Thought it might be worth sharing some rebranding reflections. For eight hours we drilled down on these questions: 1) What business are we really in? 2) What is our greatest passion? 3) What are our greatest strengths?

I think rebranding is really rediscovering your primal calling. And I think the genesis moment for me was a Willowcreek Conference. I remember feeling like Willowcreek gave me permission to do church differently. I think many of my core convictions trace back to that moment. Here are a few of them:

1) there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet.
2) the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet
3) we need different kinds of churches because there are different kinds of people

Even our core value, everything is an experiment, is an expression of that fundamental desire to do church differently. It’s not about being different for difference sake. It’s about reaching emerging generations. And that requires new wineskins.

Creativity, at its core, is a stewardship issue. It’s about living out of a sanctified imagination. We’ve probably said this a thousand times: if the Kingdom of God had departments, we’d feel called to work in Research and Development. We take an experimental approach to everything we do. And I think a kingdom mindset has released us from the lie that we have to be all things to all people. We don’t. We can’t. We simply need to know our kingdom niche. And thank God for the other Bible-believing churches in our city. We’ll all on the same team! We simply play different roles.

Identifying our driving motivation is helping us reimagine who we are and what we’re about as a church.

I think way too many churches have copied mission statements. We have what I would call cut-and-paste churches. Please don’t tell me your mission is to make fully-devoted followers of Christ. Of course it is. And, of course it isn’t. That is Willowcreek language. If we simply use someone else’s language I’m not sure we’ll ever own the mission. Every church needs its own unique words, pictures, and values.

Just thought I’d share some initial reflections.