Design Priorities: Identity, Experience, and Budget

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jeff Beachum and Curt Banter from Portable Church Industries (PCI), a company that has helped more than 4,000 churches launch, expand, and thrive in portable environments over the past 25+ years. PCI specializes in helping churches create high-quality worship, kids, and guest experiences in rented or temporary venues—without sacrificing excellence, volunteer health, or long-term strategy.

Is your church growing and starting to feel the pressure of limited space? Are you wrestling with what comes next when your building is full but a permanent solution feels years away? Curt and Jeff share how portable solutions can help churches keep momentum, reach more people, and make wise long-term decisions—without rushing into costly permanent buildings too soon.

• Recognizing the capacity tipping point. // When churches reach 70–80% capacity, leaders begin to feel pressure everywhere—parking, kids’ environments, hallways, volunteer fatigue, and seat availability. At that point, growth doesn’t slow because of lack of vision; it slows because of physical constraints. Leaders often start “chasing capacity,” stacking services or squeezing rooms, but those solutions eventually hit a wall. The real question becomes how to keep momentum going without rushing into a long-term decision that may limit future flexibility.
• Why waiting too long can stall growth. // Waiting to see what happens with growth can quietly kill momentum. When guests can’t find seats or families feel crowded, people stop inviting friends—even if the preaching and worship are strong. While overflow rooms may solve logistics, they rarely create the same invitational energy. Churches must respond to growth with courage, believing that God is at work and making room for what He’s doing.
• Portable as a strategic bridge, not a shortcut. // One of the biggest misconceptions is that portability is a cheap or temporary compromise. In reality, portability often serves as a strategic incubation phase—a way to grow now while preparing for long-term solutions later. Portable environments allow churches to launch new locations in months instead of years, often at 3–7% of the cost of permanent construction.
• Why permanence shouldn’t be your first move. // Permanent buildings come with long timelines, heavy capital costs, and irreversible decisions. By contrast, portable systems allow churches to test locations, leadership capacity, volunteer systems, and community engagement before committing to bricks and mortar. In many cases, churches reuse or retool their portable systems for future campuses, making portability a repeatable growth engine rather than a one-time solution.
• Designed for volunteers, not professionals. // PCI systems are designed around the reality that most churches rely on volunteers—not production experts. Systems are engineered so everything has a place, setup is repeatable, and volunteers of all ages can succeed. Portability often attracts a unique group of volunteers—people who may not serve in traditional roles but find purpose in setup, teardown, logistics, and behind-the-scenes leadership. Over time, these teams become deeply connected and highly committed.
• Experience and kids environments matter. // Portable doesn’t mean second-rate. In fact, kids’ environments are often more important than the worship space. Parents cannot fully engage in worship if they feel uneasy about where their children are. PCI’s design process balances worship, kids, guest flow, safety, and branding to ensure the entire experience reflects the church’s values—not just what happens on stage.
• Custom systems, not off-the-shelf kits. // PCI’s consultative approach begins with listening. Each system is custom-designed based on the church’s identity, volunteer capacity, budget, and long-term vision. There is no “stock solution.” From sound systems to kids check-in to trailer layouts, every detail is engineered to support the church’s unique mission and growth trajectory.
• A first step for leaders. // For leaders feeling capacity pressure, start with a conversation—not a commitment. Learning what options exist now prepares churches to act decisively later. The goal is not to rush, but to be ready when growth demands action. Speak directly with Jeff Beachum and discover how Portable Church can help with your unique situation by scheduling a conversation at portablechurch.com/jeff.

Learn more about Portable Church Industries and see samples of their work at portablechurch.com.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super glad that you’ve decided to tune in today and you are going to be rewarded for that. We’ve got a really important conversation, I know for many churches that are listening in, particularly if your church is growing and you’re thinking about the future and you see some constraints around you, we wanna help release some of those constraints today.

Rich Birch — And I’ve asked good friends, Curt Banter and Jeff Beachum from Portable Church Industries to come and be on the on the call with us today, because they’ve got some stuff that I know can help so many of us. If you do not know Portable Church, they help churches thrive in portable venues. For more than 25 years, Portable Church has helped literally thousands of churches launch strong and thrive in a mobile setting. They design custom solutions that fill that fit each budget, vision, and venue. They really are amazing people. And I’m so glad to have you on the show today, Curt and Jeff. Welcome. So glad you’re here.

Curt Banter — Great to be here.

Jeffrey Beachum — Glad to be here.

Rich Birch — Why don’t we start with Curt? Tell us the kind of portable church, you know, summary. You bump into someone and you they yeah they ask you where you work and you’re like, I’m CEO of Portable Church. What what is that?

Curt Banter — Yes, yes. That’s a popular airport question. That is a very, what is that exactly? And I always…

Rich Birch — Right. Is that on wheels or something? What is it like, you know.

Curt Banter — Exactly. I always tell people like, well, we build portable systems to help churches function in kind of rented spaces is, you know, the deal. And it’s production, it’s kids, it’s lobby, it’s the whole thing. It’s it’s the experience on a Sunday morning in a rented venue.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. And Jeff, give us a sense of the scope of both the services and kind of solutions that PCI provides. Like when you say you help that, what does that, what does that mean? Is this just like a bunch of ideas or what what do you actually do?

