Break a Rule

Grocery store plan-o-grams dictate that milk goes in the back of the store. This provides the most value to the retailer because you have to hoof-it through all of their aisles to find your basic necessities. It's a value that grocers aren't willing to give-up. They want you to come away with more than milk at your expense.

But truly innovative companies find a way to invert the value for the customer's benefit, yet still be profitable. They break their own rules.

Every time I watch LifeChurch.tv, I find myself thinking "Are we really allowed to do that?"

Craig Groeschel violates the church plan-o-gram by giving people more value, yet still remains biblical. Give away all of our graphics? Let Satan star in video illustrations? Unite 1,400 churches with one message series? This is milk-in-the-front kinds of stuff.

His mantra: "To reach people others aren't reaching, you have to do what others aren't doing." Craig Groeschel is a rule breaker.

Comments

[Michael]

Bad analogy. Sometimes conventional wisdom is still wisdom even though it's conventional. I don't see a reasonable correlation between an innovative church and placing milk in the front of a grocery store. I agree with Groeschel's comment about doing things that others aren't. And many times that's good, but sometimes its' not. It's certainly not good across the board.

Don't believe me? Here's an article about times when "innovative" didn't work:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/st_badideas.html

Sometimes conventional is the way to go.

[Ben Arment]

Bad comment. boooooo.

[Wade]

Great analogy. I led worship at a very conventional church for several years before attending LifeChurch. Before I attended the "LC" I had many of the same (read wrong) ideas about what LC was all about. I assumed it was a shallow and sugary church that was all about the sizzle with little meat. I took my family for the first time last November and have been going ever since. Craig's innovation allows the staff and partners to do "anything short of sin", in Craig's words, to bring people to Christ. I think the sad thing is that many of the "haters" of LC, and churches like it, are people that don't recognize that level of excellence as church product. Like if we have a poorly-lit, barely audible video it is more Godly because they aren't spending all of that time and money making things "Hollywood". I would argue the opposite is true. We, believers, should be putting the absolutely best "product" out there in the marketplace whether it is church videos or your report you hand it at work. We work for Him and our results in the workplace should be intoxicating to the end user. God has used the LC to bring me to a much deeper place in my walk and I thank God daily for giving Craig the courage and vision to think outside the box...that goes for Catalyst as well. Never apologize for being as good as you can be...keep up the good work Mr. Arment.

[Ben Arment]

thank you Wade. Great comment.

[Lori Bailey]

I think you're right on target here, Ben. The more I get to know LifeChurch.tv, the more I ask myself that question...We can do that? Really?! It's mind-boggling. And there's more to come ;)