What Exactly is a Launch Date?

An article by Matt    No Comments

In my current role I get to work with a great deal of church plants across the country.  This is one of the most fun parts of my job since I get to hear what God is up to all over the place.  Having planted a church I enjoy getting to hear the differences in strategy and philosophy of each church and getting to share some of my own experiences along the way.

Over the course of the conversation I need to ask about when the church officially started or when it will be starting.  With a church plant, I generally ask that question like this “When is (was) your launch date?” followed by this question “What does launch mean to you?”  The term launch has come to mean so many different things to so many different churches and organizations that it is starting to be meaningless.

The traditional meaning of launch in the church planting context was the date that you would have your first “public” service.  The day that everything went live.  This is a very convenient definition for sending organizations because it gives them a hard and fast stat that they can pass along to others.  It is something that they can celebrate to their leadership and donors “This month we launched 12 churches!”  But what I have found in my own church planting experience, and what I am hearing from others, is that the traditional launch model no longer works in their context and they are doing something a little different… while having to claim a launch date for those that are supporting them.

Earlier this week Seth Godin blogged about the way that Google launched.  I think that we can learn something about church planting from his post:

About a year after they were founded, Google was first mentioned in the New York Times. As an aside, in a non-news column.

Today of course, it seems like everything they do is instantly news. It’s easy to forget that just about every major online service (eBay, Amazon, Paypal, Twitter, Facebook) launched in obscurity. Same with classic books, pop musicians and political careers.

The big splash might feel good, but it’s clearly not necessary.

I often wonder about how much time, effort, and money goes into the actual launch date of a church and how those resources could be used were there no official launch date.  Considering the drop off from launch service attenders and the number of people who come back the next week I wonder if this is really the best use of our resources.

How did YOU launch your church?  What worked and what would YOU do differently?