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The Cityreaching Checklist: 18 Factors That Create Impact.
New and expanded.
by C. Michael Johnson |
1 The Goal
Factor. Success begins with changing the way we measure it. Too often we plan for something we don't really want. We plan for a crowd, we get empty chairs. We plan to attract the Unchurched, we get church-hoppers. We plan great programs, that few engage in. It's important to identify our real goals, the outcomes you really want. Is it new relationships, real friendships, transformed families, people active in their calling, real community impact?
Next (imagine this), you actually measure and track in the short term (daily-weekly-monthly, personally and with staff) the incremental movement toward or away from these real goals (micro the macro). Remember, you can't achieve what you don't measure. Now, what are your real goals this week?
2 The Friend Factor.
Nothing replaces friendship as a primary goal. While you're setting goals, don't get too clinical. What the Kingdom is all about is friends.... finding friends, being a friend, leading friends to be friends of God... it's almost that simple. Jesus measured success by turning servants into friends, and creating a few enemies along the way (how are you doing on both accounts?). So if you want to infuse the friend-factor into every ministry and outreach...plan for it and measure it. Measure community impact, measure discipleship, but measure it mostly in terms of friends. At its simplest, the goal of marketing is to develop conversations which create friends. Even business is waking up to this fact with Customer Relationship Management (or CRM)...but the Church should know it by heart. We've created a little planning tool for evaluating, setting up, and especially measuring your real goals. It incorporates many of these factors. We've simply labeled it A7 RMC (for the Relationship-Managed Church), tracking seven key steps in the friend-empowering process. It's just a start, but it does sort of get to the heart of what most churches really want, but seldom measure.
3 The Relevancy Factor. "I am the Unchurched...why should I give you the time of day?" Sounds harsh, but we should frame these words and put them on our desk. It would help keep us out of the kind of church-centric myopia that dulls the cutting edges of most of our communication. Effective media targets the needs people really feel (felt needs), especially their deeply-felt spiritual needs (see Dream factor below) in a tasteful, sensitive way. For the Unchurched (or anyone) there are no other needs. An overemphasis on programs, features and 'us-us-us' will attract few 'them-them-them's.' On a more immediate focus, use this Relevancy factor to evaluate your plans and especially the creative content of your communication.
4 The Dream Factor.
Effective Christian communicators ALWAYS tap into aspirations, knowing they represent our core, universal, spiritual desires. God wired us that way, planting in each of us unique dreams that call us to destiny. The language of dreams (purpose, identity, passion, heart) defines the most relevant, responsive message you can ever use to build lasting relationships with the unchurched. Jesus wants to come into their heart, so that's precisely where He wants to send you. The Holy Spirit has already been there for a long time (nurturing, planting, calling) so it would be highly effective to work together. Transformation is an inside out process and I wonder if we ever can or were ever meant to produce results any other way. Combine the Friend Goal with the Dream Goal and you have the basis of what we call a 'Community of Dreams,' which is a pretty good definition of a church, a community of friends nurturing and releasing God's dreams into their transforming place in the world.
5 The Listening Factor. Listening is the heart and soul of withreach. A real conversation whether between two people or a crowd is always a 2-way conversation. There must be a listening component. For centuries the Church has been adept at 'mouth-ministries' (speaking, telling, prescribing, broadcasting) but there is a time to close our mouth, open our heart and ears and just listen. Listening is the door to understanding the deepest needs and aspirations, whether in one person or in a whole community. Listening can be done by way of dream coaching, a focus interview, or community research. Online social media tools (forums, surveys) are great ways to listen. But all listening should change the way you reach and minister to people and you should find ways to stay accountable to your own desire to listen.
6 The
Media Factor. We
live in a media-driven world. The only way to reach a large number of people who don't yet know you is through media. Well-crafted media messages are a great way to create an accurate image, connecting who you are (branding) with where people are (their God-given dreams). Media should model the real you and be a platform for your authentic voice. Which media is best? Surveys show that people's top choices for the way they prefer to receive new information is the Internet, permission-given email, and direct mail. The first two require a means to get an introduction (social media). But whatever method is used do it with grace and warmth, and find a way to differentiate yourself, not so much from other churches, but from the image most people have of the church. In other words, be remarkable (which brings us to the next factor).
7 The Unexpected Factor. The prevailing mindset of people in a time-precious society like ours is to ignore all those things that can be safely ignored. Breakthrough communicators give them good reasons they can't. Doing the unexpected is one way (sometimes referred to in marketing as WOW, the Big Idea, or simply Remarkable). Let's face it, if people are not responding in great numbers to your predictability or you are comfortably off their radar, why continue doing what they would expect? If there was any person who lived a life of unexpected WOW, it was Jesus. He even surprised his mom ...are you?
8 The Awareness Factor. You can't reach people who are not aware of you. This can't be over-emphasized. It's so powerful but often overlooked. A good thing to do at least once a month is to take a walk a few blocks from your church and ask people you meet for directions to your church...what do they say? All of our plans for reaching people, for growth in ministry, membership, and community impact starts with awareness. The goal: Top-of-the-mind awareness.
9 The Viral Factor. Every organization would love to create (positive) word-of-mouth (WOM) buzz. Problem is, no one's yet figured out how to make more of it...or have they? There are ways to nurture it ...#6-8 above are three of the best. Another is to give people tools to help them spread the word (what Seth Godin calls viral sneezing tools). Good viral campaigns are built on a synergism of elements and are very fresh and specific to each situation, involving three key components: mass media, social media, and personal media.