Jeffrey Beachum — So Portable Church provides absolutely everything that a church needs in order to do church the way they do at their home campus, except we don’t provide the pastor, and the people and the place. But, I mean, we do everything else from, like Curt said, production, everything you need to do children’s environments, everything you need to get people on the campus with wayfinding, greeting them, coffee, right down, if we don’t recommend it, but right down to the communion wafer and the baby diaper. We can do it all.

Rich Birch — Nice. Right. Yeah, it’s incredible. Well, today we want to frame the conversation for churches that are listening in that are particularly growing and are thinking about the future and maybe are coming up against some capacity issues. Jeff, when a church starts to approach, say, let’s picture a church, maybe they’re approaching 70, 80% of their weekend capacity. What kind of questions do you hear those leaders wrestling with? What are they thinking about, as they’re thinking about, hmm, what do we do next?

Jeffrey Beachum — Well, luckily I’ve run into some ah amazing executive leaders that carry the vision and the execution of a church. And those are usually the two primary people or positions. And there might be multiple people involved in it. But those are the two positions that really are looking in their crystal ball and trying to say, all right, based on The seats we’re filling, the parking lot the way it is, the corridors that are jammed, the children’s ministry, how high a pitch our our volunteers are screaming. We need to be thinking down the road about what are the solutions. And those those people typically, those good leaders are asking questions about, all right, what can we do onsite?

Jeffrey Beachum — And eventually, if this keeps going, and we’d love the momentum to keep going, what are some off-site solutions? And so that’s what we like to help take leaders through is even if they don’t use it, the more they know, the better they’re going to be.

Rich Birch — And what, when you think of the questions that they’re wrestling about kind of the onsite offsite question, what would be some of those things that, why would they be at that venture? Like what, what is it about, you know, these, this kind of threshold of 70, 80% that starts pushing them to be like, Ooh, maybe it’s like, what are the pain points that they start feeling that are like, okay, that we’ve got to start thinking about something, you know, different down the road.

Jeffrey Beachum — Well, this we do this thing, I like to call it chasing capacity, because once a church opens its doors, and if they’re blessed by God and they’re doing all the things that they should be doing, they will forever be looking for that elusive extra seat so that people can hear the gospel.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeffrey Beachum — Well, when they get into that position, um they they immediately begin to think, we only have so many seats. It’s a finite number and we’re growing. So how how do we get more? And on-site solutions might include stacking services, adding another third, fourth service. It could mean expanding the footprint of the whole building that you’re in. It could be moving from a smaller room to a bigger room. It could be a variety of solutions on-site to help all those situations. And and there’s a lot to consider when it comes to children’s space, worship space, getting people in and out between services and parking and all of those things.

Jeffrey Beachum — Eventually, someone has to be looking at what the offsite locations might be. And and to be honest with you, that is a finite thing. There’s only you can find a green piece of grass and and build a brand new building, which takes a lot of money, a lot of time. There’s commercial properties that you can go into now and build them out, which is always fun and exciting and good good solutions. Mergers is popping up and then portability. Those really are the only four options that are out there for a church to consider going off-site for another site or to launch a new plant.

Rich Birch — Cool. So Curt, from when we think about, again, this church, they’re, you know, they’re reaching 70, 80% capacity. They got full everywhere. Like and they look around and it’s like not and enough seats, not enough kids space, not enough parking. From a design and systems perspective, kind of the running side, what often do you think that we miss at that moment in a church life? Like questions we’re not asking or maybe things we misunderstand about that?

Rich Birch — Because you guys see this all the time. These are the people you work with all day long.

Curt Banter — Yeah.

Rich Birch — What are the things that we maybe misunderstood?

Curt Banter — Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people are trying to, they don’t want to lose momentum. They don’t want to lose people. They they start, especially I think people kind of a knee jerk sometimes that it’s like, oh you know, people to come in the door. I can’t find a place to sit. They’re going to, you know, they’re to, people are going split.

Curt Banter — And so they’re really nervous about that. So people will tend to do the things that are maybe more black and white and make choices that feel concrete. Like I could build a thing or I could add a service or I could do different things that will cost money and maybe not as much in terms of personnel. But I think sometimes the the tricky part is is that the strategy is really key because what you’re building now is going to lay the foundation for so many other steps down the road.

Curt Banter — So it is important to really kind of step back for a minute and make some choices about you know what that means for your staff, what that means for long-term capital spending or whatever it may be before you kind of just leap into those decisions. And then you’re stuck with things that maybe don’t grow so well, or, um, are just bandaid solutions.

Rich Birch — Yeah, trying to make the long term. That’s hard in the middle of the chaos of it to step back and say, hey, what what is the best decision here?

Curt Banter — It is, it’s really hard.

Rich Birch — Even though I’ve got, you know, I’ve got problems right now. What’s the best decision for us to make it this for this next step? Jeff, what happens if we’re in this again, thinking about the same kind of church, if we wait too long, if we, because I’ve actually seen this in churches where I think it’s like it’s like we don’t have faith that what’s happening now is going to continue. And we think, well, maybe maybe next fall, all these people won’t come back. Now, we would never say that. And then we wait and we hesitate for a year or two. What’s some of the risk there that we should be thinking about?

