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This week, Church Juice turned two.  We’re starting to find our voice and we’re throwing less temper tantrums than we expected, so that’s good. 

The significance of a second anniversary hit me a few weeks ago.  I hadn’t really been thinking about it, but after two years, it seems like a good time to think more about the future.  And as I look back at what we’ve done—while also looking forward to the future—I find there are some things that are definitely at the forefront of my mind.  And while these are challenges for us, I think churches have to face these things, too.

1) Building on success is challenging.  We’ve been blessed to find success and growth during our first two years.  But honestly, a big goal during that time was to simply build the brand by creating good educational resources for church communicators.  After two years, the goal of simply becoming better known isn’t as novel.  While it’s always good to grow, that alone can’t be our focus now.  So for us, the challenge comes in building on what we’ve done and innovate new ways to use our strengths.  And like any innovation, that may mean certain things that aren’t working may need to go.

Our future includes deleting our current community section and building something that’s more of a simpler question-and-answer feature.  In today’s online world, just putting up an old school forums system to force community isn’t realistic or authentic.  Plus, I think we’ll move to more video story telling about what churches are successfully doing in the communications realm.  That’s where I think we’re heading.  It’s not a done deal by any means.  Of course, we’re always interested in hearing your ideas on what you’d like to see on this site.

2) The blank page is intimidating.  The question of “what’s next” makes me freeze up sometimes.  It’s a fear for a couple of reasons.  First, we don’t want to screw up a good thing.  When you have success, it’s easy to stop there and switch to cruise control because what you’re doing is working.  Yet rarely do stagnant things stay successful.  Second, when you have the ability to cast a new short-term vision for the next phase of a project, it’s overwhelming.  You might have so many ideas of where to go or you might have no ideas at all.  

Yet, most of the time the intimidation is more of a problem than actually doing the work.  Once you start brainstorming, writing down ideas or engaging in conversations, you’ll find the process actually starts moving and it far less of a struggle than you thought.  The best ideas for planning the future of Church Juice come when I actually start having conversations with co-workers and friends.  Little ideas turn into something more substantial and exciting. 

3) Always rely on your big vision and analyze which of your strengths best get you there. If you have a clear vision for your project, the road along the way becomes easier to travel.  For us, we want to be the best in the world at sharing educational resources and best practices in communications with churches.  If we always keep that in mind, we can look at the strengths and talents given to us by God that will help us get there.  Without the big vision, the little goals and ideas of how to get there become muddled. Likewise, a strong vision also helps you realize what won’t work for the future, too.

I’m excited about the future of Church Juice and I want to thank all of you for being a part of this ministry during our first two years.  We’ve seen a lot of growth and it’s thanks to you participating and sharing what Church Juice is doing.  If we can be serving you better, let us know how.