10 The Experience Factor. OK, now think about the experience you are inviting people into. Would you enjoy it? Now, come on be real. Remember, we're taking Mr. Unchurched away from his morning coffee and Sunday paper. Three deliverables (much more important than entertainment) are Honor (respect, courtesy), Community (real friendship), and Affirmation(worth, identity--not publicly but casually and personally). These are the big three and Unchurched people, knowingly or not, are looking for them. They need to experience them in a way that only an authentic community can provide. These three are exceedingly more important than lights and sound and programs, and will be long after the day of your event. Exploring this further, Experiencial Marketing, as a relatively new field in marketing, offers a whole new world of possibilities.
11 The Harvest Factor. Make the follow-through not only part of the experience itself but also a basic part of your cultural DNA. We've all experienced this: You visit a new church, on leaving get your hand shook by the pastor, and sometimes get the perfunctory halfhearted call from a half-motivated volunteer, or a form letter from the pastor. Now what's wrong with this picture? Let's say I was the unchurched person you seek. I made a considerable investment of time and emotional energy, resisting my tendency to be wary of new relationships, got the family all dressed up, walked into a strange environment...all in the search for (as discussed above) respect, affirmation, and friendship, and all I get is a handshake and a form letter? This may qualify as follow up, but not as love. But don't people just want to be left alone? If you think that, why did you try to reach them in the first place? The only way to make follow through part of your DNA is a refocus of where you place your reward. Seek the treasures inside people, their history, their experiences, their perspectives, and their dreams and aspirations. Mine those treasures and 'follow-through' will become a awesome adventure... the fields are ripe for harvest.
12 The Time Factor. Take the long view. The goal is not attendance--it's a long-term relationship, not membership--it's partnership. And, it's not just conversion--it's authentic and complete transformation. So plan each initiative toward the long term goal of community transformation. Protect your most important asset: your community image and reputation. Don't sacrifice it for short-term gain. Think like an investor, compounding your impact, knowing that if you build right, it will grow exponentially in due time. Risk being real and remarkable. And even beyond that, keep your eye on the legacy vision: what real difference can you make for your grandchildren and theirs. What does this have to do with what you are planning right now? Maybe a lot. With key changes, your next initiative can be the beginning of a remarkable connections and community impact.
13 The Development Factor.
Build and refine to achieve greater effectiveness and excellence. Don't waste the learning potential derived from each effort. Evaluate everything, what can be learned, how can we do it better next time? A reverse positioning approach of this is used for planning. What strategic steps, taken now will put you in the best position to act down the road? Working backwards from your real goals the developmental question for planning is always this: What needs to be in place for your big goal to happen, and prior to that positioning what needs to be in place for it to happen? (and so forth)
14 The Numbers Factor. Simply put, you cannot expect numeric results without initiating the corresponding scale those results require. In other words, don't expect a visitor from distributing 50 doorhangers or mailing 500 "impact" cards. Closely related to the exposure scale is the need for continuity and repetition which are essential to not only build a strong community image but also to reach those people are currently open or seeking. Also, because budget is always a concern, it's good to plan for the absolute lowest unit costs, achieved through frequency and the economies of scale, allowing you to reach more people over time. For more on the Numbers Factor see the Law of Large Numbers in the article, The 12 Mistakes of Christmas Outreach..
15 The Synergy Factor.
There's a wonderful compounding effect or synergy created with the right combination of different media and people-based strategies. Think of it this way: the right 1 can = 3, the right 1 + 1 can = 10, the right 1 + 1 + 1 can =100. Complementary and/or sequential media (like direct mail + website landing page + social media + neighborhood) can be extremely effective. We also need to reprogram ourselves to see that for the unchurched this synergy happens in their world not ours, so think of ways to integrate your synergy with theirs. A good rule of thumb would be to integrate touch-points on a 4 to 1 ratio of their world to yours.
16 The Trust Factor.
Our strings are clearly showing. Suspicion of our agenda has to be overcome. This is a blind spot we all have and shows up in even casual conversation. But it's has been a chronic problem for churches. We have to remember that most people see churches as 'clubhouses' for members only, but they are always after more members. We need to relax and make friends with the unchurched, after all... they are your neighbors. Then we need to discover our unique voice (both personal voice and media voice). An approach that's warm, engaging, and endearing begins by laying aside our impatience for growth. It deep appreciation (even wonder) for people as the treasures they are, along with a genuine desire for deep friendship, and the expectation and reward found in empowering and releasing their God-given dreams. We can't fake authenticity, but we can build trust.
17 The Community Factor. Wouldn't you like to have a place where everyone knew your name (and you knew theirs)? Does God have a purpose for neighborhoods? The neighborhood just may be the last frontier mission field. It's certainly something we all have in common -- we all live in a neighborhood -- but who are the people in our neighborhood, really? Community transformation will never happen without a withreach plan for our neighborhoods and the desire for authentic, lasting relationships. Done right and over time, it can and should be tied into every other ministry of the church, especially media.
18 The
Body Factor. We need to begin to get a vision of the whole Body of Christ reaching the whole city through the release of God's 'dreamers' into every sphere of life... where their dream can be matched with the need they are called to meet. Start small, but begin somewhere. For example, you could host a child outreach summit and invite a few other churches to dream with you in how you could work together to empower children in your community, beginning this summer. Working together you can do more and better: thorough research, analysis of best practices, and brainstorm a wider mix of breakthrough ideas.
Although these 18 factors represent the most important keys I've found in my 30-plus years in missional communication and the churches and ministries we've partnered with over those years have combined to invest a whole lot more into the learning experiences that uncovered these community-engagement success factors. I offer them here in this form to energize and inform your planning. Any one of them could make a key difference in your very next initiative. All of them...well, I can only imagine.
Especially with Easter outreach coming, please feel free to call or email for free coaching. We love to hear your stories, your challenges, and help in any way we can.
Blessings on your ministry and outreach!