Jeffrey Beachum — Well, it it is a scary thing to see God moving and and being amazed at what’s happening in front of you, and and really taking that and getting a gut gut feeling, the right gut feeling to say, God is doing something here and we just need to be able to provide ways for him to keep filling seats.

Jeffrey Beachum — And so momentum is very, a tricky thing and you need to be able to keep the momentum going, keep people encouraged. And, and if you don’t, I’ll just share one story. Um, I was at a church. I’ll just tell you my church. I was at my church. I love my church. It’s a great church and got there at Easter time, got there early cause we knew better. And I, I’m old, so I went out to the bathroom and I came back in, and as I was coming back in the doors were closed and there was a sign there that struck me big time and it said: no more seats in the sanctuary. And it pointed to another place where they could go. Well, nobody wants to sit in the second space, no matter what it looks like, and that no more seats available. What if that was the day, you know?

Jeffrey Beachum — And so momentum, you need to be able to keep it going. It’s tenuous and you can hit speed bumps with some of the things that you try to do, but you you really need to take courage in what God is doing and what the skill set that he’s provided for the executive leaders to make these decisions and say, we really believe that God is asking us to do this and make plans for that next thing, whether it’s the on-site solution or the off-site solution.

Jeffrey Beachum — But if nobody is thinking about it and nobody is ready to make those decisions, that’s where you hit a wall and you stop growing. And in my mind, I think once you’ve let people know that that’s not important enough to keep seats open so that more people can come in, I think that has a negative twist to the momentum piece.

Rich Birch — Oh, for sure. Yeah. And there’s, there’s, you know, people won’t invite if there’s not empty seats and there’s, you know, there’s all kinds of interesting, you know, you know, correlations there for sure. So again, thinking about the same church, actually literally earlier today, I was talking to a church, there are three services on a Sunday morning, adding a fourth. And I was asking the XP, how’s it going? And he said, well, we had our, they have like their main parking lot and then they have like the grass parking lot. They’re part of the country country where you can do the grass parking lot. And he’s like, our grass parking lot this last weekend, we’re recording this in early January, was full. And he’s like, we did not anticipate that. And he’s like, I know I’m at least four years away from a building program. I’m not sure, you know, what, what to do. And I thought it was kind of funny that I’m talking with you guys today as well.

Rich Birch — So Curt, when you think when, and so this, this guy was a little freaked out because he’s like, man, we got years before we can think about, and he’s thinking permanent building. So when churches are thinking about expanding, many of us, we jump right to permanence. Hey, how long is it going to take? You know, if you talk to our friends on that side, there’ll be three years to, you know, and lots of money.

Rich Birch — What have you learned about the danger of kind of skipping this, maybe some sort of interim in between step? Talk us through, you know, why maybe permanence isn’t, shouldn’t be our first step when we’re thinking about this.

Curt Banter — Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, and I often tell people, I like, I love the permanent space. I got no problem with that. But if the momentum is really flying and things are going fast, that that is that is a big chunk of why we exist. I mean, we can build a design. You know, you can, it’s, it’s if you you need to find a location. You need to figure out your team. There’s a lot of steps that need to happen in here, regardless of whether you’re going to be building a building or doing a portable church or whatever it may be.

Curt Banter — And so this is a, it’s a great time to kind of figure out what the next steps are. And it really is, it’s an opportunity to, to trial things. And like I say, for us, the big deal is is, you know, instead of that four year window, that kind of thing, I was just talking to somebody yesterday and they said, well, you know, how many, how many months would it take? And I said, well, if if we’re talking in months, we’re in good shape. Because sometimes people show up and they’re like, Hey, we need to do something in 10, 12 weeks. And I’m like, okay, we could probably do that. You know?

Rich Birch — Right. We can hustle.

Curt Banter — Yeah, I mean, and that’s that’s pretty low risk. Like if you can get get something off the ground in 10 or 12 weeks, you know, that…

Rich Birch — Right.

Curt Banter — …that that gives you opportunity to really take advantage of that and not have to freak out about what my next step is and figure out how am I going to excavate or get a architect involved or, you know, whatever permitting all these things, which, you know, yeah, you’ll get to that. But we don’t have to really work through a lot of those issues to get something launched fairly quick.

Jeffrey Beachum — If if I could…

Rich Birch — Jump in – yeah, absolutely.

Jeffrey Beachum — …we, we recently did a case study of a church down in Florida and they, it’s an amazing church in itself, but they went to a campus and thinking they were only going to have to be there for a couple of years because they had a property across the street. And what happened in that campus was amazing and God blessed them.

Jeffrey Beachum — And After they ended up, instead of being there two years, they ended up being there four years. As they were getting into their fourth year, we said, you know what, we need to capture this because this is exciting stuff that they could do. They had 6,000 people on a high school campus on an Easter Sunday…

Rich Birch — That’s crazy.

Jeffrey Beachum — …which is wacko in my mind.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Jeffrey Beachum — But we went down to capture it. And the theme that kept coming out of the volunteers and the leaders that we interviewed was, why would we have waited? Why would we have put this off for four years? Look what happened in the four years that we were in this environment. And now we get to walk across the street in a few months and fill a brand new building. And they did. They walked across and they added a third service immediately. And now just six months later, they’re up to five services. So that I like to call it an incubation time…

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeffrey Beachum — …in portability where they can grow and they can test their mettle. They can test their leadership. They can let the community know here’s what we do and here’s who we are. There’s a lot of great benefits to being portable first.

