On the [Churchwide] Campaign Trail

Gaining popularity with Rick Warren’s 40 Days of Purpose, churchwide evangelistic campaigns are uniting churches and attracting unbelievers across the country. Congregations who’ve done them share their insights on why your church should consider a campaign—and how to maximize its community impact.

 

by Amy Hammond Hagberg

When 150-member Elkton Missionary Church in Elkton, Mich., first started Saddleback Church’s 40 Days of Purpose campaign in 2004 (purposedriven.com), member Karin Homme had no idea that reading a book and meeting with a small group once a week would change her life.

“I thought I was going to heaven because I was baptized and I did good things and wasn’t as bad as some,” admits the 33-year-old real estate agent. “But this outreach made me realize that I had not accepted the gift of salvation that Christ offers.”

After Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren gave the invitation to accept Christ in the DVD curriculum, Homme accepted. “No big thunderbolts, but it certainly changed my life forever,” she says. “My decision has affected the lives of people around me who did not even attend the program."

Homme is one of thousands of people in the United States who made decisions to accept Christ after participating in the churchwide campaign based on Warren’s 2002 book, The Purpose Driven Life (Zondervan). The 40 Days of Purpose cam-paign was originally developed by Warren for his 22,000 attendee Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. (saddleback.com). He led church members in a collective experience of discovering their divine purpose, creating an impact so profound it has since been adopted by more than 30,000 churches nationwide. Hundreds of other churches are exploring topics like community service, personal evangelism and building community through similar churchwide campaigns developed by publishers and churches.

If you’re thinking about joining the increasing number of pastors headed down the “campaign trail,” you may be wondering, Is a churchwide campaign right for my church—and how can I maximize its impact? Read on to find the answers you need.

Why a Campaign?

According to Barna Research, the number of unchurched Americans has increased by 92% in the last 13 years. As of 2004, 75 million adults over age 18 had not attended a regular Christian church service within the past six months. But, as many local churches implement a multi-week churchwide campaign—an all-ages experience including devotionals, sermons, small group materials and even promotional tools—they’re seeing transformative results.

One such church is 4,000-attendee Eastlake Community Church in Chula Vista, Calif. (eastlakechurch.com), which in 2004 chose a six-week campaign based on Lifetogether’s Connecting With God’s Family DVD-based small group curriculum. Lead Pastor Mike Meeks challenged the entire church to host a DVD-based small group—instead of just attending one.

“But we don’t have a DVD player!” some members objected.

Meeks wasn’t deterred. The church promptly provided brand-new DVD players to anyone who wanted to host a group.

A few days later, Anne, a single mother, picked up one of the DVD players and invited other single mothers in her apartment complex to join her for a small group. After the first week of the study, Stephanie, a Jewish single mom who was attending the group, agreed to visit the church with Anne. During the service, Stephanie made a decision to accept Christ. 

“My Jewish family was shocked,” Stephanie says. But when her parents visited Eastlake to investigate the “cult” their daughter had joined, they also made decisions for Christ.

Stories like Stephanie’s are a powerful testament to the impact a campaign can make, says Brett Eastman, founder of Lifetogether (lifetogether.com), a campaign and small group development ministry working since 2002 with thousands of churches like Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., and Saddleback. “Churches are realizing that campaigns are the No. 1 catalyst to connect their congregations into community.”

That’s because campaigns offer strategic, focused outreach opportunities, and often include intensive evangelism training. Members are continually spurred to invite friends and family from outside the church to small groups and special events. Moreover, a major campaign is professionally done, relevant to the unchurched and easy for churches to host, thanks to campaign developers who fuse all the material into a convenient package.

While making church more accessible to visitors, campaigns also urge church members to get out into the community, says 19-year-old Kelly Owen of  Reedsburg, Wis. Owen recently participated in Purpose Driven’s 40 Days of Community, a campaign encouraging small groups to reach out and meet local needs held at Reedsburg’s 300-attendee Trinity Baptist Church (todayschurch.com).

“We went out and did community projects in our town, like cleaning up the playgrounds at schools, cleaning the walking trails and doing a food drive,” she says. “It really made an impact on the community, which made us feel like we were doing something that pleased our Lord and Savior.”

