“There comes a time when you know you gotta make a change.”
-Patrick Doyle, President of Domino’s Pizza

That’s how the new Domino’s Pizza Turnaround campaign video begins. If you haven’t watched it yet, check it out quick, pretty great stuff:

Domino’s Pizza launched a new website last week and opened 2010 with a major marketing campaign admitting that their product simply didn’t taste good and they were tossing pretty much everything out in their core product and starting over. They listened to what people were saying and worked hard for months to give them what they wanted. The new campaign is an open invitation to try Domino’s Pizza … for the first time all over again.

At the end of the day, I’m 100% sure dollars were a major driving factor behind all of this – decreased sales or the bottom falling out of your company would help anyone see the light – but I’m still impressed a company would risk everything like this. Change isn’t easy. It comes with a great risk. Settling for a little less, which is still a lot, is always easier and always tempting you to play it safe.

So I tried the #newpizza last night at the end of our discipleship retreat. I wanted to reward a couple of amazing HSM volunteers for the love and care they gave a special needs student that attended the event – so had 8 of them delivered up to their room for their guys to destroy. Of course, I planned my little drop by to coincide with the delivery so I could be sure to get in on the action, too.

You know what? The pizza was pretty good!

The price was right ($6/pizza) and it was delivered quickly, just like Domino’s has always been famous for. Now I’ll admit, price and speed are far more important in youth ministry pizza than taste – but it was genuinely good – I think most would see a definite improvement at least. Now obviously, this isn’t a pizza/food blog (although that would be awesome), so what’s the point exactly?

The Church Turnaround
There comes a time when churches must realize they need to make a change – unfortunately, that is usually 10 years after a bunch of people have already realized it. How challenging would it be for us to admit that times have changed – that we simply didn’t taste as good now as we did in the past? Explosive growth was amazing but we can’t rest on the successes of the past to continue to work the present, much less an ever-evolving future. Is it possible that we need to take a hard look at our recipes, how and why we do things, and maybe make some big changes?

It won’t be easy. Change is challenging. Status quo is safe and makes enough people happy to get by. But what if we took a cue from Domino’s and risked it all?

To some degree, we face this right now in our high school ministry. In our upcoming season of ministry we’re taking a long look at everything we do and making sure it tastes great. Nothing is sacred. Everything is on the table. We want to concentrate on the right ingredients and perfect the right recipes to deliver a great product. And it isn’t about sales, souls hang in the balance – this isn’t giving people what they are asking for but praying for God’s guidance to give them what they need in a way they will receive it most effectively. I think we’re having this conversation at the right time, it feels like we’re doing a lot of things right and have a killer team of adults in place to pull it all off. But even a guy like me, who thrives on change and a big challenge, is sweating a little bit.

I’m proud of Domino’s for realizing where they were at and then doing everything they could to fix it. The church should be right there on the front lines doing the exact same thing.

JG