Three Outcomes That Must Be Designed Into Every Church-Wide Campaign

What will you end up with when the dust clears on your church-wide campaign?  Have you thought about that?  I believe that so much energy goes into the planning and implementation of a church-wide campaign that it’s very common for outcomes to be no more than an afterthought.  Staff teams invest so much in the preparation and launch…that they don’t even slow down to think about outcomes that ought to be part of the design.

Here are three outcomes that I believe must be designed into every church-wide campaign:

Lifelong memories and great experiences: While it can be true that some campaigns deliver nothing more than memories and experiences, many do not embed these key ingredients.  What a wasted opportunity!  If you’re going to the effort and investing the energy and resources into a campaign, don’t miss this essential outcome!  It can be as simple as an activity that every group does together:

• attending a service together in week six that incorporates a commissioning element
• hand-painting a stone with a key verse or phrase to be used as a paperweight
• having a group picture taken at a community service project

New heroes identified and recognized: A church-wide campaign offers a tremendous opportunity to recognize and celebrate the steps of new heroes.  Many times the reason we always fall back to the old faithfuls and the usual suspects is that we’ve failed to call out the examples of new small group hosts or members who invited neighbors and friends or championed an effective service project.  Don’t miss this key outcome!  Churches that design in ways of identifying and recognizing new heroes reap a significant reward for years to come.

New groups launched and sustained: While this may be a hope for many churches planning a church-wide campaign, it is only rarely actually designed into the strategy.  Simple advance steps like assigning a launch-phase coach to every new group leader and choosing a next curriculum in advance (and beginning to promote it in week 3 or 4) go a long way in the effort to sustain a high percentage of the new groups launched.

What do you think?  Want to argue?  You can click here to jump into the conversation.