Strategies To Launch a Healthy Church

2. Define Milestones

As I mentioned previously, we too often focus on a launch date. A better focus is launch conditions or launch milestones. If our goal is to begin hosting services, the date is our best focus. But we’re hoping to launch a healthy and sustainable church. This focus requires we create conditions conducive to health.

Milestones such as:

1. 1. 1. Number of people actively participating in groups,
      2. Average weekly dollars given,
      3. Total financial resources in reserve,
      4. Number of people committed to volunteer teams, and
      5. Average number of people participating in community serving days.

Milestones such as these do two things for a church leader:

1. 1. 1. Met milestones create the required condition for a church to launch well. There’s nothing healthy or sustainable about a church launching without volunteer teams, funding, and community in place.
      2. Milestone targets give church leadership the perfect answer to “So when are we going to start hosting church services?” The answer? “I don’t know. You tell me?” When church leaders present milestones as preconditions for launch, the weight of launch leadership spreads across the entire prelaunch team. There are few things more vision- and action-oriented than “we can launch this church whenever WE are all ready to launch this church!”

At RCC, our milestones were:

1. 1. 1. Groups: 75 People in watch-party groups.
      2. Financial: $2,000 in weekly giving and $50,000 in cash reserves.
      3. Volunteers: Active participation in Community Service Days and commitments to fill the Guest Services, Pre-School and Elementary, and Production Teams.

3. Target a Timeline

Not just a “launch date.”

A robust timeline allows the launch team and growing insiders to understand how the plans will form. Below is the high-level timelines from our recent RCC campus launch strategy:

January 2022

• • • Send communications to active RCC families and individuals who live closer to the projected new campus location than other current campuses to share our hopes to launch something new.
    • Send communications to all RCC attendees introducing our desire to launch a new campus.
    • Begin researching Sunday meeting locations for use later in prelaunch and post-launch.
    • Establish giving systems for the new campus.

February 2022

• • • Schedule 3-4 Information Meetings near the new proposed campus.
    • Develop curriculum plan for Launch Team Community Groups.

March 2022

• • • Begin forming Community Groups.

April 2022

• • • Begin community awareness campaigns by promoting the first service day, website, and social media (FOR Wakulla).
    • Monitor Community Groups. Add new families and individuals to groups.

May 2022

• • • Host the first Community Service Day.
    • Encourage Community Groups to attend an existing campus once a month.

June 2022

• • • Define staffing needs and volunteer team size.
    • Host Community Service Day.
    • Secure facility for Sunday utilization beginning in August.

July 2022

• • • Host Community Service Day.

August 2022

• • • Host Community Service Day.
    • Move Community Group Watch Parties to Sunday morning in the facility. No music. Just a short message followed by group discussion.

September 2022

• • • Host Community Service Day.
    • Recruit and begin filling Volunteer Teams.

October 2022

• • • Host Community Service Day.
    • Begin Volunteer Team Trainings.
    • Vision Dinner with Insiders.
    • Practice music and service experience with Production Volunteers.