Sunday, October 10, 2010

Garage Saling on Thursdays - Church Planting on Assumptions (Understanding the Culture)

Our garage sale (or rather Our-Sale-To-Sell-Stuff-Which-Happened-To-Be-Held-In-Our-Garage Sale) went over extremely well this past week.  We were very pleased with the amount of stuff we were able to get rid of, er, I mean, sell and bless others with. ;o)

But our sale would never have been as successful had we gone with our original plan.  Not being avid garage salers ourselves, we just assumed these temporary residential storefronts were a weekend thing.  Sure, we notice some sales were on Thursday or even Wednesday, but we just assumed the biggest day would be a Saturday.

An experienced garage-saling friend suggested we move our sale up from Friday-Saturday to Thursday-Friday.  Wow, was she ever right!  Thursday was by far our best day.  Thursday was probably three times busier, and we sold three times more.  Our friend knew the culture and her insight into the ways of rabid garage salers helped us be far more successful had we merely operated on pre-conceived assumptions.

I wonder how much of "church" is done based upon pre-conception.  We just assume "church" should be done a certain way, like a Saturday garage sale.  But the culture has changed, and the church should start doing Thursday sales to be most effective at reaching those who don't have a relationship with Christ yet.

What assumptions do you think the American church has been running on that need to be adjusted?  What is a "Saturday" thing that needs to be switched to a "Thursday"?

Posted via email from erin bird's web nest

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