Element Church Insider

I’m here at my house with Grant, Keenan and one of Keenans co-workers watching the NCAA National Championship game. I love times like these where we can just relax, unwind, and not think about “church”. LOL Of course while I’m relaxing, unwinding and not thinking about church planting, I thought I’d get on my blog and talk about church planting. Having teamates is HUGE in this process. I don’t know what I’d do without Grant and Keenan here with me. Grant is our Community Connections pastor as well as a local employee of Frito Lay. I asked him to join so I wouldn’t lose my free chips. Keenan is our Student Ministry Pastor as well as a local hardware store employee. Anyway, teamates you like and trust are vital, at least to me. I don’t know how some guy’s drop into a location all alone and begin with nothing. God has raised up some great men to work with me in this. Can’t wait for Adam to join us down here and start the process. Grant, Keenan and Adam, I thank God for you guy’s everyday. I LOVE YOU MAN! Ok, back to manly stuff. GO MY FAVORITE SPORTS TEAM GO!

…cause we’d love to come to your church.” Maybe not those exact words (close though) are words we’ve heard. Lot’s, LOT’S of people have indicated that our church sounds really great/cool/OUT OF THIS WORLD, ok maybe not the last one but people are definitely interested. Just one problem. They are interested when we actually ARE a church. That, by the way can be very frustrating and tempting as a church planter. Frustrating cause we feel like we can and are doing some already really great stuff (Life Group, Servant Evangelism) and tempting in that “We should just start.” If it were not for us going through the proper channels in this process I think we would already be meeting and probably suffering for it. I didn’t understand this animal called church planting until I was taught it from some very wise men. I am positive there have been some “Let’s just start meeting” churches that are HIGHLY successful, but I would bet they are few and far between. There are so many ducks to get in a row that if not done right, and well, could be destructive. I am so glad we came down when we did to Cheyenne (End of January 2007). Our target launch is Oct. of 2007. I don’t know if I could have been ready to launch in October if we arrived at our original date in June of 2007. The money spent on us attending a ministry assessment and church planters boot camp, to me, is priceless. I wish we were already meeting too. I’m DYING to preach. But I know we have other things that need to be done first. Connecting with people and serving the community is priority #1 at this time. I don’t think any other church planters are out there reading this right now, but if one ever asked me I would say “Be in your mission field as long as you can before you launch.”

Following Christ

Jeff