the gospel doesn’t need disney. your church might. (part one.)
Now before anyone gets nervous, let’s be clear:
The gospel doesn’t need Disney, and I’m not trying to usurp the OG 10 commandments.
The church is not a theme park. We are not selling churros and Lightning Lane passes. We’re proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.
But Disney has spent decades learning how people experience environments, process information, navigate change, and engage with stories. Those are things church leaders think about every week.
So what can the local church learn from Disney Imagineering? Quite a bit, actually.
In 1983, Disney Imagineering president Marty Sklar developed what became known as “Mickey’s Ten Commandments”—a set of guiding principles for storytelling, design, and guest experience. Originally created to help Imagineers carry Walt Disney’s vision into new parks and attractions, these principles were later outlined in Sklar’s book One Little Spark and continue to influence Disney experiences around the world today.
Let’s start with Mickey’s First Commandment:
Commandment #1: Know your audience. Don’t bore people, talk down to them, or lose them by assuming they know what you know.
So, who is your church’s audience?
- Everyone
- My town
- My neighborhood
- the whole world
“Everyone Is Welcome” Isn’t a Strategy.
Most churches think they’re being inclusive when they say, “Everyone is welcome.” And to be fair, everyone should be welcome. Every person matters to God. Every church should open its doors wide. We should never discriminate, exclude, or create barriers that keep people from hearing the gospel. “Everyone is welcome” is a great sentiment, but a terrible strategy.
There’s a difference between who you’re willing to reach and who you’re specifically trying to reach. That’s where many churches get stuck. When we say we’re trying to reach “everyone,” what we often mean is that we haven’t decided who we’re best positioned to reach.
And “everyone” isn’t a strategy. It’s a wish.
The result? We end up chasing every opportunity, launching every program, and trying to become everything to everyone. We spread our volunteers thin, exhaust our staff, drain our budgets, and wonder why nothing seems to gain traction.
I once heard someone say:
“God’s resources are unlimited. The rest of us are on a budget.”
That’s funny because it’s true. Every church has limited staff, limited volunteers, limited facilities, limited money, and limited time. You can’t do everything. So who are you uniquely called to reach?
Know Your Community
In the business world, they’d call this identifying your target audience. I know. That sounds about as spiritual as a quarterly earnings report. But the principle is still valid.
Who actually lives in your community? What’s the median age? Income level? Education level? Are you in a rural town, a growing suburb, or an urban center? Are people raising young families? Sending kids to college? Heading into retirement? What are their interests? Their concerns? Their habits? Their values? Their motivations?
Missionaries spend years learning the culture, language, and customs of the people they’re trying to reach. They don’t show up and assume. Neither should we.
Many pastors are leading churches in communities they haven’t really studied in years, if at all. The neighborhood they knew in 2005 may not exist anymore. COVID alone reshaped communities, work patterns, demographics, and family life in ways we’re still discovering.
If you want to understand your audience, start by paying attention. Talk to people. Listen. Observe.
And if you really want to dig deeper, invest in demographic and psychographic research. You’ll likely discover things that confirm what you already suspect—and a few things that challenge it.
But knowing your community is only part of the equation.
Know Your Calling
Knowing your audience isn’t just about understanding the people around you. It’s also about understanding the people God has placed inside your church. Every pastor has a unique calling. Every church has a unique personality.
Some pastors are natural evangelists. Others are gifted teachers. Some excel at leadership development. Others thrive in pastoral care.
Some churches are uniquely effective at reaching young families. Others connect deeply with college students, empty nesters, immigrants, recovering addicts, entrepreneurs, or artists.
None of those are wrong. They’re simply different. And the healthiest churches understand who they are.
Your church has strengths. It has passions. It has history. It has people with specific gifts and experiences. Maybe you have an incredible recovery ministry because God brought leaders with that burden into your church. Maybe your church has a thriving school, sports ministry, or marketplace ministry because those opportunities naturally emerged from the people God assembled there. God doesn’t build every church the same way. And that’s a good thing.
Stop Copying Other Churches
One of the easiest mistakes church leaders make is trying to import someone else’s calling. A church across town has a successful young adult ministry, so we think we need one. A large church launches a new outreach initiative, so we assume we should too. A conference speaker talks about what God is doing in their ministry, and suddenly we’re trying to recreate their model in our context. But what if God never called your church to be them?
It’s difficult to build a great basketball outreach without a gym.
It’s difficult to build a thriving worship ministry without musicians. It’s difficult to launch a recovery ministry without people who are passionate about recovery. God works through what He’s already placed in your hands.
The question isn’t, “What is every successful church doing?” The question is, “What has God uniquely equipped our church to do?”
I once followed a youth pastor who had a successful flag football tournament on the calendar. Churches from around the area brought teams and played a small tournament. It was fun for everyone involved. I kept it on the calendar the first year that I led the ministry to keep continuity and a previously successful event. As the event approached, I had multiple churches participating, but my own youth ministry had no one signed up. I was facilitating a flag football tournament in which my own youth ministry had no participants.
I followed through with the tournament that year, and stood in the pouring rain, with a strong wind blowing, freezing and wondering why I was suffering for an event that my own youth ministry didn’t seem to want to participate in. While my teeth were chattering, I wondered why I couldn’t field a team for this event and as I went down the roster of the students who were a part of our ministry, I realized I didn’t really have athletic students any more. The previous youth pastor had quite a few athletes, but most of the students I had were more artistic.
So I pivoted. We leaned into music and built a great student led worship team that was a central part of our youth ministry for years. Knowing your community, and knowing your calling leads to a more effective ministry strategy.
Design Around the Person You’re Trying to Reach
Once you’ve identified who you’re trying to reach, everything gets clearer
- Your ministries.
- Your services.
- Your communication.
- Your facilities.
- Your social media.
- Your outreach strategy.
- Your preaching.
- Everything.
You stop asking, “What should churches do?” And start asking, “What will best help these people find and follow Jesus?” That’s a much better question because clarity creates focus, and focus creates effectiveness.
Final Thought
Disney knows exactly who it’s designing for, most churches don’t. And that’s why so many churches stay busy while making very little progress.
If your church is “for everyone,” it’s probably just comfortable for the people who already belong. The churches making the greatest impact aren’t trying to reach everyone. They’re crystal clear about who God has called them to reach—and they organize everything around that mission.
Know your audience. Because before you can reach people…
You have to know who you’re trying to reach.
dc.
