Under Construction

AMPLIFY

Isayah 61 will AMPLIFY the work of the local churches. To amplify in this context is to MAKE LOUDER the reach of the churches. To do that, we will launch several mostly joint ventures with cooperative and like minded bodies of believers. The reality is that many people will not come IN to a church in our society. So, our outreach programs are designed to being them a source of value which meet needs that are common to all residents. These outreaches may be retail, recreational, entertainment, or social/human services which specifically bridge the gap between the churches and the public. 

All outreaches will engage church members with specialized outreach training in showing God's Love to the general public. The main benefit for churches is that they will be presenting something of great value to the community at much lower costs than any current outreach method. The fact that multiple churches are involved not only helps with costs and manpower, it broadens the Public Relations aspect seeing that 3 or 5 differently named churches all gathered for the benevolent action and none of them are battling for new members in the process...

So if my church leaders are unaware, the public notices the constant tug of war over members, the begging and constant commercials over "tithes & offerings", and the backbiting among different streams of doctrines in the church community. A large portion of the unchurched population either came out of a church, grew up in church as a child, or had a friend on relative who soured their views on The Church. Any if there's any bad feelings those people probably aren't out of line based on our history. Some churches will remain aloof and secluded from the world; demanding that the world comes to the church and acts our way and thinks our way before they step foot inside. Those same churches also seclude themselves from every other church who doesn't operate or believe the same way as they do. That's their choice but it limits them from actually reaching people who want to be reached. Okay, back to how we're going to right this ship...

The next big church helping aspect of our programs is the Resource acquisition arm. Take a look at the other pages where the needs of some churches are mentioned. Does your church have needs??? Once the Church/Ministry Network Database is installed on this or a revamped website, there will be a portion of that database which every church can have private access to. It is planned to operate in a similar way to a social media classified website. There will be a portion for the public to search for churches in Georgia and see their Biography and programs as well as a private area just for ministries to network with each other for prayer, collaborations, and resources. The public side will have a searchable stack which allows them to search for churches near their area with specific programs which meet their goals in finding the right fit. Each church or ministry can upload exactly what they want to portray in order to attract new members. Initially, our staff will input all the data and make sure the system is working well before the full scale launch. After that, the database profiles will be more tailored to the church's input opportunities if they should choose. Our goal is to help the public get plugged in as we engage them in the community. The private aspect of the database will be utilized for inter-ministry connections as if indeed we were ONE CHURCH... (because we literally are evne if we don't all believe that). So lets say Shepherd's Staff Ministries has a person come through the food line with a desire to find a local Celebrate Recovery meeting close to Bold Springs. Their staff can sign on to the I61 site and search for that meeting, contact the coordinator at that church, and share the name and phone number of the person searching. Also, if 1st Church of The Community has a person in need show up on their doorstep with a need for marriage counseling services as well as a men's shelter for the alcoholic husband who in now locked out of the house... and 1st Church happens to be a small Sunday & Wednesday service with 2 days of office hours church because the pastor works a full time job as a museum tour guide near Atlanta plus has 6 children under the age of 12... that church secretary can log into the database and query some options where the husband can get some help and housing as well as giving the couple some options for counseling at a larger church or maybe the same ministry with the men's shelter. Additionally, Is61 and churches can create and view needs and opportunities in the areas. If your church is in need of a worship leader or drummer for 2 weeks, make a post. If say a pastor has a spare musician laying around and determines that the other church is worthy of the effort to ask their member if they can help (involves trust and responsibility) they can try to help. If a pastor/leader feels that there could be a loss of member or that the asking church's reputation or doctrinal differences are over the top offensive, then they simply ignore the ask. If a church or ministry has a tangible need such as food for homeless/outreach, to borrow extra chairs for an outreach, sound equipment, or an event tent, they can post the need. Kingdom minded pastors will gladly share their extra resource and even may enjoy giving that thing away as it allows for an upgrade or frees up a storage space. And all other ministries should be sharing in like manner. Okay so what if one is always borrowing and never lending... when we know they could be... They will answer to God for that!!! Reality; we are called to give to who asks and not let our left hand know what our right hand is giving. This is an opportunity to trust God. In practicality, if churches utilize the database correctly, the Is61 staff will be in the loop as far as how the community is functioning together. If some anomalies do present themselves, there will be some training and phone conversations to indirectly address the deficiency in Christ-like interactions. Will anyone be punished? No. But, might the posts of the unfriendly church start having a rating on them as far as their sharing engagement.... ? eh, likely. 

