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transformation

There is more to Mission than the Mission Statement

This series has addressed evangelism in terms used most often by people in marketing and advertising. Again:

Advertising is getting the word out.
Evangelism is getting the Word out.

We’ve concentrated in this series on branding, applying this term to a favorite strategy of church developers — beginning a ministry with the tactic of writing a Mission Statement.

Often that’s where this sort of evangelism program both begins and ends. The Mission Statement is written and it’s back to business as usual.

One of the leading voices in the marketing world is businessman Seth Godin. He recently presented a concept and granted permission to share it. So let’s take a look at what he has to say.

Seth Godin’s Acute Heptagram of Impact

According to Godin (who has initiated countless ventures and helps many more kick-start their dreams) all of these seven qualities must be present if a project is to succeed. The absence of even one can snuff out the light! I revised his Heptogram to make it make sense to me. The concepts crisscross as if you are drawing a star, but otherwise it is Seth’s.

Start at the top of the star. Godin says you can have a STRATEGY but if you do not define your TACTICS and if you lack the SKILLS to EXECUTE those tactics. the STRATEGY won’t matter. Your ability to garner support from sponsors or workers depends on your REPUTATION. Nothing mentioned so far matters if the DESIRE to succeed is not present and the individuals involved do not PERSIST. The biggest enemy of PERSISTENCE is FEAR. And with this, you return to STRATEGY, completing your seven-pointed star.

Each point on this Marketing Star applies to any Congregation engaged in forging a new mission.

  1. The strategy to create a Mission Statement is the tip of this seven-pointed star.
  2. Start to draw the star and you come to tactic. That is the Mission Statement!
  3. Keep drawing. You now need tp decide what skills and assets you already have or need to help you execute your Mission Statement.
  4. Cross over to reputation. If you have a problem with reputation, begin to address it immediately. It may take a while!
  5. Work with your membership to foster desire. Chances are your leaders understand the need to evangelize better than other church members. Leaders must find a way to communicate their enthusiasm to the rest of the congregation.
  6. Then you have to start working your plan. Chalk up some success. Address each failure (and you will have some).
  7. Don’t let fear of failure or making mistakes keep you from trying.

Godin claims that when things aren’t working, one or more of these elements are amiss. Often, he says, none of them are quite right. The biggest danger, he suggests, is the concentration on tactics before the full scope of the project is understood.

And that’s a problem with concentrating so hard on the Mission Statement that we miss everything else!

17 Oct 2012

Becoming a Congregation with Attitude (Branding)

Congregations have personalities. It may not be obvious to you but it is to every visitor.

Often congregations think that their congregation’s personality is an extension of their pastor’s personal charisma. Sometimes that’s true, but no church can rely on this for long.

If your visitors sit through a worship service led by one or two leaders who never stray from the script (so to speak), they will sense that the congregation’s attitude is one of submission—a place where the only way to fit in is to follow.

If your worship leaders open the experience to each person in attendance, visitors are far more likely to envision themselves as participants in community.

It’s a matter of attitude. That’s part of branding.

Apple makes a great product but it’s branding is all attitude. Advertisements do little to list product features. Instead, the classic Mac/PC television ads pit the stodgy office worker named PC to the casual, likable, without being know-it-all, Mac.

That same difference can be sensed in church by worship visitors.

A lot of this has to do with self-confidence. Are people afraid to speak up in worship? Are they timid to greet visitors and engage in conversation with strangers?. You can’t evangelize without this. But it’s rarer than you might think. Redeemer’s Ambassadors have visited 50 congregations and only about a third of them have made any attempt to talk with us—and very few of those who did were pastors.

As you start to develop your branding/mission campaign, work with your people to help them break from their comfort zone. It can work magic.

This week on the television reality show X Factor, the judges set out to eliminate all but 24 from a field of about 60. The talent level is high and the process was difficult. After grueling debate four judges chose 24 relieved contestants to move forward in the competition.

