40 Days of Community - Preparation

After you register, you will receive a complete Campaign Resource Kit containing everything you will need to prepare for your campaign. For a campaign of this magnitude, even though you already have experience with the 40 Days of Purpose Campaign, it is still ideal to have a three-month lead time for preparation. We would suggest you try to run your campaign in February or September with other churches - but you can choose any start date to suit your church calendar.

1. Pre-campaign training

In fifteen video training sessions and a detailed Training Manual, we'll walk you through the campaign step-by-step:

• Select a leadership team to shepherd the church through the campaign.
• Build momentum for the campaign through strategic communications.
• Use Host Home strategy to move your small group ministry to the next level.
• Partner with local agencies to tackle one or more of the “giants” in your community.
• Organise a Ministry Fair with a special emphasis on “People Helping People”
• Plan an end-of-Campaign Celebration Sunday to commemorate the 40-day journey.

2. Seven weekend service plans, including suggested sermons

You'll be given seven worship service plans, which include the messages Rick Warren preached each week at Saddleback. You can use these message transcripts, PowerPoints, songs, and feature ideas in any way you wish in your preparation to communicate each week’s theme. You will also have access to view Saddleback's Campaign services on the Internet so you can see how we designed each service to challenge our church.

3. Ongoing coaching

Before and during the Campaign, we give you added personal coaching to help you prepare for your Campaign. Starting three months before the campaign, you will receive coaching emails answering the most-asked questions, giving you ideas that other churches have tried, and telling you what each member of your team should be doing that week. You'll also have the opportunity to connect with the Purpose Driven team  to ask your specific questions about 40 Days of Community. The bottom line is that we won't leave you hanging!

4. Prayer emphasis (including a day of prayer and fasting)

Prayer is the most important component of this Campaign. Without God's power, our labour will be in vain. The Campaign must be saturated in prayer, so we'll share customisable ideas and tools to promote individual, group and corporate prayer. Often in the Bible, God's people fasted and prayed immediately before a major victory, miracle, or answer to prayer. It prepared them for a blessing! Join with other churches in 40 Days of Community for the Day of Prayer and Fasting two weeks before the campaign. This is a significant day of heart preparation and soul renewal that will release God's supernatural power for the next 40 days.

5. Children and teenage groups

The true power of the campaign is seen when you incorporate all age levels of your church in experiencing the campaign together. Your Campaign Resource CD contains curriculum, small group materials, and take-home resources for pre-school, Infant, junior and high school students. We have provided samples of some of the resources that are included in your kit.

Campaign resource CD

You will receive a CD with over 200 different resources that you can customise to fit your church's style and denominational distinctives. With the exception of the Better Together workbook and the small group teaching videos, this CD provides you with all of the necessary Campaign materials and resources in Word, Excel and PDF formats. Professional graphics files are also provided for all of your promotional items so that you can customise and reproduce them yourself.

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