Launching Churches

Let me first say I haven’t read Launch yet, it’s sitting on my bookshelf in waiting.  However, for months I’ve wrestled with the thought of the big launch of a church.  Maybe I see too many marketing pieces in my mail box or the nominal response to the grand opening of big box stores.  I think grand openings are severely overrated.

Think about successful businesses – most of them didn’t start big.  I don’t remember when the Honda Accord came on the market, but its huge now.  MySpace didn’t see Facebook coming, no one did.  JetBlue is taking over the skies while others are scrabbling to survive – they didn’t start big either.  Success doesn’t happen over night – ask Apple.

Many churches in America are dealing with a huge issue – limited attention span.  This is the reason we are starting more churches, but seeing fewer disciples.  And the huge church launch is a symptom of this problem.  The launch forces churches to spend their time and money at exactly the wrong time, and worse, it leads to a lack of patience that damages the new disciple of the community and growth opportunity.  Churches start to make disciples and discipleship takes time.  Would it better our church to spend the time and money building actual relationships than going for the big numerical launch?

Marketers say the best time to promote something is after it has fans, after you’ve discovered that it works, after it has the outpouring of support.  I think the early church did it best.  They promoted the gospel, community, and love consistently and persistently and for a long time.

Just thinking out loud.