A few years into RCC, I began sketching out exactly how people were coming into our church. I wasn't interested in the folks who came by advertisements or signage. I was looking for who invited who.
Because we were a parachute drop plant, I started by drawing Ainsley and me in the center. When I finished diagramming the dozens of people we had invited... and the people they had invited, the results were astonishing. I could see exactly who the connectors were in our church. Others simply stopped at themselves.
When we cast vision for inviting people to church, we may be assuming too much. What if we poured more resources into the hands of our connectors? What if we groomed them, encouraged them, and fueled their desire to invite people?
As for the others... what if we started with the fundamentals? What if we showed them how to build relationships? The result would be less guilt-trip and more empowering.
This post is really good man. I like the way you are thinking. I read the anatomy of buzz last year and it went down this road quite a bit.
Our church launched publicly this weekend. You can see the pics and video at my blog.
Chris
Posted by: chris | September 24, 2008 at 12:42 PM
Ben,
we're in that process of helping people just learn how to connect and carry conversations. It has been so true that the majority of our growth has come from these connectors (raving fans). The other interesting part for us, is that the connectors have almost all been people who were not followers of Jesus before coming to The Journey. Now, to start thinking about how we can better resource these "connectors". Good thoughts.
Posted by: Paulurban | September 24, 2008 at 01:07 PM
Hi Ben,
Great thoughts. I've thought about ways we can better ourselves in this area. Did you do anything special at RCC that helped in this area?
Posted by: Scott Cheatham | September 24, 2008 at 01:45 PM
I love this post! Am I jaded to say that I think this role is frequently overlooked by the folks in charge?
Posted by: Abby | September 24, 2008 at 02:21 PM
As a person whose fundamental social skills have taken a long time to develop, this makes soo much sense!
I've always wanted to be a 'connector' but it's not been easy.
Praying that God will strengthen me in that area even today!
Posted by: Terry B | September 24, 2008 at 02:30 PM
Scott, we gave them Starbucks cards to fuel their networking... among other things
Posted by: Ben Arment | September 24, 2008 at 02:41 PM
Ben
I totally agree. After I read Tipping Point, I put this on my radar big. I put these kinds of people in my calendar and make sure I resource them. Great post thanks
Hal Mayer
Church at the Bay
Posted by: Hal Mayer | September 24, 2008 at 02:58 PM
Ben,
Wow! There are some things that we know, but just seem to forget...
And then people remind us with words that we want to always remember...
Thank you for this post!
It's timely, and simply profound.
Nick
Posted by: nickhoss | September 24, 2008 at 03:16 PM
We were talking about this in our staff meeting the other day. Our #s are down and our "Friend Day" (thanks Rick Warren) hasn't been as successful as it once was. People aren't inviting people or they're inviting the same people they always have. We have to start teaching people to build relationships outside of our church. Right now its just a big Christian group hug.
Posted by: TJ Goff | September 24, 2008 at 11:40 PM
I've never sketched it out, but we have some really cool stories at our church where there are long strings of this person invited this person who invited this person who invited this person who invited this person...
Posted by: Ronnie (MandoRon) | September 25, 2008 at 07:19 AM