Welcome to the TryTank An experimental lab for - church growth and innovation - Missional Voices

Welcome to the TryTank
                         An experimental lab for
                         church growth and
                         innovation.

A joint venture

What’s a TryTank?
• Is it a ”think tank”?

• Is it the “way to save the church”?

• Is it a “silver bullet”?

• Rather it’s…

…a place where we can ask

Innovation models
 Current church model                         TryTank
1- think of an idea               1- try it
2- pray about it
3- write it out
4- form a committee
5- hold listening sessions
6- write a paper
7- go to a conference
8- do theological reflection
9- talk about it in the diocese
10- discern some more
11- bring to vestry
12- bring to vestry again
13- try it

That’s what we are…

• An opportunity to ask “what if?”
• A chance to dedicate time and resources to this work.
• The R&D part of our church.

But our experiments speak best…
• Right now 17 of them

• In three categories:
   • Congregational Development
   • Leadership
   • Technology

• Let’s take a tour…

Our Experiments
1-Alexa Skill: Creating a prayer leader out of Alexa to help people pray
at home.

Our Experiments
2-Apple News Prayer Feed: Make it easier for people to engage with
scripture during the week, during their normal life by creating a source
that can supply content into their Apple Newsfeed.

Our Experiments
3-Connected Congregation: Using available technology that allows for
fun and incredibly easy points of contact between the congregation
and its members leading to more engagement with the church and
higher attendance.

Our Experiments

4-Digital Collection Plate: Grow the
plate collection at congregations by
making it as easy and fast as possible for
people to give in other forms than cash.

Our Experiments
5-Idea Festival: A festival of ideas for church growth and innovation.
Seeking to create a '"primordial soup" where the right elements (folks)
can bump (meet) and create new ideas beyond the “adjacent
possible.”

Our Experiments
6-Latino Ministry in a Box: Using multi-site technology to create a
Spanish-speaking congregation taking small steps.

Our Experiments
7-Latino Music Library: Make it easier for the church to provide
Spanish-language worship services by creating a music video library of
the most used Spanish hymns.

Our Experiments
8-Latino Phonetic App: Make it easier for non-native speakers to be
able to lead Spanish-language worship services by creating an app that
teaches them the phonetic way to say the prayers from the Libro de
Oración Común.

Our Experiments
9-Listening Project: Conversations with 100 leaders who have grown
and maintained their congregational growth. Leading to the "Habits of
Highly Effective Church Growers." Some will be basic, but we also hope
to find surprises.

Our Experiments
10-Spin Church: Taking the basics of a regular Soul Cycle group fitness
class and making it full-out about Jesus and then sharing a liturgical
meal after.

About SpinChurch
• We know …
  That 26,799 people saw the Facebook ads,
• Those people are 86% women and 14% men,
• They saw those ads a total of 160,671 times,
• And that 1,176 of those people took action from those ads.
• That’s a click-through rate of 1.40 which is more than 3x the Facebook
  benchmark for “well-performing” campaigns.
• However, only 9 people signed up to attend Spin Church over the
  campaign, and
• None went to the class.

Our Experiments
11-Facebook Master Class: A social media expert will lead a one-day
master class on how to use Facebook to grow the church. The class is
followed by 3 months of subject matter coaching and accountability for
the participants.

Our Experiments
12-Interactive Sunday: Using technology to have interactive sermons
(quizzes, surveys, word clouds, etc.) leading to more engagement with
the church and higher attendance.

Our Experiments
13-Theological Explainer Video Library: Create a library of whiteboard
videos that explain theological concepts in 2 minutes. The videos will
be hosted on YouTube, the 2nd largest search engine in the world.

Our Experiments
14-EpiscoPALS: Create an incredibly simple website (also mobile) that
can connect seniors to a live streaming platform for senior games and
community.

Our Experiments
15-Homebound Sermons: Weekly 3 minute sermon videos to be used
by Eucharistic ministers as they take communion to the homebound.

Our Experiments
16-Baptism Revival: Create a parish neighborhood baptism revival
reaching those who have no church relationship.

Our Experiments
17-HeartEdge USA: Helping to expand the HeartEdge network in the
US. Building association, learning, development, and resource of
congregations on the edge. HeartEdge, based in the UK is a project of
St. Martin in the Fields.

Connect with us

•Lorenzo@trytank.org
  •www.trytank.org