Anyway, we had some really neat things happen Sunday and we learned some more good lessons.

Marketing

Because our Grand Opening is this coming Sunday (the 25th), we didn’t market last week as much as we had last month. I did send out a cool postcard to all those on our mailing list.

Here, you can see the postcard we mailed out.

Also, because of how long the signs took to put together last time, I had our signs professionally printed, and I set them up the day before. Here’s what one of them looked like.

Also, you might be interested to see the banner I set up on the corner of the school’s property.

I got all the signs put up on Saturday including an additional banner on some columns in front of the school.

Also, on Saturday, Josh came over and helped me load up the truck so that we didn’t have to do any loading on Sunday morning. It made everything go so much more smoothly in the morning.

Morning Preparation

Because last month’s morning got off to a slow start, I asked everyone to be at our house at 8:30am this time. Everyone was there by 8:45 and we were able to pray together before loading up the truck.

Yes, I did say truck! This was our first day to use the truck, and it was also our first time using the equipment that came from Willowbrook Community Church. Their sound equipment is much more elaborate than what we had been using.

Somehow we did get a little delayed at our house. I think the prayer time took a little longer than I had thought it might, but that’s not a bad thing. Anyway, we got to the school at about 9:15, and then unloaded everything.

Attendance

Our total numbers weren’t much more than they have been for any of our other services, but something about it felt really good. It especially felt good because between last month’s service and this one, three members of our worship team stepped down. However, we made up the loss in numbers with quite a few new faces.

The coolest story of the morning was one family that was on their way to visit another church when they saw our signs and recalled our TV spots. So they decided to stop on in and check us out.

Here our numbers:

• Children – 12
• Adults – 20
• Total Attendance – 32

Sermon

My morning message was entitled God Is Love and the best part of the message is when I took the “love passage” from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and asked people to consider substituting “God” for every instance of the word “love.” Here’s the verse from the NIV:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. — 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

I then asked people to consider which of those promises was God’s promise to them for that morning. Try it yourself.

However, I failed to get my MP3 recorder set up properly, so I didn’t get a recording of the service. I’m kinda bummed by that, but what are you going to do?

Lessons Learned

During our debrief lunch following the service, we discussed some lessons learned for the next time. Here they are:

• We need to get some extra equipment
  • 1/8″ stereo mini plug cable
  • 3 Speakon cables (2×25′ and 1×50′)
  • smaller box for AV cables that can fit in the cabinet
  • a mobile cart for our computer and projector so we don’t have to use the microwave stand from the cafeteria.
  • Latex Gloves for the Nursery
  • a hand truck / dolly for getting stuff off the truck better.
  • Trough or cooler with ice for water bottles
  • Bread bags for people to take the donated bread home
  • More water bottles
• We need to darken the room (the screen was getting washed out by the light coming in the back windows)
• We need to make up some cards for nursery workers to easily communicate to parents what happened with their kids (what snacks they got, if they took a nap, if their diaper was changed).

Well, that’s about it. Next week is our Grand Opening. I’ll write another post on our plans for that.

We had a great service this morning. It was our second monthly service and here is a brief rundown of how it all went:

Marketing

We really ramped up our marketing efforts this time. Here’s what we did:

• We sent out our “New Movers” letters this week. (We send a letter welcoming them to their new home and giving them a coupon to a local bookstore and one for a free Chick-fil-A sandwich.)
• We sent out a postcard to everyone on our mailing list inviting them to come to our service.
• We put an ad in the newspaper.
• I sent out an email to everyone on our email list.
• I made a bunch of phone calls.

Monthly Service #2 Postcard |Newspaper Ad

Despite all these things, it seemed that we were fighting an uphill battle because this week saw the worst snowstorm Indiana has had in years. In addition to a storm that closed schools for the whole week and cold weather that caused school delays the whole previous week, we had an extra 5 inches of snow fall Friday night and all day Saturday.

