In June of 2006 we (Grant & Terri; Sabrina & I) were shipped off to church planters boot camp. It was held at a resort conference center in Lancaster, PA. My kind of boot camp. It was 2 1/2 jam packed days of church plant training. Each session was taught by some incredible men of God who had gone down this road before. When we started the first session and they started telling HORROR stories of other churches, the valleys you’d go through, the tasks that had to be completed I literally said in my mind “What did we get ourselves into?”. But by the end of the boot camp what had gone from “There is no way we can do this” changed to “Man, we can do this” to “I can’t wait to do this”. The insights, truth, help, connections, etc. that we learned at boot camp were invaluable. I couldn’t tell you all we learned in 100 blogs. It really has helped us stay on task. I would definitely recommend anyone thinking of planting a church, or knows someone who is going to plant to spend the money and get to this boot camp. Otherwise you may end up in the middle of a plant and say “What did we get ourselves into?”
"What did we get ourselves into?"
4 04 2007Comments : Leave a Comment »
Categories : Church Planting, Updates
Great leadership!
4 04 2007I am such an outstanding leader that 2 of my staff guy’s have now followed my lead and started blogs about their ministry. Be looking for my book in the next few months “Outstanding Leadership: The Pastor, Mentor, Cluster, Coach Method”. Pastor Dan will write the forward for me. LOL Actually, IN SPITE of my leadership, two of our guy’s have started blogs. I think it’s very cool that they can tell their story as well, keep people connected, and share their wisdom on this church plant.
Grant Clark (Community Connections Pastor) www.elementconnections.blogspot.com
Adam Cruz (Lead Worshiper) www.elementworship.blogspot.com
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Categories : Updates
What element of Easter are you looking for?
4 04 2007The catch line of our newspaper ad that was on the 2nd page of today’s Wyoming Tribune Eagle. It’s a color Ad so it pops out against the regular black ink of everything else. This is our first visible presence in the community. The Ad invites people to our free inflatable games during the city Easter egg hunt as well as encouraging them to find a good church in their neighborhood this Easter. Our Ad was influenced (we stole the idea) from direct mail piece that Journey Church in Bozeman, MT used for their Easter egg hunt they did 2 years ago. Since we are not an established church we liked the idea of being kind of covert. The opportunity to do this event arose later than we would have liked so using an idea from elsewhere made sense. There are so many good ideas that churches do, no sense in re-inventing the wheel. Maybe someday we can influence another church with an idea that works. I’ll post an image of our ad below. Not sure how well it will show up. It looks great in the paper. It’s a 3×3 Ad, little small on here but you’ll get the idea. You can click on the picture to download it in .pdf format to view the full size if you want. 
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Categories : Church Planting, Marketing
Watching the game…having a Pepsi
2 04 2007I’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!
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Categories : Church Planting
"I wish you were already meeting…"
2 04 2007…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
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Categories : Church Planting
PRAY PRAY PRAY
1 04 2007We need everyone to pray for warm, dry weather this coming Saturday April 7th. We have the privelege of being servants at the Cheyenne city Easter Egg Hunt. 4 weeks ago I met with the director of the Parks and Recreation Dept. here in Cheyenne. I’ve been intervewing all sorts of leaders from different spheres of influence to help us discern what some of the biggest needs are in Cheyenne, and just grow more familiar with the city. I ended our conversation asking if there were ever events they needed volunteers at. His response was and emphatic “YES!”. He gave me the number of the guy in charge of volunteers. I called him and volunteered our services at the egg hunt which they gratefully accepted. A day later I called back and asked if we could go one step further in serving the city and those families attending by offering free inflatable games for all the kids. They jumped on board immediately and really feel like this will be a great benefit to their event. 600 – 700 people attend the event. Fun On The Go just “happened” to have a trailer coming from Ft. Collins that day loaded with games. Also, we were going to need an insurance policy citing Cheyenne City as additional insured. Fun On The Go is donating their last policy they had for free. They are given a certain # per year. This is our first big “splash” into the community. We are running free ads through the week in the paper and one color paid ad on Wednesday. We also have connection cards that we will be giving out to people who are there at the games. The connection cards have info about Element Church. I’ve added a couple pictures of our connection cards. The weather looks like it will be good right now but we covet your prayers for GREAT weather so we can serve the city and the families who will be attending.
This is the front:
This is on the back:
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Categories : Updates
"I think about it every day bro!"
1 04 2007February 28th, 2006 was the day God confirmed in my heart the stirring He had begun. “I am about to do a brand new thing. I’ve already begun, do you not see it (italics added)?” Needless to say going to work that day I had a million thoughts going through my head. I HAD TO TELL SOMEONE, but who do I tell? Pastor Dan? I wasn’t that brave (Dan’s great, I just didn’t want to perform CPR that day). The staff? Too risky, I hadn’t told Dan yet. I had always told my wife “I’ll NEVER plant a church, but if I did I’d want Grant Clark to go with me.” I’ve dubbed him “The General” (Ulysses S. Grant). Grant is a walking network. He loves talking with people, can easily share his faith or talk about the church. Grant had grown into one of my closest friends at HPCC and someone I could always talk to about anything whether in the church, my family, or just personal struggles. Guess who walked into the church that morning to visit? BOB STOOPS! Ok, not Bob but The General. I couldn’t NOT tell anyone anymore so I pulled Grant aside and asked him “Have you ever thought about planting a church?” Without skippin’ a beat and looking me square in the eyes he said “I think about it everyday bro!” My heart literally about came out of my chest. I began telling Grant what God was doing in my heart and asked him to consider coming with us. Little did I know (much longer story Grant will have to tell) that 2 years earlier God had began speaking to Grant about church planting but felt God just saying “Wait”! What an amazing, creative, sovereign God we serve! Grant and his wife Terri agreed to come on staff as our Community Connections Pastor. Grant will be in charge of connecting our church to the community (outreach) and our community to the church (small groups). Interesting combo I know, I’ll post about that someday. I think it’s a really cool role we are creating. Terri is going to be our office manager as well. God is assembling a great team here at Element and his handiwork is evident in putting it together.
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Categories : Church Planting, Updates
