Is Starbucks The New Model For Church Growth?

Found this interesting post on the Leadership Network blog about how some Pastors are using Starbucks marketing plan as their roadmap to Church growth.

Seven multi-site churches are highlighted for their international satellite campus locations in Wall Street Journal’s recent article, Inspired by Starbucks: Charismatic Pastors Grow New Flocks Overseas, Using Satellites, DVDs and Franchise Marketing To Spread Their Own Brand of Religion. The article highlights multi-site churches in the U.S. that are going international:

Mr. Gramling’s Flamingo Road Church, which has a weekly attendance of 8,000, is based in Broward County, Fla. …  Mr. Gramling says he tried to copy the success of Starbucks by assembling a creative team to hone "the look, the feel, the branding idea, of what Flamingo Road is." Like Starbucks, Mr. Gramling is thinking big. His goal is 50 churches world-wide, 100,000 members and a $150 million-a-year budget.
At least half a dozen U.S. mega-churches have opened international branches in recent years, and plans are in the works for many more. "If Starbucks can start four stores a day, why can’t churches?" says John Bishop, the pastor at Living Hope Church. His congregation in Vancouver, Wash., which has a weekly attendance of 6,000, has 23 satellite churches, including new sites in New Zealand, India, Mexico and the Philippines. The Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, La., has eight U.S. branches, and in the past year opened churches in Mozambique and Swaziland. Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Fla., with 10,000 members, recently launched branches in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Atiquipa, Peru.

I’ve been working really hard to relieve myself of the obligation of having to have an opinion about everything…but I did find this comment very interesting.

"The religious market is saturated in the U.S.," says Manuel Vasquez, co-author of "Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas." "There is a sense now that you have to go international to expand your reach if you want to be a player." By 2025, seven of 10 Christians will live in Africa, Latin America and Asia, according to Philip Jenkins, author of "The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity." In Africa, Christians make up nearly half of the continent’s population, up from about 10% in 1900.

You can read the full article here

Mind Dump 06-09-08

Powerful quote I found on Brother Scott’s blog…

One of the most empowering moments in The Orchard’s journey of transition & change occurred a few years ago when someone said to us:

"Until you get your focus OFF of the people who are disgruntled, unhappy, unsupportive, and resistant to the direction God has called you to go, and ONTO those who are excited, supportive and on board, you will NEVER gain momentum and see a new culture created in your church."

That statement set us free.

Decision Matrix, I like the sound of that…

In my years at NorthWood of being on exec staff, I have realized there aren’t that many types of decisions. In fact, there are only four. Type 1. HARD DECISIONS that are EASY TO IMPLEMENT These are decision you aren’t totally convinced are the right decision and the answers don’t completely jump of the page at you. There seem to be several good options available which can cloud decisiveness. Often you feel like you seek God and sort of jump off the cliff adapting during the fall. Once the decision is made, communicating it and getting people on board will not be that difficult.

Book review of Divide or Conquer…

These days relationships are recognized as business lifeblood and everyone works to improve them, so Diana McLain Smith’s Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength is right on the money.

Smith says that all teams “rise or fall on the strength of their relationships,” but instead of the typical discussion of team relationships, strengths, etc., she draws on her 25 years of experience and analyzes a number of high profile relationships to graphically illustrate her points.

She shows us why our belief that the problem is the other guy’s attitude/action and focusing on getting him to change boomerangs convincing the team that the source of the problem is actually us.

Smith says that what must change is how we interact, i.e., change the old patterns and create new ones, explaining how to build work relationships that are flexible and strong—the kind that can survive the tough challenges found in today’s global economy.

Are you willing to pay the price for excellence?

Most of those participating in the Olympics this summer will walk away from the games without grabbing a single medal. Those with real mettle will get back into training again. That’s what truly separates elite performers from ordinary high achievers. It takes supreme, almost unimaginable grit and courage to get back into the ring and fight to the bitter end. That’s what the Olympic athlete does. If you want to be an elite performer in business, that’s what you need to do, too.

Are you a leader or a manager?

If one looks at management development literature, it is only over the last 15 - and particularly the last 10 - years that leadership is mentioned at all. Prior to that, leadership was mostly only assigned to historical political figures such as Napoleon, Churchill, Kennedy and so on. These were people who earned the title leader. Leader was never assigned to organisational supremos. Nor was it given to any manager. It seems that some writers, keen to establish what makes a great manager great, settled on the term leadership as a distinguishing factor. Then they tried to define it. Then we tried to measure it. Some of us even tried to teach it! And there our troubles began…… My contention is that one becomes a manager when one signs on for the job, be it head of the country, firm, school, department or first-line supervisor. One only becomes a leader when other people say so….. This definition of leadership, rather than focusing on the inputs, such as personal skills, characteristics, competencies, traits etc, focuses on the outputs. Managers are judged on their status as a leader in the eyes of their followers and stakeholders by what they do and achieve

More With The Barrier Breaking…

More cool stuff from the Swerve blog…the hardest thing to do in leadership is mananging change.

One of the greatest barriers to growth is having the wrong people in leadership (paid or volunteer).

• The person who leads your kids ministry of 20 may not have the gifts to lead your kids’ ministry of 200.
• Your worship leader may be effective for your 400-person church, but not if you’re ministering to 1200.
• Your finance person may be able to manage $100,000 a year but not $1,000,000.

It may be time to make a change.

You can read the rest here…

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: leadership, church leadership

Why Do You Want A Big Church?

Brother Craig on the Swerve Blog is running a great series of posts on breaking barriers. He deals with a lot of different requirements for Church growth.

Generally speaking, the longer your church has been beneath a barrier, the more dramatic step it will take to break through the barrier. If some small change would make the difference, you would have made that a long time ago.

Questions You Must Ask:

• Do we really want to change?

• Are we prepared to lose some people to reach more people?

• Would I be willing to resign my spot if that is what it took?

I would only add one question…why do you want to reach more people? It’s hard to have right results when you have wrong motives. A lot of what fuels some preachers is the desire for success, not a desire to see God’s will done in the earth.

Crowds are not the measure of success, dependence on the Holy Ghost and walking out the Fathers will by faith is. The external success will come as a result of our successful relationship with Jesus.

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• Great Leadership Quote… « Now! Leadership!
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Technorati Tags: church leadership,church growth

One Man In The Holy Ghost

I believe item one on the devils agenda is keeping the Church distracted with petty fighting amongst ourselves while the world is going straight to hell. My enemy is not a some confused TV preacher…

A great post from Swerve blog I think sums it up.

If I were the devil, my number one strategy to thwart the work of God would be to divide Christ’s church. Satan certainly knows the words of Jesus that a Kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.

Jesus asked God to make all His disciples one (John 17:21). He prayed that we would be brought to complete unity (John 17:23). Paul told us to, “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit…” (Eph. 4:3)

Unity doesn’t mean uniformity.

We shouldn’t be alike in style, philosophy, and personal preferences. We are strengthened in our diversity. We can be unified and diversified!

We don’t have to be alike or agree on minor issues to agree on the Lordship of Christ!

For example, a strong church in my community changed its worship style. Several other churches within the same denomination took out full-page ads against this church, calling them heretics. HEARTBREAKING!

As a parent, I hate when my kids fight. Imagine how God must feel when He looks at His children who can’t get along.

(via swerve)

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