Rich Birch — Okay, sticking with you, Jeff, and and with that idea, this frame of like, a hey, we’re going to, you know, maybe like you’re saying test or take the first step towards a long term plan that’s portable. I’m sure you’ve had a lot of those conversations with churches over the years that have done that.

Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I’m sure some of them were like, maybe hesitant at the beginning, and then they do it. And then there’s learnings that come back. They they discover, oh wow, this this was different, better. Here were some of the advantages of going portable first. What would be some of those?

Rich Birch — I hear the idea of like, in that church’s example of like, hey, we actually were able to start reaching people rather than waiting for four or five years for a building and then start doing that. We actually start to do that now. That’s a great benefit. Any other, that kind of thing that comes back that people are surprised they didn’t see on the, on the, on the outset.

Jeffrey Beachum — Well, I think people are surprised when they go portable, at least in our experience with portable church, we we see churches are able to bolster their volunteer base. Normally you get into experiences like that and volunteers, you know, they they they do it for a while and then they say, I’m out. But in our case, it’s intuitive enough and exciting enough, and they see the results that the volunteers usually grow in that case.

Jeffrey Beachum — Another great example purpose for going portable first would be to become a part of the community that you’re targeting for that that next facility that’s going to be permanent. If the community sees that you are already a part of them and that you make a difference, they’re going to make it easier for you to get the permissions to get everything constructed in a timely basis. They’re not going to get in the way because they see the value of having you already in the community.

Jeffrey Beachum — And then there’s always, you know, the the the end result is that when people are hurting and you go into a new community and you answer a need and they they get to go to a place that they’re familiar with, the school, the YMCA, movie theater, whatever that is, in a very comfortable setting that they’re already familiar with and learn about Jesus and have hope restored. So there’s just a few, but there’s a lot of reasons to go portable first.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this. In fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t. So the church I’m at now, next year, 2027, will be a 20-year anniversary. And although I’m not on staff anymore, I do this full-time. I’m still a part of the church. I love it. And you know they have like the organizational values. And we we had one of our campuses was portable for 17 years using a Portable Church Industries system. I know you know that, Jeff.

Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And when we, I was like emotional when we were putting those cases away and like unpacking them. It was like, oh my word, like this was like a big deal. And actually one of the the staff team’s values, I just saw this yesterday, I was in the office, is we push cases. And, you know, they they internally, even though they’re not portable anymore, we push cases, this idea of like, hey, we’re all in. And it’s like this thing they kind of tell each other. And I actually think friends like I’m I try I’m trying to be like the unbiased, like, oh, I’m just interviewing these guys. But like, I love Portable Church. I love what they’re up to. I love how you help churches.

Rich Birch — And I think your systems, the actual physical systems that you make are like the biggest competitor to you because I bump into them all the time. You know, a decade later, 15 years later, this stuff is still rolling out there. So, Curt, when you design a system where, you know, let’s say we’re we’re headlong in. We’ve said we’re going to do this. We’re going to we’re going to go portable. What do you prioritize? Is it experience, efficiency, volunteer experience, future growth? Talk us through how that kind of the the framework for how your team thinks through the actual design of these things, because it’s it feels like magic to me that, you know, it all comes together. It’s incredible.

Curt Banter — Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it’s it’s funny. All those things are important. And I think a lot of what you have to do is when we go when we go and meet with a church, we talk through all that stuff. You walk in the building and you get a sense of, okay, what’s your identity? What, you know, how does it feel? What does what does the environment look like? What’s your auditorium experience? What’s what’s your kids? You know, what kind of security do you want? There’s just all these environmental questions that we’re trying to figure out.

Curt Banter — And obviously budget plays a part in it as well, but it’s sort of a balancing act. You’ve got to sort of gather all the information in terms of who they are, what what are they trying to achieve, what’s their timeline, you know, and then you’re kind of baking all that into one big pie and trying to figure out how to you know, balance it all together.

Curt Banter — But yeah, it’s it’s different. And it’s funny, I was I tell people, I’ve told Jeff this story, is like, when we sit down with a church, I always tell people, like, if there’s 10 things that are important, don’t assume that I know what they are, because the 10 things that are really important to this church are not the 10 things that may be important to you.

Rich Birch — That’s so true.

Curt Banter — And every single system has to be, we really base it around what is the the core values of that team, that church.

Rich Birch — And how, reveal what that looks like a little bit for people folks. Cause I do think this is, this might be, this isn’t like a pull it off the shelf kind of thing.

Curt Banter — No.

Rich Birch — You’re building a custom system for people. What does that kind of consulting process look like? How do you, how does that actually, what’s actually look like, Curt?

Curt Banter — Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So a lot of times we’ll we’ll set up a consultation, we’ll go in and it’s a it’s a full day of discovery, right? So it’s a lot of meetings with, it could be the executive pastor, we’re meeting with the production team, we’re meeting with the kids people, everybody, people that are making coffee, literally, you know, every part and piece of it.

Curt Banter — And it’s a lot of just listening. It’s it’s a lot of me writing notes and figuring out what’s important to people. And yeah, we’re also talking about sound boards and PAs and you know lighting systems and all that kind of stuff. But it’s it’s tons and tons of gathering and information. Because yeah there’s there’s not there’s really nothing about the system that’s stock. Every single part and piece of it is customized for every client from some of our most budget systems to systems that are gigantic with lots of trailers and and lots going on, so. But yeah, it’s that data, that customization for each client is a gigantic part of what makes us, us.

