Update

30 04 2007

Had a great Life Group on Sunday. Have had some new faces that returned so that is great. We are doing a study on The Purpose Driven Life. Still frustrated trying to get more people to that but in time they’ll come. Have LOTs of folks who are definitely interested. Moving them from interested to attending to committed to serving is a HUGE task.

Grant talked to the General Manager of the Big D gas stations in Cheyenne. He pitched an idea to her for a servant evangelism project that we learned of through another church planter. It’s called a “gas buy down”. We find a partnering gas station who will let us pay down the price of gas by 25 cents per gallon. The pumps are changed, signs changed, and the customer pays the 25 cents off while we then pay the gas station the other 25 cents per gallon pumped. It’s a guaranteed win for the gas station. Basically a continuous stream of gas. We pump all the gas for each customer, give them a connection card and show the community our desire to serve first. Simply put, it’s our simple way to show God’s love to Cheyenne. There is a really cool story from the church we got the idea from I’ll have to share sometime. We are planning on doing this Saturday, May 26th. Anyone who would want to come down from Gillette to help would be greatly appreciated. Once this is finalized we’ll have more info.

I’m flying to Tulsa tomorrow to pick up my fam and drive them back home. The house won’t be so quiet anymore. Can’t wait to see them all.

Those are some updates, thanks for following along.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : updates

"I just want them to follow God…"

30 04 2007

I had the chance to go to Sheridan this past weekend to visit Adam and Amber’s home, family and church. It was a quick up and back on Saturday/Sunday but well worth it. We sat down for coffee with Adam’s parents and had a great talk about Element and life itself. Adam’s dad, Monty, at one point said of his children (not exact quote but close) “I just want my kids to follow God.” I told Adam how blessed he was to have parents that see him leaving there home town and church, a place where they themselves live and what they say is “Follow God!”. As a youth pastor I’ve heard so many parents, CHRISTIAN parents say things like: “But you’ll be so far away!” “That school costs SO much money!” “If you do that you won’t make any money!” And those things were said in response to their children wanting to follow God. “Follow God!” What a refreshing statement to hear. I believe it’s empowering for a young person to hear “Follow God!” regardless of what that means to me, OR them! God is bigger than money, than distance or than risk. Loved Adam’s family and church. I’m thankful for a team that is willing to follow God and for parents myself that modeled that for me.


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Categories : Uncategorized

General Update

24 04 2007

This last weekend our whole team was together. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time…but that…was….AWESOME!” lol I think we have a great team. Three out of the four staff couples are already here in Cheyenne. Adam (worship leader) and Amber came to Cheyenne on Thursday and stayed through Monday morning. We had an awesome time dreaming, planning, praying, worrying (do a lot of that as a church planter I found out), celebrating and growing. We made some great progress in the search for a meeting location and pretty much decided on the theatre in the mall. The pluses outweight the positives and it fits the feel of Element. Please continue to pray that all goes well with that. Pray for the theatre manager that we can serve him and be a blessing to him. Adam and Amber found an apartment and secured it for their move here in 1 month. PRAISE GOD! He is faithful to provide. We had a great Life Group on Sunday night. The first time Adam and Amber were able to be here for that. Had a new family and new faces at Life Group. Please continue to pray for Grant as he seeks God for direction and vision with Elements Life Group ministry. Pray for Keenan and Katrina as well as they seek for vision in youth and kids ministry stuff. Pray for Adam that God would clarify vision for worship at Element and to provide teams for these guy’s as well. Thanks to all who are praying for us. Your prayers are felt.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : updates

The Office

24 04 2007

I think we are going to have so much fun in our office. I loved the office life at HPCC. I hope we can have the same atmosphere and fun nature at Element. If you can’t have fun working at and going to church then you’re sure serving a different God than I am. Anyway, before I start on my soapbox, here are some picture of our office. We take possession May 1st and will start putting it together. The landlord is replacing the carpet and we are going to paint. Enjoy!

1000 Square foot warehouse in the back of our office. We’ll use for praise team and drama practice, set design and maybe even summertime Life Group.


Adam’s office

Jeff’s office

hallway, lol. Copy room and coffee area

Reception area with tremendous street side exposure.



