Something failed recently.
In the previous post I mentioned how the last month had been a really busy one for me because I was preparing and starting a new prophecy series in both of my churches. I did a ton of prep work. Everything that I knew to do I did.
Here are a few of the things I did to prepare and create some buzz.
1. Had info and banner on website
2. Ordered a series banner that we hung outside our church
3. Got some 5×7 series cards in the neighborhoods around the church
4. Gave the church members some business card-sized series invite cards
5. Started on a good date
6. Picked a good topic
7. Did some Google Adwords adverstising
8. Did some targeted Facebook ads that received over 500,000 impressions
Needless to say, this is the most I’ve prepared for any series I’ve ever done. I was expecting to break some attendance barriers and have a big beginning for our big fall series.
What happened?
Not much. We had about 5 guests turn out, which I’m extremely thankful for. But not only did we not break any attendance records on that date, but our attendance was a little less than average! Ouch.
So what do you do when the big project fails?
I have no idea. Perhaps some of you can help me with that.
But here’s what I am doing. I’m trying to be as faithful as I can with the people that are coming for this series. Trying to be as intentional about follow up, answering questions, and making sure that our church is a safe place where they can come and check out these claims.
I’m also trying to build into our culture that some kind of failure is ok. We like to experiment and some things stick to the wall. Other things bounce off or ooze slowly down the wall.
That’s what I do know.
But all that being said, it does still hurt when the big project fails.
So what about you? What have you learned from projects that you’ve failed in? Or maybe you have some consulting insight as to what happened in this project. Jump in.
[image by Juan Freire]
Two things strike me: 1. No mention of prayer; 2. Possible traditional nature/venue of meetings. I don't want to assume there wasn't prayer going on, but it isn't mentioned in your note. Prayer is often relegated to a minor role. This is sad for conversions, revival and ALL successful work for God depends on prayer. She commanded us to "Ask," but there is little asking going on. Secondly people are wary of meetings in churches regardless of how sincere the presenters may be or subject matter. There is greater interest in prophecy with the tsunami of challenges washing over our country to be sure, but there is still reluctance. Among reasons are a general wariness of Christians, preoccupation with the many things going on, distraction with unfounded understandings, suspicion of motives when meetings are held by churches, lack of connection with people in the church and the venue. What is the solution? Advertise better? Continue holding meetings in spite of minimal responses? Many things are being tried but the most successful thing I have come across are the Care Groups taking place at the Gateway Centre Church in Melbourne Australia where seekers love to come seeker-friendly meetings on Friday evening to enjoy a meal, sing a few songs, study the Bible and pray. This church plant has gained 78 baptisms in 7 years and is the most active soul-winning church I have ever been in. they have figured out that seekers will only study the Bible serious after they have (1) seen the power of the gospel in the context of relationship, and (2) after they have become friends with church members. What they do is simple, but the results are wonderful and continuing. Prior to visiting and speaking in the church for a week this past summer I had heard about it, and in fact shared a room at other conventions with the founder on two occasions. But I was amazed by what I observed and felt only the half had been told. I need to write more on this. We also need to return prayer to the key role it played in the early church. Only the work accomplished with MUCH prayer will in the end avail itself for good. You can find much about prayer at my web site: path2prayer.com. I also have a newsletter that deals with practical Christianity. Write me to subscribe at path2prayer@gmail.com.
Hey Rodlie, I am way into the methodology (now in Searcy's tele-coaching network) so I love all that you did to prepare for these meetings. I have to comment on the initial statement above about prayer. I am sure you prayed for the meetings and that you encouraged your people to as well. But was there deliberate set aside groups and meetings taking place to bathe everything in prayer and even to set goals based on divine direction through prayer? If there was then just might have been an opportunity to struggle and grow, but if not I would say that is the difference maker. We haven't had any meetings this year and we've baptized 23 individuals, there has been no big special advertisement or programs yet guests and attendance is at the highest consistent mark it has ever been in this church's history (from what I am told and from attendance records we have back to 2001). Now this doesn't mean that we aren't implementing key elements. The assimilation plan, stewardship system, etc.. But I still believe the major growth is prayer! We have a group of prayer warriors that are incredible. Every Tuesday night they meet for an hour and a half for prayer and study on prayer (they don't just study they actually pray!!) then Sabbath mornings during worship there is a group that is praying while the service is going on. We had our entire Elders group do a book "40 Days of Prayer." Our Growth Groups launch will be a sermon series and studies based on prayer. I am a natural skeptic, but I can't deny what I am seeing and I don't think it is the methodology that is driving it, it is supporting the prayer–but prayer is driving it. Now again you may have this thing soaked in prayer, and so God just said, "these are the five that are ready for this now." Then so be it. Keep on keepin' on my brother! I hear my boy talking better go get him up.
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. It has to begin and end in prayer. And I think that's the surprising part for this. Because we spent the most in prayer for this series than any we've ever done. We had several church-wide gatherings were we spent time praying. We had early morning prayer meetings at church. At every phase of it we've been praying more than ever before, and yet, for some reason, we had less attendance at this event than any major series we've done. I'm ok with that though. The Lord's doings are sometimes mysterious. My job is to be faithful with what He's given us. We're doing this as a 10 week Sabbath morning series by the way. Not sure if I mentioned that. Thanks for the comment!
Hey Dan. Thanks for the words. Yeah, I didn't talk about our methodology for prayer in this post. In the comment below I gave a little more information. In short, we had more prayer in this series than any we've ever had before at every stage of it. It's fascinating to hear about the care-groups. I'm a big believer in small groups. I'd love to hear more about them for sure. We have a system of small groups in church. At one time we were doing cell-based groups. Now we're doing a semester-based system in which there are a series of there semesters during the year. At the end of every semester is a month off, then another semester starts again. I think I'm subscribed to your facebook group. But I'll definitely write in to get on your other list. Thanks for the thoughts!!