Morning Preparation

Jen and I put in a lot of work last night and this morning before anyone came over to load up vehicles, but I won’t report on all that. People arrived at our house at about 8:50 this morning. As a result, we didn’t get everything loaded up until about 9:15. I didn’t think that would be a very big problem, though because we weren’t planning to start our service until 10:30. As it turned out, though, it put us way behind.

A few things happened this morning that increased our time by a lot.

1. Our directional signs had to be put together at the school. Last month, we put our signs together at our house at 8:15am. This month, we didn’t have the super early gathering at our house, so the signs were put together at the school.
2. The banner outside fell down last night, so I had to repair it.
3. We were couldn’t find one extension cord and a couple mic cables.

As a result, we never actually got to have a full sound check, and the service started 5 minutes late.

Attendance

Our attendance reflected the difficult circumstances of snow and cold. We had a number of new individuals make it, though, so that was encouraging, and every one of them told me how much they liked the service.

• Kids – 12
• Kids Helpers – 3
• Congregation – 15
• Total Attendance – 30

Here are a couple comments people put on the comment cards:

I know God is working in my life right now. But sometimes it’s hard! Coming here today made me feel good today! Thank you.

The service is awesome! I will bring more people next month! … The message was GREAT! I really like the way you put things so simply.

Message / Sermon

<img src=’http://jeff.mikels.cc/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/title_slide-1.thumbnail.jpg’ alt=’WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT GOD title slide’ />

My message todaywas entitled “God Always Does What’s Right” and it was actually a rehash of a message I’ve preached before. You can hear the original one at this link: God Always Does What’s Right

In fact, I think I did a better job with that one than I did today, and that disappointed me a little. Last week, I was so concerned with the logistics of the church service that I hadn’t been able to put the time into my message that I would have wanted, and thinking that I was doing one I had already done gave me a false sense of security. Nonetheless, the comments from people after the service really told me that they were listening more to God than to me, and that was quite encouraging.

Here is today’s version: 030-02 — God Always Does What’s Right .

For Next Time

As I think about our next scheduled service (March 18), I’m thinking honestly that a few things will need to come together in order for us to go ahead with the launch on March 25.

• We need more strongly committed team players. While we already have an excellent group of people that have come together to make all this happen, we also have some odd inconsistencies. For example, a week and a half ago, we got in touch with a Purdue student who was really interested in joining us. He was fired up and excited and made a commitment to run our children’s ministry on a volunteer basis for a while, but after he left our house after our last planning meeting, Jen sent him an email asking for his references, and he hasn’t answered his phone, or returned any messages since then.
• We need a solid system of pre-service set-up. Our haphazardness today resulted in a lot of unnecessary stress before the service started and it caused us to start late.
• We need to reach a “critical mass” of at least 60 on the 18th. The first major attendance barrier is 50 and I don’t want to waste time trying to beat that one. We need our Grand Opening Sunday to surpass 100 (I want it to surpass 200), but I really doubt our ability to do that if we can’t reach 60 at our next monthly (preview) service. Don’t get me wrong, 30 is a good number for today, but we need many more than that to really launch a church that will be able to impact our community.

All these things are quite doable, and this is what I plan to do about them:

• Talk to my coach and get his feedback.
• Make phone calls to all the people on our local contact list to see where they are in their interest level.
• Spend more money on some direct marketing.
• Host an info dinner in early March at a local restaurant / banquet hall to raise funds and commitments.

UPDATE:

After talking to my coach, I decided against the info dinner. He thought it was a good idea, but that doing it would take too much attention away from the other plans we needed to make. Our third monthly service didn’t reach the 50-60 that I said I wanted, but our plans to do two Big Sundays might allow us to launch without that number.

Last Sunday was our first sneak preview of “day one at southside church.”