Rich Birch — Yeah. And I’ve said to folks who have used you when I knew they were you know coming up to a consultation, I’m like, just just mirroring the same thing you’re saying, just tell them everything. Like don’t like don’t hold back and you know and and talk through it all ah and be really clear.

Curt Banter — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Sometimes people come back and the system’s like, well, that’s maybe not what we were hoping it would be. Maybe everyone has like, what is it? Platinum Dreams and you know they have a smaller budget or whatever.

Curt Banter — Oh, yeah, yeah.

Rich Birch — But but but that’s okay.

Rich Birch — That’s a part of your job is to try to help them right size it and and all that. Jeff, kind of on the brand consistency. Oh, sorry. Jump in. You were going to say something there. Yep.

Jeffrey Beachum — I was just going to follow up with what Curt said, because I’ve attended with Curt a number of the consultations, and just walk away amazed at the value of just being being able to have Curt sit in a room with the leaders and how it feeds to the leaders really well.

Jeffrey Beachum — And so some some significant things that I’ve seen Curt do is help them to understand it. So what kind of a what does your worship feel like? And what kind of sound system do you use? And there are some churches now that I say have the Cadillac of systems and they have the best of everything. And it could be really expensive. And if they’re going to multiply sites, that could get expensive over time.

Jeffrey Beachum — And I’ve seen Curt be very gracious about, all right, so you have this top line equipment. If you’re going to do this two or three times, wouldn’t you like to like jump down to a Buick? and And have your people get really comfortable up with a Buick. Because to be honest with you, only the the professionals recognize the difference between a Buick and Cadillac. All of them still have four wheels and a steering wheel.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Jeffrey Beachum — And so he’ll talk about that. And then another key piece is that depending on who’s in the room when Curt does the discovery, he talks about the balance that people really don’t get to the worship space where the high production happens for 7 to 10 minutes. And they pass a lot of things. So there’s a nice balance to the design of the system with the children’s space, which I think is probably as as important or more important than the worship space, because no parent wants to go in and be have misgivings about what the space looks like and what’s going to happen to the child that they’re going to abandon into the care of these people and then walk across the street and the pastor think for one minute he has their attention enough to to preach the most important hour or 20 minutes of of their life…

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeffrey Beachum — …to change their life. They’re thinking about what the heck did I just do to my kids?

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeffrey Beachum — So I’ve seen Curt very graciously help them balance everything out and say, this is how it is important. And it’s important that we we get it into a system so that it can be done with volunteers quickly and they can have success every single time, every single week.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Jeffrey Beachum — And they can be excited and feel they’re as invested in the message that of the gospel as the pastor is.

Rich Birch — Well, let’s double click on that with you, Curt. You know, I think there’s a lot of executive pastors listening in today and, and I have had this experience as an executive pastor. I’m like talking to some tech person and they’re like, we need the—using Jeff’s thing—we need the Cadillac. Like, you know, the gospel will not go forth without, you know, the Cadillac. And and and I look at all this and I’m like, it’s numbers and letters on a page. And how do I understand all that?

Rich Birch — How do you help leadership teams really not either over invest or under invest, particularly on the technology side? Because that side, you know, a kids panel, you know, that stuff, it feels like, okay, that’s pretty consistent. But this area feels like, man, we can, it’s like sky’s the limit. So how how do you help churches on that piece particularly?

Curt Banter — Yeah, I mean I mean, one of the first things I almost always do is I’ll ask people, to say, are you okay, so do we do you have experts coming to run this, or do you have staff coming to run this, or do you have volunteers running this?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Curt Banter — Because those are two very different things…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Curt Banter — …and if you’ve got volunteers coming, which a great majority of our churches do, then you’ve got to think about who you’re designing this for, right?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Curt Banter — And that is a problem because a lot of production directors are like, this is what I want. I’m like, are are you going to run it? Because if you’re not going to be there, it doesn’t really matter that much, you know. So a lot of times we’re really trying. I mean, sometimes i hate to be the wet blanket, but sometimes I think, and i can i can I can speak the language. I know what all the letters and everything mean.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Curt Banter — But sometimes I’m trying to back them off a little bit to say, look, let’s build a system that’s repeatable. Let’s build a system that anybody…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true.

Curt Banter — …maybe not anybody, but certainly your volunteers, somebody who’s equipped to do it, can do that, set it up in a reasonable amount of time. And and and every week they’re not having to try to troubleshoot it and figure it out and because it’s so complex.

Curt Banter — And yeah, that that may be the right system for your main campus. But a lot of times at these portable locations, we’re trying to do something that’s fast, efficient, volunteer friendly. that’s That’s really key.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s a critical piece.

Curt Banter — So we’re I’m constantly bringing that kind conversation back around to, okay, that’s great. There’s a trade-off in time. There’s a trade-off in expertise. Do we want to do that, you know? And sometimes we say, yeah, that one, we we do want to do it, but maybe we don’t do it over here. there’s you know So it’s always a balancing act there a little bit.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that that to me, that’s a that’s a critical piece. I think it’s such a great thing that that you guys offer to help us think through that. And what is the nuance there and and be another like another voice in the room? Because I think sometimes we end up in those conversations with the with the pro or person that wishes they were a pro you know tech person. And there’re it’s like…

Rich Birch — It’s like they’re they’re they want like the all the bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, they’re not going to have to solve these problems long term.