But do campaigns offer anything to mature believers? The benefits are twofold, Eastman explains. Throughout a campaign, congregations become stronger communities as they share life-changing aspects of spiritual growth. Campaigns bring together every age group, ministry, Sunday school class and small group to study the same curriculum, and most provide multiple reinforcements with weekly worship and small groups, daily quiet time and Scripture memorization.

“When doing a churchwide campaign, you reinforce the pastor’s message on every level of the church,” says Shelley Leith, who spearheaded the initial development of 40 Days of Purpose and now develops resources for its administrative branch, Purpose Driven. “Life change is more powerful when a message is reinforced several times.”

And concentrating on one spiritual discipline does have more impact, says Danny Wood, lead pastor of 5,000-member Shades Mountain Baptist Church (shades.org) in Birmingham, Ala., which has conducted the 40 Days of Purpose, 40 Days of Community and Made to Count Journey (madetocount.com) campaigns.

“The whole church gets on the same page for those eight weeks,” Wood says. “It keeps conversations going throughout the week because everybody is studying the same thing.”

All in all, campaigns are about measurable church growth in every area. Since its inception, the 40 Days of Purpose development team has been measuring results from participating churches via a post-campaign survey. Their findings: a 20% increase in attendance, a 59% increase in small groups and a 20% increase in tithing. 

“There’s a plethora of reasons why churches are embarking on campaigns: to grow the church, build financial health, mobilize volunteers, connect the congregation or reach out to the community,” says Sue Doc Ross, director of operations and production for Lifetogether. “The truth is, campaigns accomplish all of these.”

Choosing the Right Campaign

When Pastor Coy Arnold of 30-member First Baptist Church in Horatio, Ark., recently led his congregation through the Made to Count Journey—a 50-day journey answering the question, Am I living a life that matters?—he didn’t let the size of his church subtract from his efforts. As a result, more than 10% of his small town participated and his Sunday school program tripled in size.

The most notable group of new attendees was unchurched men, Arnold says. “Initially, the program helped bring more men into the church because their wives made them participate,” he relates. “But then, it caught on. Some of the participants were truck drivers, and they actually brought their Made to Count books along while they were on the road and studied during the week."

Soon, the men began to change their perspectives on faith. “You can still be a rough guy and have joy with Jesus all in the same breath,” Arnold says. “Throughout the campaign, you could see the light click on with them.”

But that wasn’t all. The Made to Count Journey curriculum teaches participants to be missionaries in their daily lives, and Arnold saw teachers doing Bible studies with kids after school because they just wanted to take God to their workplace. “One lady was the cheerleading sponsor,” he relates. “She was sharing with her cheerleaders, and they started doing a group.”

Take it from First Baptist—churchwide campaigns aren’t just for Goliath churches. In fact, megachurches are actually less likely to purchase a campaign kit, as they often opt for developing their own customized programs, according to research by Pursuit Ministries (pursuit.org), a training and campaign development ministry of 12,000-member Central Christian Church in Las Vegas (centralchristian.com), which has carried out multiple campaigns and pioneered its own Why and Developing a Servant’s Heart campaigns. Pursuit observed churches of all sizes utilize their programs—from congregations as small as 25 to megachurches of 12,000—and found campaigns to be most popular with midsize churches. Saddleback reports the average church that implements 40 Days of Purpose has approximately 200 people.

Large or small, your congregation may be unwilling to embrace a particular campaign if they feel it doesn’t apply to them. “Keep in mind that sensitive members can get nervous about using material that’s not endorsed specifically by their denomination,” says Shades Mountain’s Wood. “You have to convince people that this is going to be biblical and touch their lives. If some people don’t believe it really relates to their life, they just check out.”

Circumvent this problem by finding a campaign that meets the specific needs of your church. For example, if a church needs to become more outwardly focused, leaders may want to consider the Faith in Action campaign (putyourfaithinaction.com), which focuses on building a heart for service. If a congregation is weak in evangelism and intimidated, then the Just Walk Across the Room (justwalkacrosstheroom.com) or Becoming a Contagious Christian (contagiouschristian.com) campaigns might be a good fit.

Teamwork and Taking Risks

After choosing the right  campaign, pastors can struggle if they try to execute it on their own.

“I did the whole thing,” says Outreach Pastor Ted Brown of 2,000-attendee Kennedy Road Tabernacle (krt.org) in Brampton, Ontario, which just completed the Becoming a Contagious Christian campaign. “But when I had to go on vacation, people were kind of ticked, and there was no one to teach.”

