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Changing churches one big idea at a time by Eric Bramlett |
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By communicating one "big idea" each weekend, you can align adults, students, and kids in their large group and small group settings and create faster action for your attenders. That's the Big Idea concept. Now, perhaps you've had this experience at conferences, or while checking out churches, or even reading articles like this one. You read about how fantastic a new idea is – the thing that is going to solve all of your problems. You think, "It just can't be this (easy, seamless, simple, etc...)!" And it isn't. Hopefully this will clear that up.
The Big Idea concept is available to all and designed to be made and molded by the end user. You can begin to apply what works best for you and your church starting today. There are at least three stages you can go through in becoming a Big Idea church, and these are best explained in the acrostic B.I.G.
B – Basic
I – Integrated
G – Global
Basic
For those of us who can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to these things, the first step will be to think basic. What is the first, definitive way in which you can take several little ideas and craft them into one big idea? Here's how Coastal Community Church in Virginia Beach implemented The Big Idea for their weekend services in order to go from planning one week out to eight weeks out:
"When we came across the Big Idea strategy, we were planning only one week in advance. It took nearly two months to get our planning eight weeks out. During that two-month work-up phase, we committed to planning relatively simple services so that we had time in our meetings to advance to an eight-week planning window. We sacrificed a short term decrease in quality (not a major decrease) that now allows us to experience significantly better quality on a week-to-week basis." – Hank Brooks, lead pastor, Coastal Community Church
Coastal is now in the process of implementing its version of the Big Idea within its children's ministry. In addition, they are adding a support/recovery ministry that will follow the Big Idea as well. They are moving from basic to integrated.
Integrated
When Community Christian integrated children and students with the Big Idea, we took our existing Big Idea meeting and invited our children's and students' staff to join us. Many of these staff members, while on the same team for some time, had never attended this particular meeting. The first several weeks became almost a training ground for us, and them, as we "got used to each other." We would strongly encourage anyone moving to integration to begin with simultaneous meetings. There are a couple of reasons:
First, there is a different kind of synergy when teammates who play different positions are in the same room, working on the same project. The best ideas come from the unlikeliest of sources. Many times at Community Christian, the best Kids' City idea came from someone in the Student Community, and visa versa. In the early phases, it was great to see that brainstorm energy feed off of each other. Many times, we would intentionally mix up the teams to get even more variety and creative juices flowing.
Secondly, there is more chance of streamlining ideas when those ideas are happening at the same time. There have been many times in Christian Community's Big Idea history when the same video feature has been used in two or more of our venues, and with different age groups. The video that worked for adults may even work for kids or students – but you will never know that if you plan in a vacuum. So plan together, and take advantage of the opportunity the Big Idea gives you for shared resources.
Global
Are you ready to go global? When your church is humming with the Big Idea and rockin' with topics that work for the whole church, you will soon be ready to take that Big Idea and go global. You should consider creating a network that is able to do that which you and others cannot do alone.
More and more churches are coming to the realization that the best way to reach people far from God is by becoming a reproducing church that plants new churches. Many well-intentioned churches also have strategies that include staffing, funding, and praying for a great launch of a new church. But after the launch, the strategy is one big "good luck out there cowboy!" from the launching church.
It doesn't have to be that way! If the church plant has a similar culture, why not collaborate with them on your Big Idea? A young church can benefit from such a relationship with an established congregation, and the established church will benefit from the "on fire" vibe of a church planter. At Christian Community, the NewThing Network was formed to do exactly that: to become a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches.
But the Big Idea not only creates collaboration, it also creates space for a church planter to do what needs to be done in the early phases of a church's life. Dave Richa from Jacob's Well Community Church in Thornton, Colorado, speaks of the collaboration and the way in which his church plant has benefited from the Big Idea:
"As a lead pastor, I have a lot of things competing for my time and energy. To have confidence in a process that will put together an excellent message and a compelling program takes a lot off of my mind on a weekly basis. I also believe being in close proximity with other gifted leaders has matured me as a leader and has helped mature me as a follower of Christ."
So how do you go global? Well, I would love to tell you about the fancy integrated national and international internet systems that Christian Community employs in order to make collaboration happen across the country. But right now, it's pretty simple and very low tech. A conference call, some instant message chat rooms, and a bunch of document drafts being emailed back and forth each week, and that's all it takes. The bottom line is, when there is commitment, communication, and collaboration among teams, even teams from churches across the country can work together on the same Big Idea.
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Eric Bramlett has been on staff at