Frequently Asked Questions

Q:  Isn’t 40 Days of Community just a repeat of 40 Days of Purpose? What sets this new campaign apart? 
A:  The 40 Days of Community is far from being a repeat of 40 Days of Purpose. In actuality, it’s the logical next step in a progression.  While 40 Days of Purpose helps people learn to live out God’s purposes internally, 40 Days of Community helps them apply the purposes externally.  Where Purpose did a great work at preparing the soil, Community comes along afterwards and reaps the harvest.  The missions project component that involves every small group is a real adventure that for many churches helped to make this campaign even better than the first one.  The Better Together workbook is another exciting new feature of this campaign that combines daily devotional readings with journaling pages and the weekly small group study guide.  This campaign companion has proven to as effective and perhaps even more impacting than Purpose Driven Life!

Q:  Do we still need 3-4 months of pre-campaign prep time as we did with 40 Days of Purpose?
A: YES!  This is a full-blown 40 Days campaign that contains components such as weekend services, major events, small groups, and this time we’re adding children and youth to the mix. The official timeline starts ten weeks out from the campaign, and you should be assimilating all the material and recruiting your team a few weeks before that.

Q:  How can we get our congregation excited about this campaign?
A: Just like the 40 Days of Purpose, you must cast a compelling vision about the comprehensive impact of the entire campaign, and then about the key components, like the small groups, the outreach project, the personal journey with God and the power of the small group community.  Get creative!  Use quality, creative communication to raise the bar. We provide much more by way of promotional items and tools for this campaign than we did for Purpose, and that will help you in this regard. Ultimately, it is the senior pastor who must convey the magnitude of this movement and draw the leaders and congregation in.

Q:  If we just finished 40 Days of Purpose, how long should we wait before joining 40 Days of Community? 
A: A minimum of one year.  No church should really attempt more than one campaign in one year.  These campaigns are simply too comprehensive and all-consuming.  At Saddleback we are taking two years between these campaigns to help our people assimilate what they have learned and to solidify our gains in attendance, groups, church direction etc. 

Q:  What kinds of community service projects are other churches doing? 
A: Besides feeding the hungry and homeless, churches are ministering to the elderly in assisted living homes, adopting an entire abused women and children’s shelter and providing for the needs of the home as well as each resident, doing “extreme makeover” construction projects for needy families or small churches or local ministries, doing a city-wide cleanup in areas ravaged by tornados or fires, or starting a youth drop-in center in a county with no recreation opportunities for young people.  

Q:  Does the community project have to be a church-wide project or can small groups pick their own project? 
A: While we would recommend a comprehensive church-wide project due to the synergy and total impact this can have on a community, the concept of customization still applies here.  In other words, churches can elect to do a single church-wide project that involves all their groups in a single effort, OR mobilize their small groups to conduct individual independent projects.  Many churches have offered both options, because they want their groups to experience the joy of accomplishing something they couldn’t do alone, and they also want them to find a ministry that they have a passion for and would like to continue after the campaign is over.

Q:  As we launch 40 Days of Community, we have some members who are new and did not go through 40 Days of Purpose or have not read Purpose Driven Life. How should we handle these newcomers?
A: Enthusiastically invite them to join in right along with everyone else.  However, you might encourage them to get a copy of The Purpose Driven Life and read it either before the 40 Days of Community or immediately following it in order to benefit from the full scope of the 40 Day adventure.