defining relevant


i am firm believer in the science of "word of mouth". i have yet to experience a more accurate predictor of "relevance" than listening to what people are saying about a certain movie, person, organization, etc. that being the the case, the what that people are saying doesn't mean nearly as much, as it concerns someone or something being relevant, as that they are saying anything at all. if word of mouth is trending towards the positive end of the spectrum, great! if word of mouth is trending negative, that's great too! what matters is that people care enough about your product to share it (or what they think of it) with someone else. obviously, the more negative the word of mouth becomes, the smaller your relevancy windows becomes. but, it works exactly the same if word of mouth is positive. the snowball moves uphill at the same speed as it does down. which brings me to today's point.

when was the last time that huffman united methodist church generated any word of mouth, positive or negative, outside of it's own walls? more specifically, when was the last time that we created or sprung a ministry with an eye towards reaching our community and efforting to revitalize and recharge our own congregation that stuck? something that remains current and relevant inside and outside our church today.

your guess is as good as mine. i posed this question to a friend of mine the other day and i still haven't been able to come up with a good answer. i, honestly, don't think that my memory stretches back far enough. and that, more than anything else, sums up where huffman is. we are a church that talks a lot about ourselves. we "do" a lot of things that make us feel busy. but no one outside of our walls is talking about us. we are a body at rest tending towards remaining at rest. a look at a few kind-of recent examples...

the "hispanic congregation"

this one has at least got us talking. let us all remember that positive or negative word of mouth is a good thing. the more appropriate question as it relates to the lifeblood of the church, though, is whether or not this ministry is invoking any conversation, english or spanish, around the community. we'll continue to track this one...

gracelink

wow. hardly worth mentioning outside of the fact that it's a prime example of inertia. the brainchild before the brainchild of our exited pastor, rick owen, this one never had any support or foothold within humc, much less outside of it's walls. word of mouth grade? F-

the charles lee experiment

this one actually registers on the word of mouth scale. for about six months, humc was relevant. granted, it's the same kind of relevancy that a massive crash on the freeway exhibits. we had more rubberneckers looking in from the outside hopeful that no one was dead, but people were, at the very least, whispering about us. the move to bring charles on was doomed to begin with. it's funny how a congregation reacts when they have no say in the matter, isn't it? no, no it's not. but it is predictable. after the "six months of negativity" snowball reached the bottom of the hill, we failed to "matter" anymore. at that point, those of us that were left behind were just fighting for the life jackets. thankfully, the plug on the experiment was pulled before we all floated to the bottom of the ocean as large chunks of ice. whether it was pulled too late to repair the damage that was incurred is still up in the air, just not very high up in the air. word of mouth grade? C-

heartsong

we are starting to reach way back, aren't we? i wasn't even going to church when this baby started, let alone thinking of working for it. this is maybe the last time that you can see huffman slightly ahead of the curve. through some dogged determination and some very hard and fast work by what ended up being a fairly small group, humc created a contemporary worship service that not only stirred some positive word of mouth, but also brought new sheep into our fold. new sheep that weren't satisfied with the idea of being sheep, but sheep that wanted to learn how to lead, and lead they have. heartsong rode an uphill snowball for a full year before the church, corporate, decided to pull it's full support. after that, positive things still happened and creative juices still flowed, but the ball was already beginning to move in the wrong direction. the service can be directly or indirectly thanked for inspiring a church planter, a now-appointed pastor, at least two church staffers, several new members and "regular visitors" to humc, the purchase of a lot of expensive sound and media equipment and way more good memories than bad. that is some good relevancy. word of mouth grade? B

and that's it, folks. that's the list. that's all i can come up with in my very limited memory. please don't take this as me discounting all of the important and vital ongoing ministries at the church. angel tree (having spawned the idea for the current apple tree), adopt-a-child, vacation bible school and others that i know i am leaving out. these are critical to our congregation, and yes, in some instances, to those that we touch outside. by definition, these are in-reach ministries, though, not outreach.

which brings today's topic back full-circle. what is it that we can do to be worth talking about again? is there anything we can do, save vandalizing other churches in the proud name of humc in the hopes that people realize we are still there? across the street from us, word of life white-flighted (go ahead, argue with me the ethnic make-up of their congregation. i will then introduce you to their pastor.) out to highway 11 and what happened across the street? a congregation (maybe the same, old congregation??? you wanna bet??? c'mon. let's bet.) moves right in, taking up our parking spaces because we don't use them. hey, i have a great idea. let's move into that empty church across from huffman methodist. we'll call it "the worship center". it'll blow up. really." really? well, yeah, it worked. what are they doing that we aren't? has anyone asked?

i am this close to slipping back into my apathy-induced coma that i awoke from last fall. and the reason? because i don't feel like i have anything to talk about. i work in huffman, people!!! i'll start the snowball.

just give me something to talk about.