Curt Banter — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s, Jeff, let’s talk about the volunteer piece, particularly. So, man, I’m here in like set up, tear down, rolling stuff, plugging stuff in. You know, we we know that churches live and die on volunteers in every location, but it’s particularly true in in portable environments. How do systems, well thought out systems from the front end help us win with volunteers, you know week in, week out, not from day one, but then continue over the years.

Jeffrey Beachum — Oh, well, and actually that’s that’s a part of Curt’s team and production and integration and all of that. the The system that Portable Church uses, if you think about it, the the Portable Church has to have all the same stuff your home church has. It’s just all put into a portable system. So you need all of that.

Jeffrey Beachum — And and I’m betting at your home church, you’ve built that up over a series of 5 to 10 years. And here you get it all in one shot. And because that you’re starting out with church and it has to be done well. So you don’t have boomerang volunteers that say, oh, I tried this and I’m going back home. We don’t have that.

Jeffrey Beachum — So some of the things that help with that is that they are designed for that repetitive nature where everything goes in the same place in the case. So every case is designed custom for that particular room. And so one group can come in and set everything up and a whole different group can come in and put it away after you’re done with your one, two, three services. And and it all be in the same place because it everything, every piece has a home and within each case.

Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.

Jeffrey Beachum — And then every case, has a specific place on a trailer because we advocate for trailers and we can explain that later, but everything is weighted out. So we have people that actually weigh each case and where it should go on the trailer so that we’re not breaking some of your volunteers’ hitches, that we’re not having stuff abandoned on the side of the road.

Jeffrey Beachum — And so there’s a meticulous design that goes into meeting the needs so that the church can be effective. And allowing the the case system to be productive. And we have people, kids as early as 10 or 12, they think it’s cool to be able to be a part of that.

Rich Birch — It’s so true.

Jeffrey Beachum — And so they’re from 12 to 80 years old pushing these cases and being helpful in a way that maybe they’re not teachers. Maybe they’re not Sunday school teachers. Maybe they’re not preachers. Maybe they’re not people who welcome you know easily, and they don’t have those skills, but they love pushing the cases and being a part of that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.

Curt Banter — Yeah, that’s to to tag onto that.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Curt Banter — That’s, I mean, the the teams I’ve been a part of in the past, we’ve, we’ve had groups of volunteers that never would have served in a permanent location.

Rich Birch — A hundred percent.

Curt Banter — They had no, they had no place there. They had no home there. Guys that pull trucks, people that are on the security team, people that are bringing in food to the green room, whatever it may be. And they, they really do. They find a home there. They find connection there. It’s not just about the serving. It’s also about the community. They’re very much interlinked.

Rich Birch — Yeah. 100%.

Jeffrey Beachum — And it’s important enough that we we warn churches. So when you go from portable to permanent, you need to find a home for all these amazing volunteers that they can continue to to serve.

Rich Birch — Yeah. And we’ve, I was going to echo that. Like I’ve seen that time and again, in campuses have been a part of where we’ve gone from portable to permanent. And even though I’ve seen it, I’m like, there are a group of these volunteers that are like, they’re the backbone of the church. Like the, it’s all theoretical until the roadies show up and set the thing up. Like we’re, we’re theoretically doing church this weekend. And then this group of heroes show up and, you know, make it all happen.

Rich Birch — And it is a group typically, it’s not always, but it’s my experience has been, it’s typically a group of guys who they don’t necessarily, they love it, but they don’t necessarily fit in other places. And they get this like foundational role in the church and love getting a little bit sweaty. And it’s the systems are designed so they’re not super hard.

Rich Birch — One thing I want to say too, as a friend, like I remember years ago, this is again, probably 20 years ago with Pete, the founder of Portable Church. I was, I was at your location at the production location. And was, I was like waxing eloquently about, man, these cases are incredible. And he like, and you’re going to know what this is. I can’t remember the exact stat, but he he was showing this one case with this door that like flips down and you know he’s like, well, you know, if a certain person of a certain height, if something gets dropped into the bottom of that case, that door is designed so they can lean down and pick it up out of the bottom of that of that case. And he had some stat around like, you know, well you know, like X number of volunteers typically are this.

Rich Birch — And I was like the amount of thinking that’s gone into the design is incredible. like And these are not like these just boxes that you’re pushing around there, although they are, they’re thought through, like lots of small things throughout the entire system that always strike me. I’m like, man, that’s just such a great idea, which is you know pretty incredible.

Rich Birch — Curt, coming back to kind of an a little bit of an earlier question, I want to, there may be people that are listening in there like, yeah, I strategically get that. Maybe we’re going to spend a little less money. We could do some sort of like portable thing to help us before we go, you know, long-term. But some leaders might hear portable and think cheap, temporary, not great, ineffective, not on brand, all that kind of stuff. Help us think through how portable it really, yeah, how does that, what how how do you respond to that? How do you respond to those kind of potential criticisms?

