Do you want to know what I'm doing?
As a business owner, I’m always reading something about business. One of concepts is “unique value proposition.” I hadn’t heard it before, but it makes perfect sense. For nearly every business there’s competition. Let’s look at fast food as an example. Every day in every town, city, and village, people need to eat. Sure, a lot of people eat at home, but in the US a great number of people eat out.
The next question is, if you’re looking for fast food what do you eat? I remember in the late 1970′s there seemed to be 20 restaurants with “burger” in the name. There was BurgerChef, BurgerKing, BurgerQueen, DairyQueen, and plenty more. Today, there’d be “Burger place name generator” online. The main item on each menu was the humble hamburger. That was the problem. These places were so similar that only BurgerKing (who did it your way) and DairyQueen (who had all sorts of ice cream) survived.
Why don’t you head down to the local BurgerChef to get a Top Shef (sic.) or down to BurgerQueen for a double-cheese burger? The reason is pretty simple. These defunct restaurants couldn’t stay in business because they weren’t unique enough. There was no reason to go to them over McDonalds or some other restaurant.
I bet a lot of these restaurants tried to sell themselves on the “value proposition” that most places choose–price. The problem with this is that once you start down that road, you have to keep going down it to the detriment of everything else.
As a videographer, I could get lots of business if I charged $5 an hour for videography. The problem is that I can’t continue to live on such a paltry sum. I’d have to close down the business. I could also charge $20,000/hr. The problem is that I wouldn’t get any business unless there was some reason that people should pay that much. What if I was able to do the work of 100 people or 1000? What if I could create something that no one else could? Sure, it might be difficult to find someone who’d be willing to pay that much, but if I could deliver value, no one else could, I might be able to charge that much.
Churches can be that same way. In the old days, being a Baptist Church or a Presbyterian Church was in and of itself a unique value proposition. You’d move to a new town and decide to go to a Methodist Church because that’s what you left. Now, with so many churches dropping the denominational labels because of the growing mass of people who no longer care about them, how will one church differentiate one from another?
I hear a lot of churches claiming to be loving. That should be akin to having hamburgers at a fast food place. It should be a given not unique. Christianity is all about love. Claiming to be loving shouldn’t be unique. Claiming to really love people should be what we do.
So if love isn’t the differentiator, what is? I think that each church has to hear and heed her call. Each of these elements should be found in all churches, but it’s fine to specialize.
Evangelism. I’m not saying that other churches should abandon this, far from it. I think it’s the emphasis that matters. Some churches are just better at telling people about Jesus than others. When this is your primary concern, justice and teaching will be natural outcomes.
Justice. Jesus talked a lot about the poor. Every church should help the poor, but for some it isn’t what they do on occasion, but who they are. Caring for others causes you to want them to know Jesus and grow to be more like Him.
Teaching. Sadly, like being loving, many more churches think they’re great at growing Christians than are. There’s a difference between knowing more and being more like Christ. That should be the real aim. We can be a part of making Christians more like Jesus. If your church is great at this one, it should show in how you do the others.
These three are a triangle. All churches should do all three, but what makes one church different from the others is which is primary and in what combination.
You might notice that I’ve left out missions, healing, worship, giving, and other things that churches can be known for. I think they’re all either things we’re all commanded to do (like love) or variations on the above.
What do you think? Have I missed anything?
Paul
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From http://TrinityDigitalMedia.comThere is so much in this video. Let me tell you what I saw:
What ideas from this video can you repurpose?
From http://TrinityDigitalMedia.comI love what I do. It’s not as lucrative as it could be, but part of that is because I’m still in the process of getting my name out there. Recently, in an attempt to pay my bills, I’ve been doing more freelance work: websites, videography, etc. You’d think that casting a wider net would lead to more business. While it has, to an extent, it’s also meant that I’ve held back in what I feel like I’m supposed to do.
I want to help churches and Christian ministries. That’s why I’ve written books on podcasting and Twitter for churches and not for non-profits or even business.
Last Thursday I was a sponsor for my church’s leadership conference, “The Uprising.” I loved it. I loved talking to a pastor from Nigeria who was planning on using podcasting to connect people in his congregation to those in other parts of the world.
I helped a lady from our church join Twitter. I wrote recaps of the sessions. I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to do.
I’ve been thinking of refocusing for some time. I just need to be more intentional about it.
Paul
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From http://TrinityDigitalMedia.comMy church is actually really good at celebrating what God’s done. Here’s a quick example. I do video for our satellite campus. It’s about 1/10th the size of the central campus. The Saturday before Easter we had an egg hunt called “EasterFest.” We hoped that 1000 people would show up. God blew our imaginations when 2064 people came. We mentioned it every service and had a celebration the following Wednesday.
Here’s an example of how Newspring celebrates:
How about your church? How do you celebrate?
Paul
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From http://TrinityDigitalMedia.com