Home Pastors Articles for Pastors 5 Church Innovations You May Never Have Heard Of

5 Church Innovations You May Never Have Heard Of

church innovations

It seems like about a dozen churches across the country get all the attention of church leaders when it comes to looking for innovative approaches to ministry. Even though there are over 100,000 churches in the country we all seem fixated on just a few! Today I wanted to highlight some great stuff happening in churches that aren’t a part of that super-elite group. A part of our role as a church leader to keep our ears to ground to learn from other leaders. People have solved the issues that you face in your ministry today. These are five church innovations that I’ve taken note of and that I’m learning from as I think about our ministry.

5 Church Innovations You May Never Have Heard Of

1. Hosting a Celebrity One Month After Easter!

At Easter one year Northstar announced that film actor Stephen Baldwin would be coming in about a month’s time. This move built huge momentum for them in the “post Easter” time frame. (The church leveraged a relational connection with Stephen and asked him to come last weekend.)

The Sunday was an all around success … great local press coverage, 220% bump in attendance from an average Sunday, massive first time guests contact information and 34 people made commitments to follow Jesus! Albany is the most post-Christian city in America and I’m excited to see what Northstar is doing to make an impact!

What “even bigger day” could your church plan a month out from next Easter?

2. Launching a Home Grown Kids Curriculum 

What do you do when your church has particular passions or concerns that don’t seem to be covered by the “generic” kids and student curriculum companies? The Meeting House decided to take action, create church innocations targeted at their own community, and pull together custom made curriculum called “Survive the Street” for grades 1-5 and Jr. High. [You have got to check out the trailer.]

The core of the curriculum uses a “reality tv” premise of dropping two young people on the streets of a major urban center for 24 hours. The curriculum will be walking through life lessons on the Book of Ruth. I love the creativity bubbling out of this project … it’s been a long time in development but it’s fantastic to see it come to life this month!

How are you communicating your church’s unique voice and vision to your students?

3. Tvotions … 280 Characters of Inspiration

Next Level is a rapidly expanding church in New England (4000 at Easter!) that I think you are going to be hearing more about in the future. There are many things about Next Level that look really cool but I was particularly attracted to their Tvotions service. They are 140 character messages from Lead Pastor Josh Gagnon to help their community stay focused on Jesus all week long sent via text messages.

These church innovations aren’t news and updates about Next Level, and they don’t send more than 1 per day. Just short but powerful encouragement from their pastor sent straight to their people. There is no doubt that people’s phones are some their most personal possessions and I love that Next Level is looking to leverage that close technology to help people take steps closer to Jesus!

What could you church do to get a Tvotions service going?