Church-Wide Campaigns: Clarifying the Win

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Great question recently from a Small Group Pastor preparing for a meeting with his Senior Pastor to talk about the fall campaign.  Here’s his question:

“What are the campaign critical questions to ask when working with the Lead Pastor on Fall Campaign Strategic Plans?”

Great question!  Assuming you’ve already made the case for a church-wide emphasis, here’s where I start:

  1. What are you hoping will happen?  If you had to declare now what a win will be, how would you describe it?  For example, are you trying to connect everyone in your church?  Or are you really more interested in reaching the community?  The way you answer this preliminary question helps determine many things.
  2. Given your answer to #1, ask yourself if you’ve chosen the right topic or the right off-the-shelf campaign.  In other words, given the topic you’ve chosen, would it really appeal to that kind of person?  Memo: If you are a pastor…you might want to ask a few certified regular folks.  As Rick Warren pointed out years ago, “The longer you are a pastor the less you think like a regular person.”  Choosing a topic that actually appeals to the target will go a long way toward getting them to say “yes” to joining a group.
  3. Once you’ve chosen your topic, take a look at the calender and begin developing a timeline.  Sequence is very important.  Jamming a 10 to 13 week preparation into 6 or 8 weeks can be done, but not without some trade off.  You can’t get the same results with a shorter ramp up and it’s unfair to expect it.  I’ve included a sample timeline right here.
  4. Make sure you have the right people on your team.  A campaign is time-consuming work.  Potentially very effective, but really requires some of your best people (if not all of them).  Recruiting broadly will pay off.

This will get you started.  If you need more help, I’d love to talk with you personally.  You can find out how to set up a phone call right here.

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