September 2024
Partner Church 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 One Life 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. Those 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.
Our main financial partner has asked us to raise $700,000 to meet the $3.2mm budget. To date, we have raised an additional $262,515 from Partner Churches like you and individual donors.
Check out this short video (1:41):
Advances Since the June 2024 Update
Partner Churches
Thousands of Churches
One Life Project Highlights
Partner Churches
Partner Churches are churches who are committed to the Intentional Churches vision of creating evangelistically enduring congregations. You are the innovation lab of Intentional Churches. You are providing incredible insights to shape these new tools for many other churches. We now have 15 committed churches and are actively growing that number. To date, Partner Churches have given $100,000 to the project.
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 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 contributors is a tall task. The cornerstone strategy for marketing is a streamlined megaphone through the Intentional Churches Podcast.
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.
In 2024, we had nearly 450 church leaders at the IC Conference in Orlando but did not sell our first ticket until 6 months in advance. With the help of the recent podcast call to action, we have sold almost 100 tickets 8 months in advance. 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 and your team will not want to miss the 2025 IC Conference! Click here to register today.
OneLife Project Highlights
33 people 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 community is a key to scaling. A collaborative community of church leaders is a foundational strategy we are building. With the diminishing influence of most denominations and megachurch networks, the establishment of a learning community of church leaders is paramount to reaching our vision.
2 more churches have agreed to a full-year OneLife lap installed with a coach in 2025.
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 tools in 2025. These churches would all be doing their One Aware Panel around September 2025. We are providing very low-cost to fully coached options to those attending in 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 One Life 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.
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
