Ice Cream Buckets and Cute Chicks With Tambourines

I have visited churches all over the world. From an underground meeting in the Arab quarter of the Old City to a traditional Methodist church in India. I have been to Saddleback, the super mall of church campuses and to tiny country churches.

I have been to spirited services in Bethelehem, Saudi Arabia, New Delhi and Irvine. I have watched liturgy and tradition of the high church in Jerusalem, France and Nebraska. I've seen growing churches from Denver to Dallas and Ranchi to Jabulpuhr. I dove into the services of Church Plants in California, Texas, Arizona, Idaho, Tel Aviv and many points in between.

Here is an observation that I used to make about all the new churches that were thriving and the established churches that were growing. All of them had a cute chick with a tambourine up front with the band/choir/worship team/whatever. Well, sometimes it was a variation of that....two cute chicks with tambourines, or a cute chick on drums with someone else playing a tambourine or the radical: cute chick on a guitar with a tambourine sitting close by.

The conclusion I reached is that this is one of the secrets of Planting a Thriving New Church or Growing a Healthy Established Church.....Cute Chicks with Tambourines.

I asked a friend of mine what he thought about this. He was the Pastor of a growing Church in the Bay Area of California that currently saw 6 or 7 hundred people joining them for worship every Sunday, so I figured he was cued in to these sort of secrets. He disagreed. At his church, they used ice cream buckets for the offering. He was certain that this was the secret. I attended his services and found that they did indeed use ice cream buckets, but they also had up front, you guessed it, a cute chick with a tambourine.

The real secret to planting a Thriving New Church and Growing a Healthy Established Church.

Just a Thought

So I had a thought. Since I am...or at least was....a Church Planter. Well, let me back up and define that. Wikipedia says this:

Church planter is an entrepreneurial minister or organization that starts new congregations from scratch, rather than preach in established churches.

Contemporary church planters include Andy Stanley, John Wimber, Gene Edwards, Ralph Moore, Richard Rossi, Eric Grenier, and Bob Logan.

Many churches have found success in starting new churches to cover other geographical areas. Some leaders (Rick Warren) have said it is easier to start a new church than to reform an existing church that is not producing good results.

So here is one of my latest ideas. Compiling a book for Church Planters by Church Planters about the secrets of Planting a Thriving Church....beyond just ice cream buckets and cute chicks with tambourines.

I would organize it by P's.

Perseverance

Principles

Personality

Planning

Purpose

Passion

Pursuit

Different Church planters would write essays under those general headings. They could share their stories and their "secrets" of church planting for others. Then I would write the intro and comment on the essays at random.

Anyways, just an idea that sounded like fun.