Judges’ remorse set in quickly. They called about 15 eliminated contestants back. All but two of them had entered the competition as solo artists. The judges put that aside and gave them one more chance, but this time they would perform as members of a group.

This exercise changed the competition’s playing field. These contestants suddenly had to switch from trying to best each other, to trying to complement one another. When they performed together for the first time four days later, they had been transformed. Each contestant had discovered something new about themselves. The collective performance out-shined their individual efforts.

Find ways to mix things up a bit in your congregation.

  • Make an effort to talk to different people at fellowship.
  • Ask people who don’t usually work together to take a leadership role together in a short-term project.
  • Hold a pot luck dinner but ask people to sit together by birth month or season or just have them pull a table number from a bowl. Give each table a skit, song, or activity to perform together at an impromptu talent show after the meal. This is an icebreaker and it encourages them to work together in a fun setting.
  • Have a progressive dinner at holiday time, where you visit each other’s homes.
  • Ask members in what way they’d like to participate in worship, Don’t give them a list of things you want them to do (although there is a place for this, too). For this purpose, you want to find out what’s on their minds and how they, if given the chance, would shape the worship experience.
  • Ask two or three people to do the job usually done by just one.

Such activities build community. This will help your congregation’s personality to develop and shine. Your mission will radiate with every kind work, act or smile.

Soon your church will be a church with attitude — and that can be a good thing. Attitudes give mission definition. People want to know there is something behind the words.

12 Oct 2012

A Pastor’s Secret Transformation Weapon

The Children’s Sermon As Catalyst

A pastor may think that a children’s sermon is a waste of time. The children might be better off somewhere else, engaged in age appropriate activities.

The children’s sermon time is so much more. It is a golden opportunity to introduce change to your congregation.

Many pastors do little more than talk at the children—a watered down “trailer” of the 20-minute version about to come.

It is painfully obvious in many cases that the pastor has little experience talking to children. All those years of seminary study so you can expound to five-year-olds!

The children’s sermon is a time when you can communicate to everyone. Many adult Christians have not been well-schooled in church matters. This is an opportunity to not only reach the children but to review basic church teachings without “talking down” to the adults.

You can experiment in the few minutes you spend with the children. Few will object. It is a chance to create the experience modern worship so desperately needs—something that people will remember and talk about when they go home and off to work.

In the business world, this is called creating a “remarkable” experience. Business people know that their best advertisers (evangelists) are customers (congregants). They aim to provide the best service possible so that the customer/congregant talks about his or her experience.

Most worship services are fairly predictable in format and even in content. They are no doubt meaningful to the congregants, but few are anything anyone will talk about during the week or even remember a few days later. (Quick! What hymns did you sing in church last week?)

More people will be tuned in for a ten-minute children’s lesson than for the full 20-minute version. Use this opportunity to create a “remarkable” experience.

This is a pastor’s opportunity to introduce change without objection. Congregants may not even notice that the praise song you taught the children last week is the sermon hymn this week.

The children’s sermon is an excellent opportunity to introduce media, teach the kids (and adults) to move in liturgical dance, practice a new prayer technique, read a story or poem, or perform a little drama. Don’t put a stopwatch on the activity. Some sermons may be five minutes long. But if people are engaged, milk the moment.

Here is a list of guidelines.

  • Don’t treat the adults as passive bystanders. Engage them in music, question and answers, or other activities. Enlist their help. They will be more likely to step up to help the children then if you asked them to do something for their peers. Ask a choir member to lead or teach a new song, for example. Or have an usher explain what happens to the coins the children put into the offering plate. It will strengthen your congregation’s sense of community.
  • Don’t be afraid of repetition. Kids love it. Adults learn from it, too.
  • Don’t be afraid of interaction. Throw out a question to the adults. Better yet, have the children ask questions. Imagine one of your older members telling the story at work: “In church yesterday, a little girl asked me a question . . . .” 

It’s all about story-telling. We all love to tell the story. The children’s sermon can be the vehicle for congregational story-telling. And this can lead to transformation.

photo credit: Jenn Durfey via photo pin cc
07 Sep 2012