Just wrote an article for an upcoming issue of Ministry Today. I love what Matt Green has done with the magazine. Great resource!

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Everything is an experiment.

That is one of our core values at National Community Church. We aren’t afraid of making mistakes at NCC. We’re afraid of not making mistakes because it means we aren’t stretching ourselves! That experimental approach to ministry not only inspires us to try new things. It gives us the freedom to fail.

We view every sermon series as a teaching experiment. Every outreach is an evangelism experiment. Every small group is a discipleship experiment. Building the largest coffeehouse on Capitol Hill and meeting in movie theaters @ metro stops throughout the metro DC area is an experiment in doing church in the middle of the marketplace.

The beauty of this approach to ministry is that it gives you leadership latitude. People are resistant to change, but it’s tough to argue with an experiment. After all, it’s just an experiment. If it doesn’t work, we’ll stop doing it. And if it does work, we’ll continue improving it. Approaching everything as an experiment not only reduces the tension of opposition. It reduces the pressure to succeed. Some experiments fail and that’s ok.

FYI–I share about some of our outreach experiments, sermon experiments, and discipleship experiments in the full article. I’ll post a link when the article comes out.