Teamwork is indeed essential, as Purpose Driven found when the organization studied the qualities of churches that have successfully implemented their campaigns. “The ones with the most heartache and difficulty were the ones where the pastor tried to run the whole campaign himself—without learning the value of bringing in a team,” says Leith.

She suggests identifying a team of three to four visionary people to come alongside the pastor, and finding an organizationally gifted person to manage the overall campaign.

Even when everything else is under control, it’s easy to succumb to the temptation to wait until the campaign is over to implement what you’ve learned. With a little creativity, however, churches can see results from their congregation throughout the process.

“The first week I went and bought 1,000 packs of gum, and we put a little connection card on it,” Brown says. “I wanted to put the lesson into practice the first week. We gave members several packs each and told them to share them with someone on the street or at work.”

The stories participants brought back were inspiring and motivating for the rest of the group, Brown recalls. A Hindu family who came to Christ a few years ago shared the gum with their son, still a practicing Hindu. He accepted it and listened to what they had to say. Another person gave the gum to a co-worker, who was so surprised by the gift that he also willingly listened to the Gospel message.

One of Brown’s favorite stories came from a woman in the campaign who worked as a correctional officer in a courthouse. “Each day, the guards escorted prisoners from the jails to the courthouse for their trials,” he says. “She was uniquely challenged in her workplace by interacting with the guards, who are pretty hard-nosed people because they work with prisoners.” However, she was so inspired after a few weeks of the campaign that she began sharing her faith with the guards, seeking out those small opportunities that were appropriate to her environment. It was an “extremely stretching” experience, but she was thrilled to find the courage to share Christ with her co-workers. 

“We challenged members to come back with these stories each week,” Brown says. “You have to get beyond your comfort zone. It’s not just a matter of getting to the end of an eight-week course.”

Strategies for Community Impact

When navigating the challenges of a churchwide campaign, you’ll need more than a kit to successfully impact your community. Campaign veterans suggest these proven strategies.

• Carefully schedule and invite. “There are three really good times to do campaigns: before the holidays in October/November, after the holiday rush has ended around the third week in January, and preceding Easter,” says Hal Seed, lead pastor of New Song Community Church in Oceanside, Calif. (newsongchurch.com), and co-creator of the 40-day The God Questions outreach campaign, which helps church members answer tough questions about God and faith.

“This year, we deliberately did Becoming a Contagious Christian leading up to Easter, because we realized the practical application to this campaign is for believers to invite a friend to church, and Easter is an excellent opportunity,” Seed says.

In fact, personally inviting friends, co-workers and neighbors to participate with your church is key to the success of the campaign, adds Pastor Mike Bowers of New Life Community Church in Elk Grove, Calif. (newlife-community.org), which recently completed The God Questions campaign.

“I gave invite cards to our members that allowed them to be personally involved in the invitational process,” he relates. “I believe personal contact is more effective. The cam-paign gave our members increased boldness and encouraged them in their faith.”

• Plan a realistic timeline.  At the outset, most campaigns require a 10- to 12-week planning window to make them work, say experienced church leaders. It’s dangerous to shortcut the process by not planning far enough in advance—staff and members can be caught off guard, and scheduling conflicts may keep your attendance low.

“To prepare everyone, we did a weekly e-mail to the congregation starting four weeks out,” says Brown. “I pre-sold the participation booklets at our guest services booth. This allowed us to find out how many people would be participating in the program. We also did video announcements with the intro clip from the DVD.”

By planning ahead, you’ll allow various ministries to suspend their regular pro-gramming and gear up for the new curriculum. Lifetogether suggests holding three strategic meetings to create buzz and excitement around the campaign: a staff discussion, a leadership briefing and a congregational invitation.

• Align completely. “It has to be an all-or-nothing proposition,” insists Bart Rendel, president of Pursuit Ministries. “A church’s calendar is committed, its budget is committed, its leadership is on board, the stakeholders and leaders of the church are all on board ... and they go all out for it.”

Take it from the experts and do what-ever it takes to align all facets of church life with the campaign. It’s critical you have something for everyone; don’t leave out your junior high, senior high, college, women’s, men’s or senior adults’ ministries. And when participants are committed to the campaign in return—attending services on weekends, being in a small group or Sunday school class, reading daily and memorizing Scripture for 30–40 days—the experience is much richer for everyone.

