Firm Helps Make Churches Portable

FRANKLIN, Tenn. —  Pete van der Harst isn’t a man of the cloth, but he knows how to pack the pews. And the vestments and Bibles, too.

Van der Harst owns Portable Church Industries, a company in Troy, Mich., that caters to new churches and parishes without permanent homes.

Not only will his company provide the goods for worship, it also will design the crates, boxes and cartons necessary to pack, move and store them each week. “If everything burned to the ground tomorrow,” van der Harst says, “give us about eight weeks and we can have [a church] up and running in a local high school.”

Portable Church Industries has a variety of clients--churches starting from scratch, churches moving into new homes, churches separating from other churches. It also can help churches destroyed by tornadoes, arson or other natural and man-made calamities.

Back in 1990, van der Harst was charged with finding the most convenient way to store goods for a new church he had helped found in Michigan. Eventually, he began consulting for other churches, then opened his business full time.

Portable Church Industries now has about 50 clients--26 new ones this year alone--ranging from Honolulu to Canada. A two-day consultation costs $1,250, plus travel expenses for van der Harst or his other full-time designer.

Last summer, Jeff Schulte turned to van der Harst’s company when he helped start Fellowship Bible Church in Franklin, Tenn., south of Nashville. The church, with 250 members, has been worshiping in the high school cafeteria.

“You’ve got to come in and adapt it with little or no impact,” Schulte says. “All you’re using is their roof.”

Each week, everything that makes a church--including toys, sound and projection equipment, religious instruction materials--is packed in containers and stored in a trailer. Following van der Harst’s instructions, volunteers can set up and repack items in two hours.