Great post today by Seth Godin on "Why Word of Mouth Doesn't Happen." A must-read for church planters who want their people inviting their friends to come with them...
Go read it, and then leave me a comment on how you think we can overcome some of the reasons he lists. And ... almost all of the reasons he gives on his list apply to church...
- featured on newchurches.com
Friday, May 16, 2008
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3 comments:
I was thinking about that just this week. Thanks for the link.
You know....it doesn't really matter what we build if the work of making disciples isn't happening, right?
Great speaking, great music and we'll just get some people from the church down the street.
So...what does it look like to build disciples that are in it for the right reasons..that have a mentality that says, "I'm not interested in you coming to church...I'm much more interested in you having Eternal Life in Heaven and Abundant Life on earth." And then of course acting like that.
The church only matters if disciple making is going on outside the church.
The question for me has become how can we be about the number one thing if we can't be about the number one thing because there are other things sucking up the energies for the number one thing.
Listen to this quote from Clay Shirky..."No institution can put all its energies into pursuing its mission; it must expend considerable effort on maintaining discipline and structure simply to keep itself viable. Self-preservation of the institution becomes job number one, while its stated goal is relegated to number two or lower, no matter what the mission statement says."
I find myself thinking...how can I influence more and more people to be about what God cares about (People's souls) and I'm finding out more and more that it's out of my hands and more and more in His.
We can't break through those barriers for anyone. They have to break through themselves.
Ok....maybe I'll come up with some practical stuff later...but right now that's just where my head is. Later.
I'm right there with Kevin. All of the energy put into a "high impact" Sunday event won't mean a thing if people aren't truly being transformed by Jesus. I think Godin's reason #6 speaks directly to this: "keeping two worlds from colliding."
We've found that the "stickiness factor" goes up when people see their lives as mission fields (families, work places, etc.), and when those they want to reach see the difference that Jesus is making in their lives. It's not a "come check out this cool church because its cool." It's "come check out this church because of how Jesus has made a difference in me."
An insanely cool pastor once wrote: "We need to be the good news before share the good news so that our gospel has integrity. We need to make the gospel beautiful again. We need to lose all the trappings so people can experience the natural beauty of God's good news. We need to show people what life in God's kingdom is like before we invite them into it."
Sounds like pretty sound marketing advice to me...
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