How is the ball rolling for you this week? Have you seen any changes in yourself since you started Momentum Bootcamp?
My dictionary defines momentum as, “The force of motion, impetus.” Momentum has latent power in it. It builds up until released, and once released, it can gather further mass, power, and speed as it travels down the hill.
Take a minute to pray and ask the Lord to speak to you for the next few minutes. Then read on.
What’s Happening in You and Your Church
Your thirty word prayer is building latent power in the heavenlies – and tangible passion in your heart.
As you infect your leaders, and together you all infect your people, there’s a force that’s building mass, power and speed – which will result in a growing number of people in your city coming to Christ. Expect it.
Also expect that there will be distractions and turbulence from the enemy. Your job is to put on the full armor of God and take your stand against his schemes so that the central work of the church does not get sidetracked or diverted to lesser things.
Yes, there will be marriages to help, people to counsel, weddings and funerals and normal day-to-day details to attend to. Attend to them: love your people, delegate when possible, preach and teach your heart out, and stay on course!
Inviting People to Join You
A few weeks ago, you started praying. Soon you’ll have your leaders praying and talking about these issues. A few months from now, you’ll stir up your congregation with your series on “Capturing God’s Heart.”
Once all of you are fired up about the lost people around you, then what will you do?
We’ve tried a lot of things at New Song. We hold an annual VBS that reaps dozens of souls. We host big name guest speakers. We do servant evangelism. But by far the most effective tool we use to reach lost people is what we call our church campaigns.
Much of our growth in the past several years has come from church campaigns.
What is a Church Campaign?
A church-wide campaign is a relevant, broadly-appealing, well-timed sermon series that includes personal readings and weekly small group studies with the sermon series.
Our first church campaign was The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. During that campaign, our attendance surged by 10% and our small groups increased by 50%. People came to Christ every week, and maturing members of our church made significant discipleship decisions every week.
What We Learned
We learned a ton from The Purpose Drive Life Campaign. Our primary lessons were:
- The power of focus. When it comes to light, the sun can warm you, but a laser can cut through steel.
- The virtue of “everybody’s doing it.” A church campaign gives everyone a motivated excuse to invite a friend all at the same time and a positive push to join a small group all at the same time. Because “everybody’s doing it.”
- When you end a campaign, you don’t want to end the campaign. At the culmination of our campaign, we held a huge graduation party. Everyone came. Everyone got a certificate of completion. That signaled to our newcomers that the campaign was over and it was time for them to go home. As a result, our attendance returned to the previous level the following week. Bad move on our part.
Since then, we’ve been holding church campaigns two to three times a year, every year. Some of our campaigns have been incredibly effective; others have been only marginally helpful.
Our Most Helpful Campaigns: (in chronological order)
- The Purpose Driven Life – 10% surge in attendance
- The God Questions – 10% surge
- Future History (on the Book of Daniel) – 18%
- Jonah: Responding to God – 17%
- Fireproof – 25%
- To Save A Family – 28%
- The Bible Questions – 10%
- I Love Sundays – 17%
I haven’t listed the campaigns that didn’t go as well for us. But even a mediocre campaign brings fringe people into the core because of our emphasis on joining a small group for the campaign. As a result of holding church campaigns two to three times a year, New Song has had 85% or more of our adults in small groups for the last five years.
Notice the growth numbers from the campaigns listed. The surge percentage has increased over time because we continue to get better at praying, inviting and enfolding people with each campaign. I believe you will, too.
My recommendation for you is to hold a great campaign soon after your Capturing God’s Heart series. I recommend you schedule the campaign to begin either three weeks after school starts, the third Sunday in January, or on Easter Sunday – whichever falls closest to the conclusion of your Heart series.
September and January launches are superior because people are thinking about starting new things at those times of year. Easter is a good launch time because you’ve got a ton of visitors who are unlikely to return (until Christmas) unless you give them immediate motivation to be there the following week.
Only once have we held a successful campaign that didn’t start in one of these times of the year. We launched Future History in December. Daniel was part of the Magi, so we were able to use his story throughout the Christmas season. When January came, we were in the prophetic section of his book and people came from out of the woodwork when they heard we were talking about end-of-the-world type stuff.
What Makes for a Great Church Campaign?
1. The pastor is excited about it.
If you’re not excited, no one will be. Pick one you really want to do and your contagion will be catching.
2. The topic has broad appeal.
Look at the list of our successful campaigns. Everyone wants to know their purpose. Everyone has questions about God. Everyone wants to know about the future. Everyone wants help with their family and marriage.
3. Outreach Campaigns must have “invitability.”
You can do campaigns focused on equipping your church, but if you’re going to reach out, you have to have a topic people can invite their friends to. Our easiest invitation was, “Would you like some help with your marriage? Our church is going to be talking about that for the next few weeks. Would you like to join a group with me?”
4. There must be a book with short, well-written readings.
One of the strengths of a campaign is that it gets people involved in personal devotions by using a book.
5. There must be a small group or Sunday school class component.
What makes a campaign a campaign is that everybody’s talking about it mid-week.
6. Cost matters to most churches.
The Purpose Drive Life was a stretch for us because you had to buy the book, the study guide, and memory cards. Most church people will pay $10 for a study, but not much more. So we like to find campaigns that have the book and study guide combined.
7. A tie-in is always helpful.
Part of the success of Fireproofing Your Marriage and To Save a Life was that these movies had just come out, creating some buzz for us. If/when you try these campaigns, I suggest you show the movie at your church a week or two before you launch the campaign.
8. Length is a consideration.
The attention-span for most campaigns is about four to six weeks. Future History worked as a longer campaign because the history and prophecy sections made it feel like two series in one.
9. A proper ramp-up.
Great campaigns don’t happen by chance very often. Most of the time, they’ve been carefully prayed over and prepared for by the whole congregation. Next week I’ll describe to you what that looks like.
Taking Action
Assignment 1
Put a target date on your calendar for a church campaign soon after you complete your Capturing God’s Heart series.
Assignment 2
Learn more about church campaigns.
1,000 blessings!
Hal
Need to Catch Up?
Get the lessons you missed here:
- Why Some Pastors Make a Bigger Difference
- The Prayer that Changes Everything
- You are Not Alone when Hearts are Cold
- What Everybody Ought to Know About Building Momentum Through Preaching
- The Secret to Attracting People to Your Church
Hal Seed is the founding and lead pastor of New Song Community Church in Oceanside, California. Get more resources and equipping for leading a better church at PastorMentor.com.
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