Our Sunday morning service is based on the mindset that worship is what people should be doing with their lives throughout the week. As a result, we aren’t calling our Sunday gatherings a “worship service.” Instead, we call our Sunday Morning gatherings, “day one.” The purpose of our Sunday gatherings, then, is to motivate people toward living a life of worship, putting God first in all things, for another seven days.

There are three things we are doing to keep things unique and motivating, and each is an answer to a specific problem we have seen in a number of churches today.

How do children and adults relate?

We have seen three different ways churches handle the issue of children’s ministries on Sunday morning during the primary “worship” service:

1. Parents and children are separated the moment they walk in. Children are taken to a special area for kids programming while the parents go to a “big church.”

   The downsides of this are that Sunday becomes a time for families to be divided, and parents can get the impression that the church is responsible for the spiritual education of their children.

2. Parents keep their kids with them throughout the morning service and opportunities for the children are provided at another time through club ministries, Sunday School or something else.

   The downside of this is that children don’t grow up learning how to worship as the proponents claim. Rather, children grow up with the impression that worship is boring. Additionally, the parents never get any time for real spiritual reflection during the morning service because they are constantly concerned with managing their children.

3. Kids stay with their parents through the first part of the service (the “worship”) and then are dismissed to their own program.

   If the music is excellent, and the dismissal is well done, this can actually work well, but it has significant drawbacks for people who are visiting the church for the first time. The biggest drawback is that with a mid-service dismissal, there is rarely an opportunity to register kids. This puts a huge hole in the security policies of a church. Another large drawback is that visiting parents will have no idea where their children are going, who is going to be with them, and how they will get them back unless they leave the service with their children and face the embarrassment of returning during the message.

We’ve got an idea that we are trying on an experimental basis. When I was part of a home church during college, we had a morning gathering that started with food, fellowship, and interaction among all family members. The kids were involved to the level they could be involved and then were dismissed. It sounds like a mid-service dismissal, but when the kids left, the adults took a break too.

Our Plan… re:CONNECT

Our plan is to start our morning gatherings with re:CONNECT, a “family time” where families and friends gather around tables with food, coffee, and chocolate milk. We will have something really interesting happen up front followed with some discussion questions at the tables.

We hope that we will eventually get some “table mentors” who will be able to “host” a table for both kids and adults, inviting visitors to join them. That way, the adults will learn not only how to have spiritual conversations with kids but also how to be spiritual friends with each other.

How do we motivate people to become worshippers?

This question has been asked and answered innumerably many times, and we don’t intend on giving the definitive answer. However, we are making a decision that goes against the complexity of many worship services.

Our Plan… re:FOCUS

We call the main portion of our morning gathering re:FOCUS because our primary intent is to give people a place where they can simply focus on God. We feel that if people can get a glimpse of God for who he really is, they will want to put him first in their lives for another week. Toward this end, we will employ Expositional and Topical teaching, creative arts, and sacred moments of communion and offerings.

How does learning go home?

Another issue that we are trying to address is how the themes of the morning will get into a person’s life after the morning is over. Conference organizers have known for years that a key way to get learning to go home with people is to have some interaction between the attenders at what has been called “break-out” sessions. We are going to attempt to do the same thing.

Our Plan… re:THINK

I don’t really like the name for this segment of our morning, but I haven’t thought of a better one (rehash? relive? reexamine?). The main idea is that we will give people a strategic time during the morning for them to reflect personally on the teaching of the day and to interact with others who might have a different point of view.

Our Plan… re:ENGAGE

The last thing we do during our morning is to dismiss people intentionally. We have given a name to our dismissal. People don’t leave “day one,” they don’t leave southside church, instead they reengage their world. They take what they’ve learned and apply it to real life outside the walls. All churches hope this happens to their people, we are trying to make it part of our culture from the beginning.

So, how’d it go?

Our first preview service went well. Here’s a run-down of what we did:

Set-up

Since we are so small, I told everyone that they were all on the set-up team!

