Quick… Get Me Brad Pitt!

Think about this: Life Cycles.

Not The Circle of Life, hakuna matta, but the life expectancy of a certain movement, strategy, or model.

In particular:

From Insight Monday Morning:
“In his blog, marketing guru Seth Godin recently talked about the five steps of a brand life cycle:

1. Who is Brad Pitt? [insert your brand/name here]
2. Get me Brad Pitt!
3. Get me someone like Brad Pitt, but cheaper!
4. Get me a newer version of Brad Pitt!
5. Who is Brad Pitt?

Another blogger added a couple others to the scenario:

6. I wonder what happened to Brad Pitt.
7. Get Brad Pitt back.

As I was reading this ‘life cycle’, I thought… “That is EXACTLY” what we do in church leadership many times. Do the test with me. Choose some ministry leader or church that you’ve looked up to over the years that has changed the church culture (a couple names/churches immediately come to my mind). Now, do the exercise above, inserting that name(s).

What is the point of this exercise? For me, it was just the recognition that we are all subject to the latest ministry trends and innovative leaders. That’s all well and good. The problem is when we model our ministry on our favorite leader or ministry rather than asking God (and then listening to) what he would have us do. Often times, we set ourselves (and our ministries) up on this ministry ‘lifecycle’ based on some model or personality who’s never even been to our church.

A good case in point is what we have seen this in the past year with Willow Creek and the Reveal study. In its defense, Willow Creek did a very introspective look at what was working and what was not working in their philosophy of ministry. AND they have the guts to implement some of those changes in the areas that things were not as productive as they’d liked. The downside is that now there are a ton of churches who are now, according to the life cycle above: a) looking for a new version of Willow Creek or b) Asking the question, ‘Who is Willow Creek’? That’s not the right question to be asking! The right question to be asking is “What would God have happen in our Church?”

FOR YOUR INPUT: So… what’s the lifecycle of your church? Every church has a brand. Every church has a philosophy of ministry. And most churches, quite frankly, adopt theirs from other churches they respect. Where are you at in your lifecycle; and what do you need to change today before someone asks you “I wonder what ever happened to Brad Pitt!”

Teach us God to listen for your still small voice….