How many churches have been dreading the summer time bounce house rental bill??? Well, we have a solution. The reality is that most churches will have their bounce house needs fall around the same time each year. But not all the time! One of our programs once we have the storage space to pull it off, is to gather some of the churches with deeper pockets and they all go in together on say 5 good bounce houses. Isayah 61 stores them and churches in the network can sign them out for $50-$100 plus a deposit for "damage or cleaning" and everyone agrees to return them in good order. Isayah 61 maintains them and utilizes the database for arranging who is borrowing them. The churches who footed the bill originally have dibs on booking them first and avoid the booking fee. The fees other ministries pay to borrow the bouncers can go in to a fund which then eventually affords more bouncers until our warehouse is filled and the fees can get reduced so it is even more affordable for each church going forward. Why would Is61 want to go through this major effort? Because bounce house rentals are a major attraction for families exploring new churches by attending an event. The better presentation a church can offer, the more likely a new family will enjoy themselves and find a place to call home. Those churches could spend $100-$150 on 2 bouncers rather than $600-$800 per day for a retailer (who does come and set it up but also might charge extra to have the staff person be an attendant) So, if we save a church $500 or more per event, that is more funds they have for food, security, prizes, or simply keeping their normal budget intact! I helped throw a fall festival for a new church outreach in 2024 and they ordered the cheapest bouncer they could in order to have one and 2 barely adult volunteers ended up scraping together the $300 at the last minute after someone who volunteered to pay for it backed out and the church had no true budget for that outreach. Side story, I also was short on funds and took it upon myself to buy some special paper to make invites to hand out around town with money I didn't have (credit card). I was carrying around the paper packs at Walmart and started sharing Jesus with a stranger and ended up praying for him for his back. When we were walking out of the store, the man offered to pay for the 3 packs of invitation cards in my hand. I told him what they were for and I can't remember which one of us was almost in tears... End Story. So, RESOURCE SHARING is an integral part of developing a cohesive Christian community. 

Another resource sharing endeavor I have just initiated is collecting Audio/Video and other tech items for dispersing to churches in need. It seems that I find many churches with deficits in sound or lighting. I formerly owned a Pro Audio business specializing in church audio after working as an apprentice for a Church Sound Engineer. That and being a worship leader and the sole staff member of a church's entire media department... I am quite comfortable repairing and configuring sound, lighting, media, graphic design, and pretty much anything but IP networking... So, I am now asking the church world to donate unwanted older equipment so that I can give them or lend them to churches who have needs. (while I fix their current equipment or for emergencies or even outreaches) I do not charge anything to repair lights or cables etc. I've donated more than $800 in hourly repairs/tech help (what I would have charged 20yrs ago) to one local church alone. It's my joy to fix electronics and help people so I just do that as I go in Jesus Name! Now, don't ask me about streaming yet because that came after my day but I'm learning as I go. I do have many connections locally for those helps.

Other mentions: The network of interconnected ministries will also allow for special rates on ordering common church items. Lets say 10 churches all use the same paper towels or TP. Is61 will off-shoot a sub-corporate entity with a Distributorship purpose and classification. This distributorship will obtain contracts with manufacturers directly which supply items which are common to most churches and other businesses. To launch this, those 10 churches agree on their quantity of initial order so that we can combine the orders and obtain the best wholesale pricing available. We receive the bulk order and disperse to those churches and temporarily store what they cannot fit until they need it. Once we have that agreement, we can keep placing smaller orders just as needed and pass the savings on to the churches. To then monetize the endeavor, we'll have interns or possibly a job skills program initiate make calls to local businesses and inquire if they would like to order their products through our distributorship. We'll undercut the standard pricing and still retain a nice profit for ministry uses and paying the employee and facility expenses. Because we can use a volunteer base and also because this endeavor is designed as a supply chain funnel instead of a way for a CEO to afford a fancy car and big house, we do not need to retain full retail expectations. This is a blessing for churches and all our related or unrelated ministries in the area. This goes beyond paper goods to computers and tablets, guitars and sound boards, LED lights and communion cups, stanchions and Bibles, and many other things that churches or ministries regularly use. This also then becomes a vehicle for obtaining goods to give away to those in need or to utilize in community outreaches at Distributor level costs. Some parts will require an Angel Investor but for the most part, the local churches should provide the startup capital by joining their initial orders in order to save capital long term. I more recently owned a Renewable Energy business. I did that in order to acquire all my own solar powering gear at wholesale initially but made enough profits so that all my gear ended up being free. I did that as a piggyback on a very successful business and then phased the solar products out once my needs were met. Those businesses were operated on a wholesale/retail level. Now, we're going deeper into Distribution. Here is where the difference lies: I added Duracell and Energizer branded rechargeable household batteries to my retail inventory a few years ago. What most annoyed me was that my wholesale cost going through 2 different Distributors was just about the same as another well known huge retailer was charging as their retail price. I ended up sourcing my favorite Duracell brand from an actual retailer since my sales were not expected to offset the cost of the bulk wholesale order. If I ordered say $4M on the initial order and wrote an agreement to continue ordering $1M per year for a minimum of years, then my pricing would reflect the normal 35% markup which let that huge retailer sell at what my wholesale was. The same was true on my renewable energy products but since I was ahead of the curve, I still made a good profit since I had no competition and had a great export clientele base. Don't worry, those 10 churches won't have to order millions of dollars of paper products. We just need to have a good initial order and promise to keep ordering. The same will go for guitars, lighting, communion cups, etc. 

Want to put out a radio ad? how about splitting the cost between 3 churches in different areas. One ad with a common message gets paid for by a church in Winder, a church in Monroe, and a church in Lilburn. Want to advertise your holiday event? Maybe 4 churches in Lawrenceville all have their service at the same time; why not combine the advertisement with 10am service in Lawrenceville at A B C & D. Maybe 2 churches are supporting a pregnancy center and the message at the end is, "sponsored by Church E in Social Circle and Church F in Conyers." 

