Laws of Branding

Bob Franquiz shares some thoughts from his recent read, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al and Laura Ries. Bob says that "the overarching theme was simple: narrow your focus." (I know that I have been hitting this Simple Church mantra the past couple of days!). Here is an excerpt from his post.

Most churches try to do too much. Everyone says that, but no one pulls the plug on anything they're already doing. We decided to narrow our focus a couple of years ago after being challenged by the Northpoint guys at a session from Catalyst. We have limited what we do to 5 things:

#1 - Sunday Service
#2 - Children's Ministry
#3 - Student Ministry
#4 - Small Groups
#5 - Couples

By narrowing our focus to these 5 things, it allows us to do these things well. Most churches increase ministry and lower their effectiveness as they grow. We have sought to do the opposite. We have narrowed the focus as we've grown and it has made all the difference.

"But what about the people who will leave if we don't have ________ ministry?" Here's a little secret: they are going to leave anyway, especially if you and your staff are stretched so thin that you can't do anything really well. This was such a hard lesson to learn, but it's so true.

The idea that growth comes out of narrowing a focus can seem counter-intuitive, but actually it makes a lot of sense and there are real life examples to prove it.

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