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Categories : Office

Carmike Frontier 9

23 04 2007

This is a possible meeting location. We love the feel of a theatre. Very modern. The seats are already there and if we are portable that is huge in set up time. We CAN use the theatres High Definition projector for our services and that is awesome as well. 2 major factors that we’d deal with here. #1 the largest auditorium holds 188 people. That is with every seat filled. If we eliminate the front row for some sort of stage set up your down to 155. Two services would be nearly impossible especially with the age demographic we’d be reaching. There probably aren’t too many young families who will want to get up and be at church by 8 am. So that is something we have to consider. #2 Starting in April through August of each year the theatre summer schedule begins. This means a lot of movies starting at 11:30 or 11 AM and the big blockbusters (Spiderman, Transformers, etc.) have 10 AM showings. This completely eliminates the use of the theatre during those months. SO, if we do go with the theatre it will be to get us started and we’d try and find something else starting April of 08′. The cost of the theatre is fantastic and the manager has been wonderful to work with so far. Very accommodating. Anyway, here are some pictures of the theatre. Please pray for God’s direction in this. Other than staffing, I think that the meeting location is the biggest first year decision.


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Categories : church planting, decisions, meeting space

Office, Life Group and meeting space

23 04 2007

A quick update on what’s going on. We got the keys to our office. They are replacing the carpet and letting us paint before the official possession date of May 1st. I’ll post pictures later. We had Life Group last night and had some new faces. That was our prayer. Counting kids we had 13 I think. Still praying for others who are interested but not yet ventured to our Life Group. I praise God for the new faces. That was our prayer, that this week we would have new faces at Life Group. Today we are looking at a storefront property for lease. We have unofficially secured a location at the Carmike Theatre in the mall for our Sunday morning worship but this other building we kinda happened upon during a drive on Saturday with Adam and Amber. Don’t know cost or anything so if you read this before my next update on what happened with the building please pray for God’s favor upon us. This storefront would open up so many other opportunities that the theatre just can’t provide. Ok, I’ll expound on some of this later. Please continue to pray for divine connections for us and for God’s direction in all of our planning.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : updates

"I don’t feel like it!"

20 04 2007

Terri and I worked at the Soup Kitchen today. It was the biggest turnout since we started working there on Friday’s. Today, I DID NOT want to go to the Soup Kitchen. Adam and his wife are here this weekend and we were up until 2 AM planning Element stuff. It was a blast. Consequently today I was draggin‘. I set my alarm for 7 AM cause I knew I wouldn’t want to get up this morning. Got up and did my morning routine. Downed about a gallon of coffee and had my quiet time with God. It was in my quiet time I came to the conclusion that if any day I shouldn’t have to go to the soup kitchen it was today. And as that thought entered my mind God planted another one. The thought(s) He gave came from the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis which I’m reading. I went back to my book to find the underlined thought God was blasting me with. “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor, act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” WOW Just do what you are supposed to do REGARDLESS of whether you feel like it or not. “The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.” and “Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.” MAN! I went. I didn’t feel like it, but I went. And like always, I was glad I did. Sometimes we just have to do something because we are supposed to, not because we feel like it. When we do those things captures a strategic point from which, a few months later, you might go on to a victory you never thought possible. How can God give us victories in the “big” stuff, if we won’t simply do what we are supposed to do even when we don’t feel like it. My heart was stirred at the soup kitchen. Stirred to compassion, gratefulness (MY how much we have when we see it compared to other people). We only want to compare ourselves to those who have more. why? It gives us an excuse to want more. I prayed for those people as we handed them their tray. Prayed that they may know God even in the smallest of ways, because when we touch God, we are changed. What do you need to do, even though you don’t feel like it?

Following Christ, (and being stretched)

Jeff


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Categories : personal

"I don’t feel like it!"