Want to do some real outreach? What about 8 churches rent the Dacula Town Green, sell vendor spaces to Compassion International, Samaritans Purse, The Salvation Army, and 20 arts and crafts vendors from their own churches or even ministries. They collaborate on a few worship team cover bands playing top 40 Christian songs (half of which we sing in churches every week) and even book David Crowder and Mac Powell who are locals to end the event with 3 songs each while having a prayer booth, evangelists, face painting, those afore-mentioned bounce houses, a few free carnival games with prizes while supplies last, and free snow cones from 2pm-4pm with intermittent rotation of inspirational words between music sets... Maybe Jeff Foxworthy tells a few jokes in the afternoon for 15 minutes since he also lives nearby. Maybe those church's pastors have a Dad Joke competition (the same jokes we have to hear on Sunday mornings and we all know it's comin!). How do they coordinate this? How do they set ground rules for cooperation? How do they know which pastor is already friends with those Christian performers and can send them a text? (I know who knows them...) How do 8 churches who've never worked together before pull off such an amazing event to reach the community? They HIT THE EASY BUTTON: Isayah 61! While I would still relay on staff and volunteers, this is where experience pays off. Isayah 61 will be growing staff and volunteers to do things like this. We'll know who knows who and develop expertise in everything related to reaching out in public places with amazing events. While church leaders are carrying their normal loads, they'll essentially outsource major event planning in the community to their trusted partners like Is61 and affiliated ministries. Another opportunity to trust God for outcomes. nothing BIG comes from _tiny faith. This is the AMPLIFY part. 2 churches can do more than 1. 5 churches can do more together than 2. 8 churches can do more than 5 to reach a town or even a major city. While many locals will attend such an event and hopefully plug in to the host churches in numbers, an event like the above will draw people from an hour to two hours away thanks to the power of radio and social media. These types of events will have ripple effects in farther GA communities. This is going to send residents to search for churches in their distant towns as well. By the way, the name Is61 is not going to be the name anyone hears of around town for these outreaches. Is61 is for us church folk who actually read that chapter... or who are going right now to read it. These events will just get some catchy name and we'll all wear tshirts with all the church sponsor's names on the back and a QR code that guests can just scan for follow info which will also lead them to get plugged in to one of the sponsoring churches. Can you do this without Is61? Yes. I hope that works great for you. Is Is61 setting up to handle most of these logistics for you? And share our Bounce Houses, Snow-Cone machines, Outdoor quality PA equipment, specialized staff who can get permits and has already done all the networking to have favor within local towns, Relationships with people who know people? Yes. Here for you if and when you need. Otherwise, Is61 will be ministering in the streets, partying with pastors at their events, praying with pastors who are weary, hosting weekly gatherings for pastors, praying for entire churches and ministries 5 days a week, setting up an orphanage, buying food for food pantries when they're low, rushing supplies over to an emergency, stepping in to solve problems in churches and ministries with any resource we have or can acquire, and generally para-churching the Christian community in GA.

Lastly, I shared this elsewhere but Isayah 61 WILL indeed plant... churches!?! Yes, but NOT in a traditional way. 
As Isayah 61 grows in capital and in a network of Kingdom minded churches and businesses, we will initiate a capital fund to purchase vacant/ closed church buildings around GA. The hope is to buy ALL of them. The reality is that we'll have to choose selectively by their potential to house a new body of believers again. The saddest thing in the Kingdom is losing territory to the secular. When a church building sits on the market long enough, the seller must let it go to whomever will take it off their hands. They often are turned in to retail establishments, event venues, or in some cases places where "adult" activities are prevalent. I currently have my eye on about 10 churches in Savannah and Macon combines which could be slated for such a loss. Both cities are in major decline and there is currently not any surprise that those churches are no longer needed. While only a few could reasonably be acquired and rehabbed by our future volunteers (I can do it myself for the most part if I had to and all for free labor!), if we can save even just a few a year it would be a great start to something new in that area. This is a longer term plan but after the networks are set up near Atlanta for the Is61 Mission, the local pastors and elders who will be overseeing the work (like the book of Acts) will be tasked with ensuring it stays on mission. The next Mission will likely be Savannah and we'll create the Coastal Christian Mission with similar like minded pastors and leaders there. After that, we should be able to send some missionaries to Macon to work that field also. In every city where the church is in major decline, there are multiple empty church buildings for sale. Some can become the HQ for that Mission and others will serve as ministry venues until a work can be established to run on its own. Maybe Is61 starts a men's Bible study at one saved church building and then the men there grow in number to start needing other churchy type services. Maybe these men don't fit exactly well in the current church environment and need a pastor. At that point, Is61 would work within that community to find a good leader for them and at the same time, seek out a parent church organization that has a trustworthy reputation and the ability to purchase the property from our general control (angel investor or sub-corp or trust). We then simply add that new body to the local database and keep going until all of Georgia has heard and felt the Gospel in some meaningful way.