Today we'll dive into the 8 steps of "the funnel" that looks something like this:
1 Pre-Service Experience - this begins in the parking lot. This is the broadest part of the funnel, trying to welcome everyone and make them feel GREAT!
2 Opener - Usually a song or game of some sort or something fun/entertaining... *We want to make people HAPPY they are here! **If we can make them laugh/smile the 1st 5 minutes they are here that's a huge WIN!
3 Welcome - Because there are GUESTS! we welcome guests into our home... we don't load them up with a bunch of info. We want 1st timers to feel WELCOMED, not announced at (that's not the win)!
4 Singing/Worship - (it's all worship... so the musical part of worship is step 4). There is a funnel even within this step of the funnel. we must be sensitive to the emotional flow... don't start with a crazy intense song about the blood of Jesus flowing down... that should come at the end of this step of the funnel. Start with a worship song that's way broader and more engaging.
5 Baptism - the way we do baptisms and the stories will get all the people in the room involved emotionally. You can't argue with someone's story! you just emotionally connect.
6 Tension (Andy calls this a "special") - Goal = to create a tension that the message will address. this is usually a song, maybe a video or interview or something. the tension should not resolve during this step! just create it! **tap into human emotion here. make eveeryone in the room say "I hope someone can answer that".
7 Message - start a whole new funnel here! Start out broad and catch everyone and then funnel down to the point that we RISK challenging them... risk offending with the gospel... for the sake of life change.
8 Closer - the only point is to punctuate the point of the message (or whole series).
Following this funnel/template should allow us to be way more creative!
*Here are some great Rules for the exceptions to the rules!
- It's OK to move away from this template on purpose, but it's not OK to drift by accident! You can decide to do it, but don't do it unintentionally. (we recently did this on purpose at Ridge for "Throwback" in April! It was intentional and we all acknowledged it and talked about it.)
- It's never OK to move away from this template because we're bored, we want to do something "cool", or we just want to change it up... *** "If we can leverage cool fro something good that's awesome, but cool is never the goal."
- When we move outside the template, there needs to be a good reason. (Like Throwback for us or our upcoming "Strategic Service" Sunday.)
There you have it. Our funnel or Sunday morning strategic template.
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2 comments:
Most churches - show up at service start time, and the parking lot is buzzing. NorthPoint - ghost town, because everyone tries to get in for "The 10 Before" (and not just to get a good seat). NP cheats by using time before the official start time to do some of what they are calling the "Opener," which effectively gives them an extra ten minutes in the service - and no one complains. But it takes buy-in from everyone involved (worship team, host team, Waumba volunteers...) for that to happen.
Part 4 - I remember rarely hearing the worship leader say more than a couple of sentences between songs or any guitar solos lasting more than a few seconds. Those take the focus of worship off of God and onto the leader or soloist, and it really breaks the flow. The few times something like that did happen, it really stood out - and not in a good way.
Part 6 - Some of the title packages do this on their own - Loosing Your Religion was a great one - but most of the time it was through a song or video interview. That was huge, especially in creating an emotion. Without that, sometimes the Message seems a lot less relevant.
Hard to do it all in limited time and avoid falling into the performance trap.
great thoughts Matt! it's awesome the way you see it all fit in.
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