Many effective strategies are multi-component strategies.  That is, there are multiple essential components to the strategy and effectiveness and impact are a result of these components working together.  HOST, often used in conjunction with launching a church-wide campaign, is an example of a multi-component strategy.

Remember that in the HOST strategy, the “T” stands for “Tell a few of your friends.”*  And this is an essential component.  Raising up a wave of people who have a Heart for unconnected people, willing to Open up their homes and Serve a few refreshments is great, but inviting them to”Tell a few of your friends” is what makes the HOST strategy exponential.  It is also where the challenge for many churches arise.  There are at least two reasons this component is a challenge:

1. Although you attempt to be clear in your “ask,” when you say, “Tell a few of your friends” many in your congregation hear, “We’ll provide the group members.”  As much as this may happen also, it isn’t the primary intent of the strategy.
2. Your members may respond or want to respond but not really know any of their neighbors or co-workers.  This is why building crowd-to-core flow in advance is an essential component.

How To Build Crowd-To-Core Flow

1. Start early.  You can’t begin too early.
2. Regularly cast a vision for God’s heart for the community and the crowd.  Passages like Matthew 9:36 and 2 Kings 6-7 are at the heart of the story.
3. Provide periodic opportunities for your congregation to put this vision into practice.
4. Use video and live testimony to tell stories about how HOSTs are helping people find their way back to God.

A Great Example from Saddleback

In the fall of 2007 Saddleback repeated the 40 Days of Purpose.  They began talking about the upcoming church-wide study in mid-spring, 2007, encouraging members to “Use the summer to get to know your neighbors.  Invite them over for a barbeque or dessert.”  Further, they asked members to host block parties for Labor Day and ask everyone to bring their favorite dish to share along with the recipe.  The block party attendees voted on which dish was the best and included the winner in a church cookbook (proceeds going to support an important community need).

Sound like fun?  Can you see how a few opportunities, planned well in advance, would enable your congregation to do a better job as hosts “telling a few of their friends and neighbors?”  What’s the key?  Start early!

Do you have ideas you’d like to share?  Use the comment section below to spread the word about the ideas you’re using.

*In the orignal version of HOST, Rick Warren used “Turn on your VCR.”  Becoming even more exponential, it has become, “Tell a few of your friends.”

While there are some key steps to launching a church-wide campaign that lead to greater participation, higher  follow-through, broader community interaction, and deeper values integration…there are also some devastating missteps that cause campaigns to miss the mark.  Here are my top 10:

1. Selecting a topic that doesn’t engage the crowd, from the hard end of the Easy/Hard continuum.
2. Missing the strategic window of optimum launch dates, either too impatient to wait or too slow to gear up.
3. Failing to help your members build neighborhood or work relationships in advance of the campaign.
4. Hand-selecting group leaders from the usual suspects (core), failing to capitalize on the relationships of the congregation and crowd.
5. Failing to engage key opinion leaders who influence the congregation.
6. Identifying the campaign topic too late, missing the opportunity to find testimonies that recruit hosts or members.
7. Failing to use key marketing options to promote the campaign more broadly and engage wider participation.
8. Failing to choose a “next curriculum” for new groups that is “similar in kind” (DVD-driven and plug-and-play), leading to the selection of material that is too difficult and the pain of groups that end unnecessarily.
9. Failing to introduce the next small group material early enough to keep new groups energized and engaged.
10. Allowing the Senior Pastor to delegate the role of vision caster to anyone else.

Need a planning checkup?  A second opinion on your time table?  Sometimes you just need a pair of fresh eyes. Someone who brings a lot of experience and can quickly diagnose an issue or identify an unseen solution.  Click here to find out how to schedule a telephone consultation that can make a big difference in the effectiveness of your campaign.

The Easter Experience, from City On A Hill Productions, is a new church-wide study from the folks that produced H2O.  With host and teacher Kyle Idleman, The Easter Experience includes a six session DVD-driven small group study that coordinates with a six weekend message series–designed to conclude with Good Friday and Easter.

The DVD-driven small group curriculum, much like H2O, uses a highly cinematic approach.  Rather than a talking head approach, each session uses dramatic storytelling and challenging teaching to present the passion and resurrection of Jesus.

Very much a campaign in a box, you’ll find basic instructions for implementation on the Leader’s Training DVD, as well as sermon outlines, graphic elements, posters, bulletins, included on the resource CD in the Church Kit.

You’ll appreciate the high quality of this production.  The onscreen reenactment of the passion week’s key events coupled with Idleman’s observations make for a dynamic experience.  In addition, they’ve done a very good job with the Participant Guide, producing a set of questions that lead to a great discussion.  If you’re a regular reader of my reviews you know that I am always looking for studies that will appeal to the people who aren’t part of your church.  Although this is a topic that’s not necessarily on the easy end, I believe it will interest many of the friends of your members.

If there is a challenge, it is the cost of the Bible Study Kit.  At $39.99 for the DVD and Leader’s Guide it is on the expensive side, however, with orders of 10 or more kits there is a 15% discount (and higher discounts may apply with larger orders).

All in all, The Easter Experience is another great study from City On A Hill Productions.  I highly recommend it.

Have you finalized plans for the fall ministry season yet?  It’s definitely time to zero in on where things are going!  Much like the way NASA has a scientifically defined window of opportunity for Space Shuttle launches (or landings), there are many factors that determine the success of a church-wide campaign and many of them have to do with timing.  Here are seven of the most important:

• Early selection of the campaign topic to allow adequate preparation (ideally 3 to 6 months).
• Choosing a strategic topic that engages the core and the crowd.
• Building a coaching foundation that will sustain new hosts/leaders.
• Preparation strategies that build a crowd-to-core flow in advance.
• Timing the campaign for maximum results.
• Promoting well and early enough to maximize participation.
• Sequencing the entire fall calendar to maximize follow-through.

