Some churches need to be planted…and some need to be relaunched.I am sure this is out there, but I haven’t seen it. It seems that a relaunch is typically the same pastor, same team, etc., but maybe a new church name, and other revamps. But while this may be obvious to everyone else, it occurred to me that just like there are teams that go to help plant a church, what if there were Relaunch Teams that went and helped a church remake itself, etc.?It might be a group of singers/musicians, teachers, workers, etc. who work with the local church on a relaunch plan, but then ATTEND the church for, say, several months, with staggered departure times, and, if anyone wants to, even becomes a part of the church.It is hard to relaunch very small churches. They don’t have enough hardly to do what needs to be done now, let alone if there is a relaunch.
We just did a soft relaunch on August 2nd which was letting the church know what we were doing. The main leadership in the church was brought together and heard our heart and 100% supported it. Then the worship and production teams were brought in about 2 months later and about 2 months after that we let the main congregation know what we were doing. We have experienced a spike in excitement and volunteering for outreaches. We will do a hard launch on our 35th AnniversaryHomecoming Celebration on the 4th of October. One of the reasons is we didn’t feel the name of the church really depicted who we have developed into. Our name for almost 35 years has been Christian Assembly Worship Center and is truly outdated. Our worship. ministries, outreaches, word, does not match what people think we are when they come in. Our new name is ZAMAR CHURCH, with Zamar being one of the words translated praise in the OT. And 98% of those that know us and hears the explanation states that is us. The hard launch on the Anniversary will be a large celebration of 35 years with accomplishments and a reset in the minds of every about where we are going. This has been on our hearts to do for about 3 years and it’s time. We are not a large church compared to others (ave around 200 on Sunday and 80 to 100 on wednesdays). That’s my story. lol……________________
I’m afraid if I saw Zamar Church, I’d figure it was some sort of Middle Eastern sort of church–like Eastern Orthodox–ha!
Zamar is a Hebrew word and the definition is to play music & sing.I Sam 16:14-23Shows that David Zamared (Played & worshipped) over Saul and he was relieved from torment. II Kings 3:15Elisha called for a musician to come and play music & worship and Elisha heard a word from God during that atmosphere.A word of Prophecy came to our church over a year ago that we would receive a song from the Lord to sing over our city and county and we thought that it meant songs but as our outreaches increased dramatically and we’ve had a huge amount of souls come to Christ we understood that we were to INCREASE our influence over the city. Zamar fit our image. So we felt this was right and many of our Ministry friends were reached out to and it just fell into place. The name is straight out of the Jerusalem area (Mid East) and some think it’s a black name. But it has already stirred up enough curosity that many are asking and loving it________________
When I was pastoring in Dover, FL, a relaunch would not have worked. We really needed to completely close down and replant with a whole new team. I wish we would’ve done that in another area within Hillsborough County, like Fishawk or the Lithia/Brandon area________________The World As I See Itworldjeffreysees.blogspot.com/Revuriah’s Facebookwww.facebook.com/people/Jeff-Richard/1226257444Jeffrey David Richard’s Myspace Musicwww.myspace.com/547856946
I am interested in understanding why you didn’t think a relaunch would work, etc.? I have to admit that if someone else were pastoring my church, and I was on the outside looking in, I might think it best to close down, etc. But there are a few problems, I think, with that thinking:1) The closest Church of God is about 11 miles away. The next closest is probably 13 miles (in different directions), the next about 16, and the next about 19 (our regional church). That alone will make is so that some won’t be going to the Church of God (at the same time, there is a couple of other Pentecostal churches closer in, but not Church of God).