Curt Banter — Yeah. Yeah, I think I was trying to think of, ah you know, what, what causes the cheap thing. And I, I, I hate to say it, but I think sometimes it tends to be a DIY situation. It tends to be something where it’s, it’s that we talked about it earlier, that emergency situation, like I’ve got to figure out a solution.

Rich Birch — Right.

Curt Banter — And so I think sometimes people that go out and they grab this and they grab that and pull together. And now you’ve got this, you know, And there are churches that we go and work with where we sort of refresh the system or optimize the system.

Curt Banter — And a lot of times you’ll see that where it’s just stuff in a trailer.

Rich Birch — Right.

Curt Banter — I mean, it’s just, they’re in boxes. They’re in, you know, cardboard, seen TVs and cardboard boxes that have been in those cardboard boxes for five, six years, you know, that kind of thing.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.

Curt Banter — And I think that’s the, I think that’s sometimes maybe where the cheap comes from. And, and it’s the, the deal with us is, you know, everything’s thought out, right? Everything has a home. Everything has an an an intention in the way that it’s stored, used, trainability in terms of, you know. So, you know, I often say to people like, look, people go and pay lots and lots of money to go see concerts at big venues, right? And that’s all portable. It doesn’t have to be cheap. Those aren’t cheap. It’s really, it’s dependent upon, you know, what is your budget and what is your volunteer base and everything else. It doesn’t need to be cheap. And even at lots of budget levels, it doesn’t look cheap because there’s really a lot of thought that’s put into how it’s used.

Curt Banter — So I don’t think, you know, there’s lots of opportunities to make it look great in a portable situation, but But yeah, it has to be, and like you were talking about with Pete, it has to be thought out. It has to be engineered. It has to be put together in a way that’s easy and fast and and looks good and has quality about it.

Rich Birch — Well, and this this gets to how many churches you guys have worked with. Like, this is the insane, like, it’s some giant number. Like, it’s I know I said thousands at the front end, but what what is that number, Jeff? What is that? It’s it’s some huge number, right?

Jeffrey Beachum — I, I think right now it’s got to be north of like 4000 churches over the last 30 years.

Curt Banter — Something like that.

Rich Birch — See, this is friends. This is what I’m saying. There are people that are listening in and you’re like, we could just do this on our own. And I’m like, well, why would you do that? Like talk to the people who have, they, although your situation is super unique, they’ve worked with 4,000 other churches in super unique situations and have helped them figure it out. And man, like that’s, you wanna leverage all of that thinking to help you figure out, okay, how are we gonna get this to work at, you know, insert junior high, high school, whatever it is, you know, bowling alley, whatever it is, wherever you’re you’re moving into, that’s that’s great.

Jeffrey Beachum — Yep.

Rich Birch — Curt, oh, sorry, go ahead, Jeff.

Jeffrey Beachum — Well, I was just going to so I would also, when it comes to the value piece, ask how how valuable is it for you to have and to continue the momentum that you have going into your next, your next facility, whatever that is.

Jeffrey Beachum — So you’ve got a gap when you finally realize, man, we got to do something and we got do something fast. Portability can be done within three to four months. We can have you on the ground, in your site and probably for an investment of maybe 3 to 5 or 7% of whatever that end expense is going to be, could be invested to keep that momentum going and to make things stronger.

Jeffrey Beachum — And so with that gap between we need to land somewhere and landing in a permanent spot, you could have anywhere from a three to five year gap that could be highly productive in a highly professional environment with professional gear run by your volunteers.

Jeffrey Beachum — And I don’t know very many, I mean, there are some guys that do DIY and do it well, but I don’t know very many that take into consideration all those engineering feats…

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeffrey Beachum — …that originally were thought up 30 years ago and Curt’s team continues now.

Rich Birch — Right.

Jeffrey Beachum — They produce a system that is amazing and helpful. And most of our the churches that we work with, they they come back. In fact, Liberty Live, we just did another interview with Liberty Live, and they were gushing about how much we’ve helped them with several sites. And it’s wonderful to hear that they’re effective because of us putting you know a carpet on wood and putting the right stuff in the right places and helping them to share the gospel.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. That’s so good. Yeah, and i love that. You may not like what I’m able to say, but I’ve said this behind your backs. But, you know, so so many times I’ve said to leaders when they’re thinking about this exact moment, I’m like, okay, so let’s talk about worst case scenario.

Rich Birch — Let’s be the like, okay, we we launched this location and this campus and we’re, you know, we’re excited about it. It’s working well. But, you know, we don’t know. You don’t know what’s going to happen there.

Rich Birch — Well, the beautiful thing about a portable system is like, let’s give that a run for two or three years. And but best case scenario, four years, like the example you used, four years, we end up moving into some other facility. Well, that’s great. Well, what we do what do we do with this portable system? We take it and put it somewhere else, which I know you’d like us to say, you buy a new system. But but but I say, just take it and you know get them to come back and retrofit it…

Jeffrey Beachum — Yes.

Rich Birch — …and then go into a new location which you can’t do I don’t know any, and I’ve known multiple churches that have done exactly that play, which is, you know, just, you talk about stewardship. That’s just incredible use of the resources that God’s given you.

Rich Birch — It’s amazing stuff.

Curt Banter — Yeah, we’re in the process of…

Rich Birch — Well, as we’re coming to land here, sorry, go ahead.

