I return to 'normal' work today...whatever that means. I take a time-out every summer from my normal responsibilities so that I can stand outside of PCC and look in from a distance. To do this, I visit other churches, read, etc. (see my blog post from June 12 for more on the purpose of my study break). My study break (which I followed with a week of vacation - pure playing and no work) ended yesterday. Today, I'm back to my normal responsibilities. So, I started my study break on June 9. For three weeks I read books, studied the Bible, visited churches, met with pastors, toured facilities, and thought a lot about PCC...a lot. Today, I want to begin to unpack for you some of what I saw, heard, learned, and experienced.
Because of a generous and unexpected grant outside of our church, I was able to travel to Arizona and California this year (normally I travel within driving distance of Powhatan), and I was able to take my family with me.
One of the churches we visited is called Christ's Church of the Valley - CCV. 
Located in the Phoenix area, CCV has grown dramatically, has weekend attendance of over 13,000 and a budget of something like
Located in the Phoenix area, CCV has grown dramatically, has weekend attendance of over 13,000 and a budget of something like
$12 million. Now, you may think, "they're in a different league altogether" and you'd be right. But you learn from those who have gone before you. If you want to be a better golfer, you play with someone who is better than you or more experienced than you. We don't want to be another church, but we certainly want to learn from those who have journeyed through levels of growth that we have not yet seen. Then we can adapt the principles that are working elsewhere to our own setting when we find that they would be helpful to us.
One of the things that thought was brilliant was the simplicity of their action plan - their strategy. 'Win. Train. Send.' "At CCV, it is our mission to WIN people to Jesus Christ, TRAIN believers to become disciples, and SEND disciples out to impact the world." It's simple, catchy, easy to remember, and is easily understood. These three words were plastered everywhere - on signs and in tastefully placed positions on walls, etc. No one could go there and not know what they were trying to do.
At another church we visited, Central Christian Church of the East Valley, they used three different words, "Discover. Develop. Deploy." Different words, same idea. Again, easy to remember and appropriately and tastefully placed in strategic places on their literature and signage. And it effectively communicates what they are about.
I started playing around with this, hoping to come up with a similar way of communicating what we are trying to accomplish. We may simply borrow another church's idea (with their permission, of course) or perhaps we'll come up with our own.
We're not changing our mission - in fact, I'm as passionate about it as ever. But I do see the wisdom in a concise, non-churchy, easy to remember, and clear communication that sums up what we believe God wants us to do.
Can you think of 3 words that do it? Do you like either of these church's ideas? I value your input as I work on this.
By the way, I'll have more to say about CCV and CCCEV and the other churches I saw and interviews I did and services I attended in the days to come.
6 comments:
I very much like "Win.Train.Send", as it sums up action/mission very succinctly. It's easy to grasp the concepts.
On the other hand, I dislike "Discover.Develop.Deploy", it's kind of mushy. Who is discovering what? Develop is OK. Deploy sounds too military, like one is deploying a missile. Plus the whole 3 "D" thing is a little contrived.
What can we pull out of our own mission statement that could be summed in 3 words? Not sure if we can do much better than Win.Train.Send, but it's possible. Will think more on this.
I agree with Connie. Deploy implies military and while we are an army for Christ, I don't think we want to imply that to out siders (those who have not been changed Christ yet).
Brain,
I read a book called Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger. In this book they site the success of iPOD and Google and attribute it to their "simplicity" and ease of use. In the same way, they say that when a church has a clear and simple purpose or "mission statement" they are more unified and clear about what they are called to do. Their success and growth stems out of their clarity of vision and ability to execute it. While I don't agree with all the points in this book, it is a good read.
I have been thinking about this for a few days now and while I agree with the statements that have been made, I want to over a couple of possiblities:
Powhatan Community Church
Praising, Challenging, Changing!
"Life in Christ's community"
or maybe
It's celebration. It's challenging. It's changing.
It's about living in community with Christ.
Whatever we choose, it must be simple enough to remember, powerful enough to invoke and sensible enough to communicate. I hope this will spark some more thoughts to a worthy topic of discussion.
Someone also sent me an email with these 2 ideas:
1. Bring (the Lost); Build (up the Church); Be (the Church to our community/world). It seems to me the most natural from of evangelism is to be the church in the various places and spheres of influence God has placed each of us individually, as well as PCC corporately.
2. Gather (the Lost); Grow (the Church); Go (to a lost world)
I like the idea of using three words, all in the same tense. Win, Train, Send gets at it. So do the ideas above. If you had to pick from all of the ideas pitched so far from the original post and the comments, which do you think is best and why?
I have been thinking about the "3 words" for the last several days. I think we like the linkage, progression and simplicity of the 3 words. How about: Begin, Believe, Become. Each is a stepping stone to the next with the first word is a simple start, believe is the word in Scripture that sets us apart and Become is where we are headed. Just a thought! CB
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