Why a Christian Movie Central?

In 2010 Peoria, Illinois, we saw how Christian movies were each trying to reinvent the wheel in their marketing. EVERY film team had to try to raise awareness for THEIR film in EACH city they played.

But all their effort meant NOTHING for the film that opened weeks or months later.

The national efforts that did exist had their own issues – including an audience tired of hearing “coming soon to a theater near you” when the nearest theater was 5 hours away!

We decided to change that in Peoria, Illinois. We wanted to capture the momentum of each film to help the next, through a simple question:

Would you like to know about other
Christian films coming to our area?

That simple question… but the answer was more often than not… YES!

With every film, we grew a local audience of people who WANTED to know about future Christian films, so any film coming to Peoria had an audience already and eager to support them!

“Where else are you guys located?”
– Many in the Film industry

We lost track how many Christian film teams, directors, producers, and other asked us this question – they saw us as effective, but thought we were part of a larger organization..

In 2014, filmmaker Chip Rosetti caught the vision and started the Southern Indiana Christian Movie Central, in Evansville – the second CMC! TWO cities, TWO states!!

Four Years of Growth

In 2016, we realized that a coordinated effort would be more effective than a random mix of CMCs with little direction, and in 2017 another SEVEN CMC’s were planted – 5 across central Illinois, plus one each in Indiana (Fort Wayne) and Kentucky (Bowling Green.)

2018 saw another SEVEN CMCs, and 2019 FORTY-TWO, for a total of 58 CMCS.

The start of 2020 saw the ministry set 3 year-end goals:
1. 100+ Christian Movie Centrals
2 All 50 States
3. Reach 25,000 Online Reach

(Social Media plus Email Subscriptions)

We hit goal #2 in mid September (Central Maryland and Santa Fe NM)

We hit #1 in early October (Quincy, IL)

The 3rd goal, which sat at about 9700 at the end of 2019, is now around 28,000 (Dec. 2021)

All this growth has been with a fairly small base of supporters (under 10), and we realized growing that base is critical to further growth.

In 2021 we didn’t push as much with paid Facebook ads, so the growth has been slower, but we still added 8 more CMCs (no more states to add!). Our short term goal is to build THE CREW to 100 at the mid-range ($12/mo) or Upper ($25/mo) in order to use both ads and launch the smartphone app without financial strain.

Join The Crew

Christian Movie Central is completely VOLUNTEER run. We have NO paid staff, no salaries. We also have no mortgage or rent as a ministry. This means our overhead is minimal and more of every dollar goes to the ministry.

We are committed to
LOCAL FOCUS

NATIONAL EFFORT
ETERNAL IMPACT

We exist because of a local focus to share Christian films in a defined area.

Our efficiency comes from the national effort to align branding and use of templates to reduce duplication of work.

Our passion is knowing our effort is not for the sake of a temporary box office, but for the eternal impact of Kingdom growth!

Will YOU join THE CREW?

You can be. Easily. THE CREW is simply our base of recurring financial partners. Believe it or not, our growth to all 50 states and well over 100 CMCs has been done with recurring, regular supporters of…. single digits!

We have 3 levels of support – our prayer is really about having growing numbers of supporters rather than big checks rolling in. To be honest, if someone wants to give tens of thousands of dollars, why not help fund a Christian film (maybe with some support coming our way!)

Our 3 “defined” are below – but you can select any amount and time frame. Gifts of appreciation are based on the per-month equivalent of your recurrence.

$6/month: A Christian Movie Central or available Christian film pen from inventory

$12/month: A pen as above, plus a DVD from our inventory (subject to change)

$25/month: Pen and DVD, plus an exclusive, not-for-sale THE CREW Christian Movie Central shirt!

Join The Crew

There will also be a private Facebook Group, exclusive quarterly email updates, and from time to time we might be able to provide other surprises as we work with our partners.

Two main requests:
1. Support your LOCAL CHURCH comes first
2. Meet your PERSONAL and FAMILY needs before supporting us

We believe this ministry is important, but it, like everything, needs to have the appropriate priority.

The focus on recurring partnerships is so we can make financial plans for March of 22, or next September, or even 2023 (it will be here soon.)

QUESTIONS? PLEASE let us know.

WANT A CMC IN YOUR AREA (or your hometown, college town, or a friend?) Let us know that too!

Because He Lives!

Rich Gerberding
Christian Movie Central – National Director
Rich@ChristianMovieCentral.com


OTHER WAYS TO JOIN “THE CREW”

Join The Crew

Searchie takes your video (sermon, training video, etc) and adds subtitles and a searchable transcript. When you search a word in the transcipt, the timeline at the bottom of the video will also show WHERE in the video that word appeared.
So if you want to jump to a certain topic of discussion, you no longer have to “Guess” when it was and jump forward and backward. You can just search for a word or phrase and go to that point in the video!

If you sign up through our Searchie Affiliate Code, we will include you as a member of THE CREW for as long as you maintain your Searchie account.

(Note: Because we are receiving the financial support through Searchie, you would not receive any tax benefits for your support.)