Non-profit activity-Michael Edwards

PowerPoint Presentation

COASTAL CHRISTIAN CHURCHOcean City, NJ

Coastal Christian is a small church located in Ocean City, New Jersey. They currently have services on Thursday night and two services on Sunday mornings. Pastor Matt Stokes and Pastor Sal are the two leaders of the congregation. Pastor Matt leads the services on most Thursday nights and the two services on Sunday mornings while Pastor Sal fills in and provides most messages in regards to the ongoings at Coastal Christian1

Pastor Matt and Coastal Christians positive and uplifting messages are being received and appreciated by the Ocean City community. These types of messages have helped lead the area through a rough last year, either by Hurricane Sandy wiping out the beaches and homes, or the financial woes of recent times.2

GIVING, CARINGPERSONAL, PRIVATE

Coastal Christian provides many different kinds of Ministries for their congregation to help with questions, concerns, prayer needs and overall needs of the community. These Ministries include womens, mens, couples, meals and young adults to name a few. The Ministries that were decided in helping with a leadership role were the Mens and Meals Ministries. These groups appealed the most to me, especially as something I could remain a part of after this project is finished. 3

The Mens and Meals Ministries provide help and support to many people in the community. For the Mens group, this is a way for Fathers, brothers, husbands and friends to voice concerns, problems with family, health and just to fellowship. This provides a great release of the everyday struggles and stresses in these mens lives and a forum for them to share these with friends and non-judging people. The Meals Ministry is a fantastic and helps give nourishment to the families of the local communities who cannot provide it for their families. These Ministries are extremely beneficial to everyone in need and should be shared with a larger audience.4

TOUCHINGLIVES

There are a few issues facing Coastal Christian, mainly being their limited reach to neighboring and much larger communities and townships. Areas next to Ocean City include; Northfield, Egg harbor Township and Mays Landing. These communities have large populations of people, much more than Ocean City, that Coastal Christian would love to reach and bring in to their family. For me personally, a signal that I caught on the radio in Egg Harbor Township years ago is the reason I starting going to this church. 5

While Coastal Christian does have a radio station, it is a listeners powered radio station that has a very limited reach and does not get to bigger communities. In addition, they do not have the resources at the present time to advertise on a premier and regional radio station that can tap into a larger audience. The only other advertising that can be budgeted right now is in the Ocean City Gazette which is the local printing of Ocean City and not being able to advertise in more regional presses.6

The bigger problem as far as reaching out and touching new audiences is the fact that Egg Harbor Township has two of the largest Christian based church services in South Jersey, Shore Fellowship and Greentree. These two churches have regional radio and newspaper ads, as well as even having broadcasts on the local NBC studios on Sunday mornings. This puts Coastal Christian at a severe disadvantage in marketing and makes it harder to tap into a new demographic.7

The strategy at our meetings was to not come in and demand attention. My strategy was to become a supportive leader in these Ministry meetings. By showing a genuine concern and interest in the well-being and ideas of the fellow leaders and followers, then respect can be earned. The main concern was the psychological reactions of the group and this supportive strategy would help to ease the perceptions, attitudes and uneasy feelings of the group members. 8

In addition, since I am the owner of a small company and do have some marketing and advertising experience, I believed that using a person-based power was appropriate. In this case, an expert based strategy was used to convey my sense of knowledge to help get the word out about the Ministries we were trying to promote. The group members and volunteer followers were receptive to some of the ideas and understood that I had some previous knowledge that may benefit the Ministries. This helped the immediate cohesiveness of our group.9

The first strategy that was suggested during our early meeting sessions was to see if radio advertising was feasible at all. After our meetings, I contacted three of the most respected and listened to stations in South Jersey including, Lift FM, Praise FM an K-Love. These stations could help to not only reach down to Cape May and up to Cherry Hill, but also have big listener audiences who live all throughout South Jersey. I lived only 10 minutes away and had even spent summers in Ocean City without knowing about Coastal Christian for some time.10

The next strategy was to contact regional publishing presses and local television programming. These included; The Press of Atlantic City, The Current of various communities and NBCs local broadcasting as well. When discussing this strategy with the staff of Coastal Christian, it was met with Glass half empty emotions. These ideas were considered but never followed through before. I tried to inspire the staff when I spoke about helping to reach out to a bigger audience and having not only townships but neighboring counties know about the great Ministries that are being offered here. 11

After meeting with and contacting several of the vendors, I came back to the group with some pieces of information and advice. Following the Path-Goal Theory of Leadership, I tried to motivate the group and followers by using the positive information that I received. Regional advertising could be a possibility with some fundraising events and this attractiveness of a goal, suddenly increased everyones confidence that we could possibly get our voice outside of the local community. 12

The next goal of the leadership project was to gather a small group of staff members to think of ideas for a fundraiser. These funds could be used to contract a regional radio station or local television broadcast. The idea, in keeping with strategies that will not neutralize the effectiveness, was to keep a small group, while selecting members that Pastor Matt suggested would work together well. This group was very cohesive and creative, while staying organized an focused. As the leader, my goal was to keep everyone participative and involved. 13

As a leader, I am happy to say that The Soups On, was a thought that was tossed around right before I came on board. Since I have been helping with the Meals Ministry, we have nailed down this event and it should be a great success. The proceeds from this event will help to supply more food to the Ministry, but also allow for a portion to be reserved for a possible slot on a local television or regional radio spot. This event will give provide food for a small fee and have games for the kids, while allowing people to fellowship and donate money.14

After consulting with other groups of men in the congregation on personal and informal levels, we gathered some information about what would make the Mens Ministries better or even add to events that the men could be a part of to continue in their fellowship. Coastal Christian has a softball league every spring and early summer for men, but nothing in the fall and winter. As of this time, we are 50% completed on a program to initiate a basketball league for community and church going men. This league will start every November-December and will be a traveling team that will play other churches. This will also help reach out to more individuals about what we are about. 15

Proceeds from these games will go to ensuring this league for the future as well as adding to the reserve funds. New events and fundraisers were also discussed during our small group meetings and will be implemented during the coming year with the hope of raising the funding, as well as the budget to afford more advertising. Through these fundraisers, especially when done in neighboring communities, can spread the word of our great church and the Ministries that are available through it. The word of mouth through sports leagues can also help with recruiting for our Mens Ministries.16

My suggestions for moving forward to help market and advertise these great Ministries is to follow the leadership of Pastor Matt Stokes. He has had visions for the future of these groups and although the members are committed, they seemed a little lacking in the confidence to follow creative ideas. Through my time in a leadership role here, hopefully the members have seen that these things are possible with a little faith, which is ironic, as well as a little creativity. In leading this group, I tried to learn some behavior patterns from Pastor Matt, who is not only a charismatic and supportive leader, but more importantly is an involved and knowledgeable leader17

As a leader in this project, there were many behaviors and strategies that I took away from it and will use in the future. Some of the key behaviors were to be supportive and an active listener. Letting your group members and followers have an active say in the decisions is a great way to establish respect while also showing a selfless leadership style. The strategies of being a good leader are analyzing and finding the strengths of your group. Making sure that your group is small enough and committed is another key in a successful leadership strategy. Overall, this was a great and eye opening experience and I will continue to be an active participant in the Coastal Christian Ministries.18