Curt Banter — …to say we’re in the process of talking to several churches right at the moment that are that are retooling systems that they’ve had in play for 5 to 10 years.

Rich Birch — Right.

Curt Banter — And it’s exactly it’s an engine, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Curt Banter — They use it for growth. They retool it and they put it back out there to do the next one. And that’s part of the plan. It’s not a happenstance. They they that is the plan, like is to always keep pushing that thing forward.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, absolutely. And that DUI thing, DUI, that’s different. DUI, do it yourself, DIY. That’s a Freudian slip. The that happens in churches all the time.

Rich Birch — You know, a friend of mine’s church, they were, you know, I was like, you really should be using Portable Church. And they didn’t use Portable Church and they came to their opening weekend and a key piece of gear did not fit through the door. Jeff knows the church I’m talking of.

Rich Birch — And they, you know, I was, you know, the leader that I know is like a little bit frustrated with, you know, with all that. And I happened to see pictures of their launch and I’m like, oh, you got it through the door. And they’re like, no, we did not get it through the door. We ended up spending more money and figured out like an older thing or something and retrofitted. And I’m like, gosh, like, you would have saved all that hassle just talking to someone who’s gone ahead and figured out how do you fit all this into a box and get it through a door.

Rich Birch — As we’re coming to land, maybe a couple last ah questions, maybe one for you, Jeff. If if there’s a leader that’s in this, they’re they’re facing the capacity pressure right now, what’s kind of one step they should take in this next 90 days? Where should they go next? and then I got one last question for you, Curt, as we wrap up.

Jeffrey Beachum — So the next 90 days, I would say, certainly you’re not going to land in a new location in the next 90 days. But what you can do is you can take a look in your crystal ball and say, I think something could be in our future and begin to know what you don’t know.

Rich Birch — Good.

Jeffrey Beachum — And I would say there’s a lot about going portable, the benefits of portability, some of the processes involved that we would love to just tell you about and inform you about so that 12, 18, 24, even 36 months down the road, you you have that knowledge and you say, all right, I’ve got this one in my pocket. I know I can do this. And we would be here to help you.

Jeffrey Beachum — So I would say in the next 90 days, give us a call and talk to us and say, hey, I don’t know when we’re going to do this, but I kind of feel that we’re going to have to. Can you help me understand and learn about it?

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Jeffrey Beachum — I guess that’s the best step.

Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s fantastic. You can go to your website, right? Portablechurch.com/Jeff, I think is the answer.

Jeffrey Beachum — Yes.

Rich Birch — If you want to actually talk with you, which is amazing. I’ve so i’ve told people that I’m like, Jeff will get on the phone and talk to you. Like he’s a real live human.

Jeffrey Beachum — Forever.

Rich Birch — And at the end of it, it’s not like, you know, there’s a, you know, a credit card, you’re buying a new system. That’s not what it is. It’s like, Hey, we want to help you understand early, get in the process. You cannot start the conversation too early. You know, I appreciated Curt saying like, hey, I talked to this leader and they said maybe 10, 12 weeks from now I need something done.

Rich Birch — Don’t do that. Like start early. Like if you’re as and they say they’ll do that. That’s fine. That’s that’s Portable Church. They’ll actually help you. But from my end as an operator, I’m like, even if you’re inkling thinking like early in the we might be doing something down the road. I’m not even sure if this is an option. Call Jeff – he’d be happy to help you.

Rich Birch — Curt, for you, senior leader of the organization – you know, Portable Church is doing a great job. 4,000, we’re looking forward to that when you click over 5,000 churches. What would you say to a leader that’s listening in today as they’re thinking about expansion, maybe a senior leader, like, you know, a lead pastor, that sort of thing? What kind of words of advice or wisdom would you give them as we wrap up today’s episode?

Curt Banter — Yeah. It’s funny, like as, as people are growing and they’re expanding, we’ve talked about this a few times, but think about, you’ve poured everything you got into your, especially if you’re in one location, you’ve poured everything you got into that one location. All of you’ve got your special sauce and all of those people that are really talented at what they do. And now you’re like, we need to grow. And maybe that’s another location. And okay, how how are we going to do that?

Curt Banter — And I think a lot of people are really commonly saying, okay, we’re going to stretch that base over two. And a lot of times you can sort of get away with that a little bit. But what tell you what you go to three or even as you really fully expand into two, you’re going to feeling it. And so the the thing I would always say is, again, think about your long-term strategy.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Curt Banter — Think about what you’re going to need in terms of your team, in terms of repetition and process. And it just it’s going to serve you so well in the long run to be thinking about how the people play into this and how you’re going reproduce it versus just you know getting through this moment.

Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, appreciate you guys being on today. Again, if you want more information on Portable Church, you can just drop by portablechurch.com. There’s a ton of information on there, lots of helpful resources and all that.

Rich Birch — And if you want to talk to Jeff specifically, just go to portablechurch.com/Jeff. He would love to jump on a call with you and talk you through whatever you know kind of issues, or even if it’s just like, hey, we’re kind of thinking about this.

Rich Birch — What questions should we be asking? He would love to jump on a call with you. So thanks so much, gentlemen. I appreciate you being here today.

Curt Banter — It’s good to be here.

Jeffrey Beachum — Thanks. Appreciate it Rich.