• We met at our house at 8:15, and everyone was there by 8:25. We prayed together, ate muffins, assembled signs, loaded up the cars, and were out the doors by 9 am.
• The school is only 2 minutes away, so we got there by 9, and had everything unpacked and set up by 9:45. The only thing we didn’t accomplish by then is getting a sound check done.
• Jen handled the children’s rooms.
• Pam and Laura handled the information tables.
• Greg, Brent, Ryan, Kelsey, Kyle, Josh, and I set up the A/V equipment and the chairs.

re:CONNECT

Our “family time” started at 9:45 and ran for about 20 minutes.

• The theme of the morning was WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT GOD?: God Is in Charge! and we carried that theme through everything the whole day.
• I played a video clip from Disney’s The Tigger Movie where Rabbit is trying to organize the others to move a rock off of Eeyore’s house, but Tigger actually solves the problem.
• The discussion questions were all about who is really in charge in the movie and who was just being bossy. Here they are:

Discuss:

In the movie clip, who was in charge?

Why was that person in charge?

What was the problem Rabbit was trying to solve?

Did it get solved?

Did it get solved Rabbit’s way?

Say:

In the movie clip, Rabbit seemed to be in charge because he had all the ideas, but mostly because he was the loudest. He just bossed people around trying to get his way. But Tigger was the real problem solver. In fact, Rabbit wasn’t in charge at all, he was just being bossy.

Ask:

Have you ever seen someone act bossy like Rabbit?

Have you ever been a little bossy and tried to get someone else to do something for you? Did they do it?

Let’s see what the Bible says:

Isaiah 46:9-10 NLT — And do not forget the things I have done throughout history. For I am God—I alone! I am God, and there is no one else like me. Only I can tell you what is going to happen even before it happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish

Say:

The Bible teaches us that God is always in charge no matter who or what is making the loudest noise.

Ask

Why is God in charge?

What if someone is being bossy? Is God still in charge?

What if you are being bossy? Is God still in charge?

Say:

It’s important for us to always make sure we are following God and not worry about who is following us. Life isn’t about what we want. It’s about what God wants. We’re going to pray now, and it’s a simple little prayer. It goes like this, “Dear God, Please help me to live for you and not for me.”

Pray:

It’s important to let everyone have an opportunity to pray, so encourage everyone in the circle to pray the prayer out loud, but only if they mean it from the heart. Go around the circle and ask each person one at a time, “Do you want to live more for God and less for yourself?” If the answer is yes, then have that person pray the prayer out loud before going on to the next person. If the answer is no, then encourage them to say this prayer instead:

“Dear God, thank you for this day.”

re:FOCUS

• I thought our music went really well, but then again, I led half of it. Kyle ran the slides for us, and he did a good job. Greg vocally led the first song, and did a really good job also.
• Rich Wollard, my coach, came late because he forgot that Lafayette is in the Eastern Time Zone! However, he made it there in enough time to speak for a few minutes on the importance of following God’s leading.
• I introduced “day one” at southside church and spoke briefly of our core values as a church.

• My message/sermon/lesson made the claim that because God is in charge, we never will be, but we don’t have to be.

  You can listen to it by podcast, by clicking here, or you can watch the video.

  Low Bandwidth | Broadband

re:THINK

• Our reflection / discussion time afterward went ok as the first time ever doing that. I was pleased that at least two people actually got out of their seats to relocate and have a discussion with someone else.
• The last thing we did was to collect an offering. I asked Greg to lead the offering/closing song, and he did a really good job.

Concluding thoughts

All in all, things went well for our first preview service. I was a little disappointed once again at the number of people who told me they would be there but didn’t come. Maybe I just need to expect that and not get my hopes up so much, but that seems so pessimistic and defeatist. I want to believe people when they tell me they will come.

Nevertheless, we had two brand new families come, and both of them were very positive about the experience. They said they would be back next month, and I hope they meant it.