[This is Part 1 of the vision we are casting here for our Sunday Feast development. Here we cover the theoretical aspect. In the next few posts we’ll drill down into the specifics of what we are doing here.]
If you were to ask all the people at the Sunday Feast what “the next step” was, the next step to take beyond the Sunday Feast if they wanted to get more involved, a large number of them would simply admit that they didn’t know.
Of those who professed to be in the know, you would doubtless find a number of different ideas about that next step, each of them presently impractical for most of those people, who obviously haven’t taken it yet.
If you were to ask the devotees who preach at the Sunday Feast, you would probably encounter a similar situation of lacking or mixed understandings.
The problem arises from lack of a clear strategic focus. (On the other hand, if everyone does know, but there’s still no movement then your strategic focus needs adjusting). Here’s what to do about it.
Step One: Make a strategy. Work out what the next step is. It has to be easy and strategic. In other words it has to be possible and practical for the majority of the people coming to the program, preferably for close to 100%, and it has to carry them along in a process of guided steps that take them to where you want them to be.
Get people with strategic capability to do this. Anyone can make a plan - but it takes a person with actual strategic capability to make one that will work. Use people with a track record for results where possible. A mix of propensity and experience is the best. Otherwise if you have no one else, get someone with the capability to learn on the job.
Step Two: Clarify the win. Make sure that everyone in the organization knows what a touchdown looks like. This way all your players will work together to get the ball over the same goal line, rather than running around according to where they think the goal line is. You can have a great team of relational preachers, but if you don’t make it clear to the team where the goal line is, they will all decide for themselves, and go for that. Result: Chaos.
Step Three: Make your easy and strategic step obvious. Communicate it at every opportunity through every medium and eliminate all other messages. Don’t compete with yourself. Less is More. Tell them what they need to know to go to the next step, and nothing else! Anything that doesn’t contribute to the next step is off point.
that’s a great analysis of the problems many temples face in the development of their congregation. without strategic thinking there’s bound to be a lot of confusion with little results.
the only point i’m not happy with is no.3, which i think is too narrow. i don’t see how you can find one step that will be the proper one for nearly 100% of your congregation. a majority, yes, but there will always be some that can’t do that much, who can perhaps donate a few bucks, but that’s how far they will go, and there will be others, far less, i’m afraid, who will be able to do much more, chant regularly and follow all of the reg.s, per example.
your stress to leave out everything else but that one magical step seems to leave out those minorities who need to be taken care of, too.
just my two cents (and i have to admit that congregational preaching was never my main service).