Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church is now franchising like a corporate fast-food chain. The first in many Saddleback satellite churches began operations on Easter 2006 and is located in the sleepy surf city of San Clemente, California. The church meets at San Clemente High School and services include upbeat music and sermons delivered by Rick Warren via jumbo tron.
The audience at the Easter Service topped out at 2000 + attendees. Since then the fledgling franchise has been unable to get more than 750 consumers to attend it’s two Sunday services.
Ever mindful of the Purpose-Driven mantra, “A church that isn’t growing, is failing” Saddleback executives back at corporate headquarters in Lake Forest decided that it was time to put on a circus-like spectacle tailor-made to cater to the culture of San Clemente in order to increase their attendance. The growth solution they decided upon was called Endless Summerfest.
Saddleback Corporate pulled out all the stops and dug deep into their wallets to insure that everyone in San Clemente knew about their big event. The media blitz included advertising, posters, a billboard truck that trolled every major street in town as well as a banner towing airplane that circled the beaches.
The event itself featured a high-flying motocross stunt show, a classic car show, an appearance by a Bono look-alike singing U2’s greatest hits, lots of food, a bounce house for the kids, and an outdoor showing of the surf movie “Step Into Liquid”.
Saddleback Executives apparently believe that the way to grow a church is by letting the community know how kewl and relevant their church is. These execs must believe that San Clemente church consumers make "church buying decisions" based upon how high their motocross outreach can fly. Sadly, they may be right.
Want to see pictures from the event? Click Here.
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Posted by: MJbrown | February 21, 2007 at 11:07 AM