Also encourage families to take the chance to bond, says Dr. Bob Reccord, creator of the Made to Count Journey (madetocount.com). “As a pastor, I found that we tended to segregate our congregations too much along generational lines. As a result, rarely does the whole household study principles from the Word of God at the same time.”

• Pray fervently. “Purpose Driven has a whole prayer process that we encourage pastors to go through while doing a campaign,” says Leith. First, they advise praying earnestly during the research phase for discernment in choosing the right program for your church. Second, they urge praying about who should be on the campaign team, and finally, praying daily all the way through the process. Leith even recommends devoting one of your campaign team members exclusively to prayer.

“We prayed and prayed and prayed about it, and God just made it smooth,” says First Baptist’s Arnold.

• End by celebrating. Whichever campaign you choose, make sure to wrap it up with an overview and celebration. The Becoming a Contagious Christian campaign culminates with a focused outreach weekend where people can bring their friends to hear about Christ.

“The congregation’s awareness of this exciting harvest event at the end of the training energizes them in powerful ways,” says Mark Mittelberg, who co-authored Becoming a Contagious Christian with Lee Strobel. “No longer are we talking about something that church members ‘oughta consider doing.’ Now there’s an urgency—a window of opportunity."

Finally, don’t allow the campaign to die out when the party’s over. As Lifetogether believes, it’s important to “begin with the end in mind”—thinking ahead to what your church will do on day 41 to maintain its health and momentum.

“I want to set up a group on the social-networking site Facebook.com to tell the stories of how God has used the campaign,” says Kennedy Road Tabernacle’s Brown. “People are encouraged by the stories of others sharing their faith. I can’t wait to do it all again.”

Amy Hammond Hagberg has written for publications all over the world. She is the author of three books, including the How Do You Know He’s Real (Destiny Image) series and My Favorite Christmas (Integrity). Dividing her time between ghostwriting and editing for other authors and speaking to church groups and corporations nationwide, Amy resides in Buffalo, Minn., with her husband and two teenagers.

CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS

Find the campaign that’s right for your church.

40 Days of Purpose: This 40-day spiritual journey helps participants understand why they are alive and realize God’s plan for them (purposedriven.com).

40 Days of Community: This campaign helps churches and individuals take the next step after 40 Days of Purpose by showing love to their communities in practical ways (purposedriven.com).

Becoming a Contagious Christian: Based on the book by Mark Mittelberg and Lee Strobel, the Willow Creek Resources six-session evangelism course is designed to equip believers to share the Gospel in a natural and powerful way (contagiouschristian.com).

Developing a Servant’s Heart: A 40-day campaign in which participants take a comprehensive journey of discovery about serving and God’s plan for their lives (pursuit.org).

Faith in Action: A partnership between World Vision, Outreach Inc. and Zondervan, this four-week campaign prepares churches for a weekend when services are cancelled and the congregation engages in a day of service projects (putyourfaithinaction.com).

The God Questions: A six-week outreach campaign designed to provide answers to the questions most commonly asked about Christianity (outreach.com).

Just Walk Across the Room: Based on the book by Willow Creek Pastor Bill Hybels, this four-week evangelism campaign inspires congregations to step out of their comfort zones and share the Gospel through personal testimonies (justwalkacrosstheroom.com).

Life on Loan: Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson, authors of The Externally Focused Church, help individuals through a six-week experience to explore a life where serving others allows their stories to intersect in life-changing ways (lifeonloan.com).

Lifetogether: Customizable six-week campaigns focus on developing small group ministries within churches of all sizes, offering 12 kits with various topics (lifetogether.com).

Made to Count Journey: A 50-day journey for all ages covering eight specific biblical principles to help participants answer the question, “Am I living a life that matters?” (madetocount.com).

Outflow: Written by Dave Ping and Steve Sjogren, this five-week adult and children’s small group experience is designed to encourage honest outreach based on a growing relationship with God and the sharing of God’s love (group.com).

Revealed: A 30-day journey of experiencing God’s best for your life utilizing a small group module (rsirevealed.com).

WHY> 40 Days Pursuing Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions: A powerful set of tools focused on apologetics and “on the job” evangelism training (pursuit.org).

 

 

-EXCERPTED from Outreach magazine, "Features," September/October 2007

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