Posts Tagged New Way Church

Ratios

Assimilation goal: each newcomer should have 7 church friends in first 6 months.

Invite ratio: 14 personal invitations to get 1 long-term member.

Direct mail response rates: normally .5%, but in church world perhaps more like .25%.

Outreach/marketing budget: at least 10%.

Salaries/benefits: under 50%.

Second worship service: when 1st is 80% full AND over 100 people.

1st Worship space must accommodate at least 125, although it should be set up for less, so chairs get pulled out as people arrive. (Assuming portable chairs; if a movie theater, for instance, this won’t work, obviously. Movie theater strategy will probably be to go with smallest available auditorium: likely 100 seats.)

At least 2 Sunday a.m. services before services at other times/days.

At least 2 services, as soon as possible.

Hire full time ordained staff: 1 for every 150 Sunday attendees.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday I explained Service Evangelism. Tomorrow will be all about Daughtering.]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Service Evangelism

A major component of the outreach approach at New Way will be “Service Evangelism”. This is different from (but may technically include) “sevant evangelism”. Servant evangelism is the doing of natural charity for strangers as an act of outreach. Service evangelism (my own term) describes not just doing good works of charity for strangers, but actually inviting strangers to help do those good deeds with the church community. (The recent World Vision Caregiver Kit program is a partial example of this sort of outreach.) Evangelism—when looked at as handing out invitations to the Lord’s wedding feast—is not only declaring the truths of the New Church, but also inviting people into the life of the church, which is a life of doing good. By thus marrying truth with good in our outreach efforts, we are acting as not just the lungs, but also the heart for the surrounding community.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday I shared the Marketing Philosophy. Tomorrow I’ll post something on Ratios.]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Philosophy

Tagline: “New Way Church: Welcome to Christianity 2.0”.

We cannot be the 1st mover in the “Christian church” category in Austin, obviously, so our goal is to create a new category: “Christianity 2.0”. We will sacrifice market leadership in whatever areas are necessary in order to focus on our unique values and offerings. We will focus on opposite characteristics and not on similarities with category leaders / first movers. The goal is to communicate our differences in a compassionate, non-argumentative way to those who are looking for something different.

Advertising will focus on the “New Way” brand, appealing to people who are spiritually minded but view traditional christianity as outdated and no-longer in synch with postmodern reality. E.g., “Imagine a New Way of seeing God”, “No satisfied Christians here”, etc. Affiliation with the “New Church” umbrella brand will be clear. “New Way” draws on early apostolic Christianity’s original name, “The Way”, while also subtly evoking a more eastern, wholistic approach to spirituality. By tagging the brand with “Christianity 2.0” we emphasize the “New” in “New Way” and “New Church” in a way that appeals to postmodern tech-savvy adults looking for something more than just another flavor of old-school organized religion.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday we talked about the commitment to No Premature Real Estate. Tomorrow I’ll explain Service Evangelism.]


Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Street to Kitchen

Using an adaptation of the “Foyer to Kitchen” model of church program planning, no new program will be started that does not have a clear goal that assists in progressing participants a step closer to experiencing the Lord in His Second Coming. We call this “street to kitchen” because we feel that the church’s behavior in the public commons is as significant as its behavior with those who have entered its doors. So the metaphorical progression is Street -> Foyer -> Living Room -> Kitchen Table.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. This is after a long hiatus of posting. Last post was on the Crowd to Core model. Next week I will post a section titled No Premature Real Estate.]

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Crowd to Core

The growth model will focus not on the core (the dedicated leaders within the congregation), but on the crowd (newcomers and potential newcomers). Traditional church planting focuses on core development, followed by slowly sending the core out to invite new people from the crowd to the congregation. But the problem with this approach is that the core tends to develop a powerful sense of identity that inevitably feels at least unconsciously threatened by the growth of the congregation.

This newer approach views the preexisting dedicated members not as a core to be nurtured, but as a potential leadership team to be immediately empowered and turned outward toward the crowd. Focus then becomes quickly identifying new potential leaders from the crowd of newcomers and carefully progressing them into positions of responsibility at a higher rate than in traditional church settings.

So rather than first meeting for worship in living rooms and doing pastor-led doctrinal studies, we will go immediately to worship in rental facilities, with small groups led by volunteers.

For six months leading up to the public launch date, we will have monthly “preview” services. A preview service is a regular worship service at which everyone is “practicing” for when we invite the general public on launch day. However, after the first one to three preview services (once the roughest edges are knocked off) we will begin inviting personal friends and doing some early advertising. With each service we will build momentum by increasing our connected outreach efforts.

Everyone who attends a preview service is then invited to a “comeback event” two weeks later. These six comeback events are social events at the pastor’s house, at a park, and in other locations. Here the vision for the church is cast, community ties are built, and all attendees are invited to help put on the next preview service.

All this leads to a large marketing push combined with a big invitation program for the launch day, which kicks off regular full operation of the church with weekly public worship gatherings and small group meetings.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday: Church Systems. Next time: Street to Kitchen.]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,