Friday, May 29, 2009

Audacity and Purple Cows

I had to do the "Jedi Mind Trick" on our Elder Team to get them to O.K. it, but one of our church's values is Audacity. Typically, when someone calls you "audacious" it's not meant to be a compliment. However, Seth Godin writes in his book Purple Cow that to be noticed you must be audacious. (Alright, he said "remarkable" which is such a Brown Cow word!)

Cows, after you've seen them for a while, are boring. They may be well-bred cows, Six Sigma cows, cows lit by a beautiful light, but they are still boring. A Purple Cow, though: Now, that would really stand out. The essence of the Purple Cow -- the reason it would shine among a crowd of perfectly competent, even undeniably excellent cows -- is that it would be remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.

So if you are a church planter, what are the audacious things your church must do (and be) to be "worth talking about, worth paying attention to" so it does not "quickly become invisible"?


2 comments:

  1. Seth Godin is a bit of a purple cow himself - so he has credibility in this arena!

    Thanks for sharing - albeit "unwillingly" ;-) - it will surely be valuable to myself and many others.

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  2. Absolutely LOVE that book. I've read that so many times and every time I get something new out of it.

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