Change Starts Here!

FEED COLUMBUS // brought to you by C3 from City CampusChurch on Vimeo.

Many church plants do a marketing campaign, try to ramp up to a launch and start with a really polished product for a Sunday Morning worship service. It works. And they have often done it extraordinarily well.

There is a tension I've felt with this because for City Campus Church, Sunday morning is not the point. Discipleship...Community...Serving the City...those are the point.

So we formed Missional Communities...groups of 20-30 people who meet together...do dinner together...figure out life and this Jesus thing together...and serve Columbus together.

We said if we could get to three Missional Communities, then we'd move toward a Celebration gathering that brought the communities together to remind them they are part of a bigger story that God is telling throughout Columbus.

And God worked.

Three communities in place..Still needing to grow and expand...but 3 communities in place.

So now the Celebration.

How do we "market" to let Columbus know that we are here and we intend to Be Changed and Be Change?

Do we sink thousands of dollars into marketing the thing that we've said all along isn't the point? Let them know that there is another Sunday experience out there and try to convince them that we're more polished than X, Y, and Z? (Even though we'll never be as polished as X, Y, and Z!)

Or do we simply invite people into our DNA?

As a new friend pointed out to me last night, if you focus on getting the product right, the market will find you (rather than you having to try and find the market).

So we are pulling off a feeding event where 20,000 meals will be packed in two hours and given to Columbus City Schools and to local food banks. And we are going to have a blast while we put a dent into a statistic that says 7 out of 10 kids in the Columbus City Schools are food insecure.

I've grown weary of marketing ploys that often over promise and under deliver..."We're the best thing going" "Our product will change your life" "Others are inferior"

We don't have it all figured out. We're not the best thing going...Others do Church better than us...but for some reason, 7 in 10 kids are food insecure. And we are going to do our best to say "not on our watch."

1300 kids on a waiting list to be mentored in Big Brother Big Sister but there aren't enough mentors. And we are going to do our best to say "not on our watch"

Kids in Ecuador don't have much of a shot at a future...And we are going to do our best to say "not on our watch".

The metrics of attendance and giving and baptisms are easy metrics...but the metrics for C3 are different. How is the hunger crisis changing because we are here? How is the role model crisis changing because we are here? How is the crime rate changing because we are here? How could the Foster Care System be eradicated in Central Ohio because we are here advocating for adoption? How are lives changing (ours included) because we are here?

So Change Starts Here...My heart...Our Hearts...And revolution and revival take place with the turning of one heart.

Here we go.