There are very few things more fascinating than watching a well designed, well managed campaign play out. In my article yesterday, Breaking: Here’s How Saddleback Launches a Campaign, I mentioned 5 keys to their strategy. If you missed that article you ought to go back and take a look.
I loved the comment someone from Saddleback’s staff made yesterday:
Mark, you’re onto us! The Decade of Destiny campaign has been carefully crafted, precisely planned, and launched with gusto, all because so many people need for us as a church to be very intentional about making disciples. Good observations!
Today, I want to point out two more very significant aspects that will either reconfirm your convictions or your suspicions…depending on your world view.
First, you need to know that one of the real distinctives in an organization with momentum is that everything is connected.
Everything is connected. Here’s what I mean. When you watch Saddleback closely over the course of a year, you’ll see that they started publicly mentioning the Decade of Destiny campaign very early (You might be surprised to hear that they were actually mentioning the 10 x 10 concept in early 2008). Most likely, they began talking about it big-time in late spring at the latest. And I’m not just talking about preparing the materials. I’m really talking about preparing the minds of their congregation. “Here’s where we’re going. Get excited about this fall. You’re going to love this year’s spiritual growth emphasis.”
Full disclosure: I wasn’t there this spring. I just know how it works. There are plenty of audibles called when they’re at the line of scrimmage. But…the strategy is not last minute. It’s worked out well in advance. And not only was what preceded the campaign connected, there will be plenty that follows that allows continued momentum. Much like a trapeze artist, there is skillful execution in the leap from one swing to the next.
Second, another huge key to their campaign strategy is the way they consistently work the crowd-to-core philosophy. I’ve written about this before (if you need more info you can take a look here and here). The key thing to know is that unlike core to crowd where you start with a few, pour into them, and hope and pray that one day they become the kind of Christ-followers that actually go out and do something, crowd to core takes the opposite angle. You reach the crowd first, you offer steps for them that are designed to help them grow, and you move them toward the core.
So far so good? The aspect that people often miss is that crowd-to-core done correctly offers steps all along the process all the time. Since you’re always reaching more of the crowd you’ve got to always be offering the full range of opportunities.
A little look under the hood? Even though the Decade of Destiny campaign is “about making disciples,” in Rick’s preview message last weekend he told everyone, “the first two messages of Decade of Destiny are perfectly designed for people who have never been to church, ever.”
Personally? I cannot wait to see what happens next. If you haven’t already done it, go back and watch message one. Then…make plans to watch this weekends’ message. How many times do you get a chance to look under the hood of this kind of machine? This kind of living machine?