Have you checked each of these items off your prep list?  Launch: An 8 Session Training Program is designed to help you maximize your church-wide campaign.  The early bird pricing lasts until this Friday, June 12th.  Click here to find out more.

What is the most powerful way to impact your entire congregation?  Many believe that a church-wide campaign, what Rick Warren refers to as a spiritual growth emphasis,  is the most important spiritual innovation in the last 50 years…maybe the last century.  Why?  Read on.

Although there are very basic church-wide campaigns that simply offer a way of focusing the weekend message, more robust campaigns align everything that everybody is doing for the season.  Weekend sermons, small group curriculum, children’s Sunday School programming, student ministry programming, memory verses, newsletters, bulletin inserts, websites, everything is used to get everyone on the same page for six weeks.

(Need help?  Click here to find out about my Church-Wide Campaign Coaching program)

Alignment is the key.  Why is this important?  Church life without alignment is like a car out of alignment.  Instead of everything moving in the same direction, all four tires are trying to move in a slightly different direction.  Can it work?  Only roughly.  Put things in alignment…and experience the synergy of everyone and every ministry on the same page.  How do you get alignment?  There are four important keys to launching a church-wide campaign.

• Choosing a campaign theme is the most important decision you’ll make.  Although the 40 Days of Purpose is the most familiar, there are a number of off-the-shelf campaigns available.  I’ve highlighted some of the best over the last several years. Take a look at Looking for a New Church-Wide Campaign, New Church-Wide Campaigns for 2009, The Latest in Church-Wide Campaigns for 2010 and New Church-Wide Campaigns for Fall 2010.  Additionally, with some work you can put together a home grown campaign.  A key question is, “Who are you trying to engage?”  The difference between what will engage the core or committed versus what will engage the crowd must be taken into consideration.  I’ve written about this right here.
• Determining when to do your church-wide campaign is also very important.  Adequate preparation synchronized with a season that allows build up and follow through is essential.  For this reason, the fall ministry season is optimal in many ways.  Saddleback, masters of the campaign universe, launch most of their campaigns at the end of September, allowing a burst of promotion right after Labor Day to enlist end-of-the-summer new attendees.  With certain caveats pre and post Easter are other effective campaign launch windows.
• The weekend series before and after the campaign play an important role in who will be engaged and who will stay engaged.  Opening the fall with a broadly appealing series gives you the ability to engage the crowd or community.  Following the campaign with a series that is immediately applicable to your newest attendees will help them remain engaged.
• The strategy used to recruit small group leaders plays an important role in who will be in the groups.  Choosing a crowd-sensitive topic and recruiting HOSTS from the congregation beyond the usual suspects are essential ingredients in the recipe for an exponential campaign.  Decisions made about who can lead and how you’ll fill groups enable wider impact that reaches beyond the twice a month attendee and into the crowd and community.

Need more help?  Ready to plan a church-wide campaign that reaches beyond the usual suspects and into your community?  Setting up a series of coaching calls is easy, very affordable, and will pay for itself.  You’ll have clarity on your next steps or your money back.  I guarantee it.

How’s that for an awkward headline?  Familiar with Central Christian Church in Las Vegas?  We’ve mentioned a couple of their church-wide campaigns here.  They’re definitely onto some good ideas from a group standpoint.  Tripped across a relatively new blog by Tracey Smith, one of Central’s small group pastors.  Small Group Pastors might be an interesting one to watch…or even to jump in on!

And the Oscar for Creative Use of a Star Wars theme goes to…Fusion Church

Yoda Groups from Fusion Church on Vimeo.

Thanks to Monday Morning Insight for the link!

Redefine your evangelistic starting point.  God responding to the cries of a broken world.  That’s the starting point.  “I’ve heard your people crying.”  Exodus 3:6  When we stop hearing the cries of people…

Identify God’s response to the brokenness of your own life.  When we begin to feel like we’re fixed and we are now fixers…we’ve missed the point.  We’re still being fixed.  We haven’t arrived.  If we don’t know that, evangelism becomes information.  Not transformation.

Move from a basketball christian to a football christian.  When you’re a football player you run through the line, get knocked down, pounded, get back up and are ready to run again.  When you’re a basketball player you only have to be touched to go to the line for a free shot.

Identify and love the brokenness of the people in your church.  People are crying all around our churches.  People are crying in our cities.  We need to know it’s there and we need to do something about it.   “The only thing that travels faster than light is darkness running away.”

Reestablish your evangelistic priority.  Who’s your neighbor?  The church is the only organization ever created for the people who aren’t in it yet.  What will kill your ministry, your church, will be keeping it to yourself.  What won’t kill it?  Doing what Jesus did.  Going where He went.  Being with the people that He went to be with.

Oh my…I wish you had been here.

Dr. Will Miller was hilarious last night.  I have to tell you that that is a HUGE understatement.  When he was telling about driving someone else’s beater car I very nearly wet my pants, which according to Bill Search is about the bladder (as opposed to the bowels as John Burke mentioned).  Ever seen Will Miller?  Click here to see a short clip of a previous talk.

My cool friend Bryan Doyle gave me a copy of The Tangible Kingdom the other day and it caught me right away!  You won’t find a more engaging book about incarnational community.  The story of Hugh Halter, Matt Smay and Adullam will grab you by page 3.  When you get to the chapter on the 1700 Year Wedgie…you’ll be toast.  Good stuff.  If you aspire to get Hirsch but end up rereading the same line again and again…this one’s for you!

You can pick up your copy right here.