September 2024
Partner Update
Myself and the Intentional Churches (IC) Team are so grateful for each of you. Thank you for your prayers and gifts this last quarter to the IC and OneLife Project.
The OneLife Project is a set of tools designed to equip and inspire congregants to be active in relational evangelism within their relational network. These tools are being constructed to align with the already established and successful ChurchOS toolbox. This toolbox helps individual churches minimize their organizational footprint so that congregants are equipped and sent to personally own the Great Commission. (The use of One and OneLife simply means those in your network who do not know Jesus yet.)
Our primary financial partner has asked us to raise $700,000 from Kingdom-minded donors like you to fund the remainder of the Intentional Churches and One Life Project budget. As of today, we have raised $262,515 of that goal. Would you please prayerfully consider a donation for the year-end 2024? The total project budget is $3.2mm and the project runs now through the end of 2025.
Here’s a quick video update (just 1:30):
Advances Since the June 2024 Update
Substantial Evangelistic Growth
Thousands of Churches
OneLife Project Highlights
Partner Churches
Our partner churches are experiencing staggering evangelistic growth! And you are not alone as a financial partner! Partner Churches are churches who are committed to the Intentional Churches vision of creating evangelistically enduring congregations. They are the innovation lab of Intentional Churches. These churches contribute great learning and insights as customers (currently piloting multiple One Life products and services) but also contribute financially to the project. To date, Partner Churches have given $100,000 to the project (this is in addition to payments for services).
Some Partner Church Stats:
Average Weekend Attendance Growth
Up 17% in 2023 over 2022
Up 14% YTD in 2024 over 2023
Baptisms/Conversions
Up a whopping 46% in 2023 over 2022
Through August 2024 over 3,000 baptisms/conversions and ahead of the 2022 end-of-year total
Giving is up 9% year over year and represents approximately over $6mm in additional income
Thousands of Churches
As many of you know, getting to thousands of churches as customers and contributors is a tall task. The cornerstone marketing strategy is to provide streamlined content through the Intentional Churches Podcast. Check out this episode for further context.
Podcast Growing Stats
40,000 streams lifetime with little marketing (over 100% growth since July)
Over 600 total subscribers (over 100% growth since July)
529% YouTube growth year over year
The podcast is unique from other church leader podcasts as it focuses on “normal” church leaders with wisdom from the trenches of modern ministry. We kicked off Season 5 in September and are actively promoting through advertising for the first time. To date, the growth has primarily come through our internal audience.
Our first real call to action out of the podcast was the announcement of the IC Conference in April 2025. The response demonstrates the latent potential as both existing and potential church “customers” purchased early-bird tickets.
In 2024, we had nearly 450 church leaders at the IC Conference in Orlando but did not sell our first ticket until 5 months in advance. With the help of the recent podcast call to action, we have sold almost 100 tickets. This early sales predictor (per normal church leader ticket sale ratios) means we will likely have 750-1,000 attendees in April 2025.
The conference is the MAJOR gathering of the churches who are a part of this movement. You can be face-to-face with these church leaders and ask them why IC is helping fuel Great Commission accomplishment in their context. Would you please consider joining us for part or all of a day April 29 and/or 30? Click here for more information. I will follow up with a personal invite soon.
OneLife Project Highlights
33 leaders from 20 churches are currently in a digital cohort learning how to implement OneLife congregant tools within their church. Learning how to deliver our various training offerings digitally WITHIN a collaborative community is key to scaling the movement. With the diminishing influence of denominations and megachurch networks, church leaders are hungry for the learning community we are creating.
2 more churches have agreed to full-year OneLife installs with a coach in 2025. These contracts are $20,000 each.
We are driving to get over 30 church leaders to OneLife Activator Training in November in order to get over 12 churches doing a full OneLife install of evangelism tools in 2025. As of today, we have 6 churches committed for November.
Hear From a Senior Pastor Implementing OneLife in 2024
In this 6-minute video interview, Matt Giebler, the Senior Pastor at Greenwood Christian Church in Indianapolis, talks about how the OneLife set of tools is shaping their church.
Recently, Matt interviewed a panel of non-Christians in weekend services. We call it the One Aware Panel (part of the OneLife Project) and it is meant to inspire the congregation to be trained in the modernized relational evangelism tools of OneLife.
Resource
The ChurchOS Assessment is a quick 3-minute assessment that you can take to evaluate your own church. It covers the 21 Benchmarks of an Intentional Church covered in our original book Intentional Churches. Please take the assessment and see how you think your church rates.
Prayer Requests
For churches attending OneLife Activator Training in November. Pray for the leaders and congregants to own relational evangelism!
For year-end financial gifts
For your personal Ones (non-believers) to know Jesus as Lord and Savior
For the IC team as we lead and learn
For the One who does not yet know Jesus,
Doug Parks
Co-founder, Intentional Churches