20 04 2007

Terri and I worked at the Soup Kitchen today. It was the biggest turnout since we started working there on Friday’s. Today, I DID NOT want to go to the Soup Kitchen. Adam and his wife are here this weekend and we were up until 2 AM planning Element stuff. It was a blast. Consequently today I was draggin‘. I set my alarm for 7 AM cause I knew I wouldn’t want to get up this morning. Got up and did my morning routine. Downed about a gallon of coffee and had my quiet time with God. It was in my quiet time I came to the conclusion that if any day I shouldn’t have to go to the soup kitchen it was today. And as that thought entered my mind God planted another one. The thought(s) He gave came from the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis which I’m reading. I went back to my book to find the underlined thought God was blasting me with. “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor, act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” WOW Just do what you are supposed to do REGARDLESS of whether you feel like it or not. “The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.” and “Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.” MAN! I went. I didn’t feel like it, but I went. And like always, I was glad I did. Sometimes we just have to do something because we are supposed to, not because we feel like it. When we do those things captures a strategic point from which, a few months later, you might go on to a victory you never thought possible. How can God give us victories in the “big” stuff, if we won’t simply do what we are supposed to do even when we don’t feel like it. My heart was stirred at the soup kitchen. Stirred to compassion, gratefulness (MY how much we have when we see it compared to other people). We only want to compare ourselves to those who have more. why? It gives us an excuse to want more. I prayed for those people as we handed them their tray. Prayed that they may know God even in the smallest of ways, because when we touch God, we are changed. What do you need to do, even though you don’t feel like it?

Following Christ, (and being stretched)

Jeff


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Categories : personal

"I don’t feel like it!"

20 04 2007

Terri and I worked at the Soup Kitchen today. It was the biggest turnout since we started working there on Friday’s. Today, I DID NOT want to go to the Soup Kitchen. Adam and his wife are here this weekend and we were up until 2 AM planning Element stuff. It was a blast. Consequently today I was draggin‘. I set my alarm for 7 AM cause I knew I wouldn’t want to get up this morning. Got up and did my morning routine. Downed about a gallon of coffee and had my quiet time with God. It was in my quiet time I came to the conclusion that if any day I shouldn’t have to go to the soup kitchen it was today. And as that thought entered my mind God planted another one. The thought(s) He gave came from the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis which I’m reading. I went back to my book to find the underlined thought God was blasting me with. “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor, act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” WOW Just do what you are supposed to do REGARDLESS of whether you feel like it or not. “The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.” and “Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.” MAN! I went. I didn’t feel like it, but I went. And like always, I was glad I did. Sometimes we just have to do something because we are supposed to, not because we feel like it. When we do those things captures a strategic point from which, a few months later, you might go on to a victory you never thought possible. How can God give us victories in the “big” stuff, if we won’t simply do what we are supposed to do even when we don’t feel like it. My heart was stirred at the soup kitchen. Stirred to compassion, gratefulness (MY how much we have when we see it compared to other people). We only want to compare ourselves to those who have more. why? It gives us an excuse to want more. I prayed for those people as we handed them their tray. Prayed that they may know God even in the smallest of ways, because when we touch God, we are changed. What do you need to do, even though you don’t feel like it?

Following Christ, (and being stretched)

Jeff


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Categories : personal

Gravity…

17 04 2007

Not the kind that keeps us on the ground. The kind that says “Oh my, this is serious!” I’ve had the feeling a couple times in my life and it wasn’t good. The time I attempted a double black diamond at Snowmass mountain in Colorado. The time my brother and I took an exit into East St. Louis with no on ramp on the other side. The time we got our 85 Chevy Celebrity stuck while trying to go muddin‘ down a country road. This time it’s a good thing. It’s the kind of gravity that should motivate us, propel us, light that fire in our bellies. It’s the gravity that a first responder must feel as they step onto the scene of a car accident. The gravity that an athlete feels in the championship game in the “must score” situation. It’s the gravity that says “You might be the only way someone in Cheyenne will hear the Gospel explained.” It’s the gravity that says “If I don’t do this I’ll die, AND, if I don’t do this they might die!”. I don’t know. I’m away from Cheyenne right now taking my wife to her parents in Oklahoma. I’m flying back tomorrow. Maybe I’m just homesick. The “gravity” is telling me to get back and start plowing ground again. The “gravity” causes me to look at every empty building in Missouri, and Oklahoma and I tell Sabrina “OOOOOOH, that would make a great church building.” lol Anyway, hadn’t wrote anything in a couple days. That’s what I was feeling. That thing that drives you forward to do the right thing, the ONLY thing. Gravity… Hope that made sense. Probably didn’t.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : church planting, personal

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