By the way, Praise God for those baptisms! Keep preaching!
Rodlie thanks for being open and honest. We are starting a one week evangelistic series in our church this Friday night! Please pray for us:-) I love evangelism (in all it's ways) and i love to study evangelistic efforts. Of course i agree that prayer is without a doubt essential, With that said more and more I'm seeing that our traditional methods of evangelism (4-5 week campaign) are not necessarily doing as well as they use too. Though yours is a Sabbath morning series, i think you have to ask if doing it simply on Sabbath morning is something that worked, would it have been better just to do a more relaxed evening casual style series? Not sure only you can judge…(cont. next comment)
Though I certainly don't have all the answers nor a silver bullet, I do believe that in part (may not be your case) we have to really ask our churches some tough questions. For one is the local church actually known in your neighborhood? Are our church members living a life style of evangelism (sure you've heard this before) as opposed to an event? I could go on but I think you get the picture. Lastly (sorry so long) in this year of evangelism for the NAD i've been amazed (for lack of a word) that we are asking God to some extent to increase our baptism's while doing the same things (more public meetings) I know that this wasn't the intention and may not apply to all. But?? Any how i think i'm going on too long:-))) I'm praying for you and may those 5 continue to grow and be faithful members that will in turn bring others to Jesus. Seems to me that you were faithful and as you said that's what counts. Be of good courage my friend and again thanks for your openness. (good to see you at Catalyst!)
Yup…i'll let you know by the end of the series how it worked. It's a relatively short campaign. Only ten topics. It's my first time trying this format…so we'll see….I've tried some seminar evening formats before….i honestly want to try every way possible to see which kind works best in our context….praying for yours!
"For one is the local church actually known in your neighborhood? Are our church members living a life style of evangelism (sure you've heard this before) as opposed to an event? I could go on but I think you get the picture. " Those are some extremely valid questions. I think that all those play a part and probably are part of the reason why more didn't come….but as pastors those are the questions that we deal with, aren't they. We have to help our people grow and become spiritually mature so those things will happen.
I've failed more often than I've succeeded, I'm afraid. I remember launching 17 small groups in a church once and within a year we had only three or four still going. I've failed several times in my family by giving in to ambition and workaholism. Just recently we had a youth day at our church, and while it seemed not to be a failure, because my priorities have been elsewhere, it was not what it really should have been in terms of youth involvement or relevance to youth issues. In those examples, the lessons I've learned far outweigh what I've read in books: 1. I've learned in small groups that you start only as many groups as you have prepared leaders, and short-term commitment groups that have a definite ending point are often more successful. 2. In terms of my family, I humbly sat down before my wife and asked her, "if nothing was impossible, and even with a career change for me on the table, what would it take for you to feel that I am prioritizing our family?" That lead to a significant role change for me in ministry and relocation to a different church, as well as taking two days off a week, and the temporary suspension of further education. 3. And in terms of youth ministry here, I had to have a difficult talk with my senior pastor and renegotiate some of my other responsibilities so I could do more in the area of youth in the coming months. Basically, I had to say "no" to some things that I enjoy doing and have gotten praise for, but are not my top priorities right now. As for insight into your situation, please let me know because I am seriously considering doing a Sabbath-morning based outreach series next Fall, so I want to hear what you would do differently. Thanks for your blog and thanks to the other commentators on your blog, I feel like this is a "real" learning environment for me.
Yeah, thanks for sharing those things. I think failure helps to remind us that we're all human, huh? I'll definitely keep you in the loop concerning the series. We still have 7 more weeks to go!!
What lead you to choose this topics specifically? Were these topics prayed for by the leaders of the church were they chosen by an individual? Are you doing the sereis or do you have different speakers every week? Do you have a prayer team dedicated to the series? Did the church as a whole buy into the series? What is the level of commitment from your members? What has been the follow up on previous series in terms of new members and relevance of the topic to yur population? Did they have any inputs? where there any evaluation forms?
Notice that the great evangelists of a century ago relied only on the Spirit as a trainer, coach and guide for winning souls. Inspiration and preparation will go hand in hand and listening to the voice of God trough your church leaders and members who are genuinly committed will play an important role in the outcome of any series. If the Church is not ready to receive the new members that will also affect the outcome. If the church is divided on issues, anything of this magnitude will fall through, in fact a house divided will not stand. Finally, If the church is divided it needs healing. Change happens form within and each individual and member needs to feel the need for change, you can't impose change. What you can do is create situations where a need for change is imminent and create the awareness of this need and after awareness is consensual then lead them to change which will also come from them. The church needs to own the outcome of anything done. This suppossed failed attempt can be a blessing in disguise. You will be in my prayers and let the Spirit guide you. The sun is always behind the clouds and the SON is always in control.
Appreciate those words, John. Yeah, those are all good questions and comments. Some of which I don't have the answer to. To develop our series we go through a planning process every year with a sermon planning group. We purposefully select a different team every year for this and we develop these topics together. To be honest, the purpose of the post wasn't even to try to look for a lot of answers as to why things didn't go better. We've gone through some of these things with our leaders. But the real purpose was to put out there that it's ok to fail at times. All of us will face it. Sometimes things will not go that great, and i'm ok with that. I wanted to give people "permission" to feel the same. Cheers.
Its a failure depending on how you define success. At the moment, based on what you have shared, you have been successful. And depending on how your church reflects, prays, and adjusts to what has happened, you could consider this a catalyst moment in the future. Thanks for being open about this "stuff". i have always appreciated how you are willing to put yourself out there so we can all do be better.
thanks, dude.