'Stratergizing' to make a church plant work

Church planting in year 4 has been all about streamlining our structure for greater effectiveness and finding creative solutions to meet needs...

This summer, we didn't have enough welcoming volunteers for greeters AND our welcome center inside the lobby... So we moved the welcome center outside the front door and converged the two roles into one.

Over 62% of our attenders are young couples with children under 2 years old... so we poured almost all of our children's ministry budget into the nursery and preschool environments... at the expense of elementary ministry.

Two years ago, I quietly stopped printing bulletins for our Sunday morning services. In over 104 services since... we've only had 2 complaints... by 2 people over 50 years old. Still no bulletins.

Comments

[Mark Seekins]

Ben,

We are talking about doing away with bulletins as well...

What steps have you guys taken to put info. into the hands of your people without the bulletins each week?? Any ideas?

[David]

What benefit does your church receive by eliminating bulletins?

[Ben]

D- the benefit is more for our staff. We don't have to do the extra admin during the week. It was a perfect candidate for the stop-doing list.

We put out a weekly e-newsletter to all of our attenders and a bi-monthly color newsletter in print. Works really well for us.

[jason allen]

It's great to hear that you guys are seeing God do some cool things in your midst, even that you have hit the 4-year mark.

As I've looked at your church website, etc I haven't been able to find a very detailed story of your history. Is that on your blog somewhere. I'd be interested in reading more about it.

Thanks.

[Ben]

J- I look at our story as just beginning, so it's really hard for me to draft this. If we ever get a chance to sit down over coffee, I'll tell you the whole epic.

[jason allen]

Well, as of yesterday it is official that I will be in DC Nov 17 - 20. The conference doesn't start up until the 18th so maybe we could actually catch up sometime in the afternoon for that cup of coffee.

I think we are staying with a family in Langley.

[jason allen]

oops, that is the afternoon of the 17th.

[Tadd Grandstaff]

Ben what do you do to gather information from your visitors...do you guys have a communication card? Do you pass anything out on Sunday Mornings?

[Ben]

J- sounds great! We can meet down at NCC's Ebeneezers... let's e-mail.

Tadd, two words: guest book. Our "capture rate" went up tremendously at the welcome center. We never got anything with info cards.

[Todd McKeever]

I have a dream.. that some day we could get rid of bulletins ourselves.

[Ben]

We're currently working on a brochure that describes our 'connecting points' but all other announcements will be web / e-mail based... so much easier.

[Tadd Grandstaff]

hmmmm good thoughts...I like it!