal ministry website.  Six months ago I grew tired of the “nice and clean, just like everyone else” look of our website, so I changed to a more grunge theme.  But recently I stepped back and looked at it through the eyes of a potential investor. 

I realized that the Perrin Ministries Website may look cool to a younger crowd (at least that is what I was shooting for), but it doesn’t reflect someone who wants to be taken seriously by international investors.  This means you’ll be noticing some changes in the Perrin Ministries website as well.