Monday Morning Update

11 06 2007

Yesterday was AWESOME! Wow. How exciting it was to “see the work begin” at Element Church. We held our first Unplugged service. The team felt like we needed a weekly gathering as a large group since we are multiplying our Life Groups from 1 to 3. We are keeping Unplugged as un-churchy as possible while still having church. We don’t want people to think we’ve launched yet we want our team to be able to grow together and advance in this church planting process. I guess you can say that Unplugged are mini-previews. Adam led us in three worship songs and I gave a “sermon” on our mission. All summer long we’ll be doing a series called “Why?” as we dissect the mission, vision, essential ministries, and values of element church. Each week we’ll ask “Why are we here?” “Why am I here?” “What do I do?” We will use Unplugged as a time to cast vision, get to know each other, build teams and lay the ground work for launch in October. MAN it felt good to share from God’s word again. It was so cool to worship together as a team and see people we’ve made relationships with worship with us. We had two brand new couples at Unplugged yesterday as well. There were at least 8 people not in town yesterday that we expect to be at Unplugged this week and a couple more we’re working on that we hope to come. What an exciting time. I tried taking a nap yesterday and my brain wouldn’t shut off. I couldn’t stop thinking about Unplugged. God’s presence was there, we met new people, we were challenged by God’s Word, what more could you ask for? This has got to be the best job in the world!

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Updates

Unplugged

10 06 2007

I couldn’t sleep get to sleep last night. I dreamed of element all night long. I woke up at 5:30 am this morning and…I can’t wait to have the same feeling again next week. I’m a nervous dreamer. When there is an event or something in my life I dream about it A LOT! I don’t think it’s worry but a nervous anticipation. Today at 10 AM element unplugged takes place. A non-church, church service. Starting this week we are multiplying our Life Group into three groups which means we won’t all be meeting together as a large group each week. So we started Unplugged. We are renting a room in the Holiday Inn Convention Center and we’ll worship together, get to know one another and we will be going through a series called “Why?” Each Sunday this summer we’ll be asking three questions: 1. Why are we (element) here? 2. Why am I here? 3. What do I do? We’ll be applying these three questions to our mission, vision, essential ministries and core values. We could have 8 people today, or we could have 40 I don’t know. I counted about 40 people who have been to our events and expressed interest in being a part of Element. God gave me a verse this week that I thought was great for us. I was finishing up the OT prophets for my devos and Zechariah 4:10 leaped off the page: “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabels hand.” Today is a small beginning of something God wants to do. (I know it began before today but…) Today actually feels like church. It feels like home. It feels like “This is what we are here for!” To connect people with the Life in Christ and to help them follow Him completely. In my Oswald Chambers thoughts for today (I’ll close with this) he made this incredible statement. “Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience…You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.” LIFE

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Planning

The Team Is Assembled

4 06 2007

As of Saturday, June 2nd of 2007 the Element staff has been called, assembled and moved to Cheyenne. Adam and Amber Cruz made the trek from Sheridan, WY to Cheyenne to join the Element staff. Adam is our lead worshiper. Both him and Amber have already been contributing what they could from Sheridan, Adam especially with the purchasing of sound equipment. This really has been 15 months in the making. In March of last year, soon after God stirred my heart to begin this adventure He placed Adam on my heart. I told Sabrina, I feel like I need to ask Adam to be our worship leader. Through some prayer and some conversations with people I HIGHLY trust it just didn’t seem like the right time to ask. So I filed that thought in a drawer in my brain (there are lots of empty drawers there so didn’t think I’d have trouble finding it). Grant Clark had already committed, in fact (I’ve said this many times) I always told Sabrina “I’ll never plant a church, but if I ever did Grant would be the first person I’d ask to come along”. Keenan and Katrina Fitzgerald were searching for God’s direction in their lives and God directed me to them to be a part of this team. Keenan was feeling God’s call on his heart into youth ministry and God confirmed in all of us that this was the right direction. Keenan and Katrina have been HUGE for us in the meeting of people and establishing relationships. November of 2006 comes along and that drawer opened up. Remember the drawer that held the thought of Adam. I began feeling again I needed to contact Adam. I told Sabrina, “I think it’s time I call Adam”. So I did. Funny how God works things out huh? I told Adam what God was doing in our lives and asked him what he thought about coming to be the worship leader at Element. On the phone he started laughing and said that God had been birthing in his heart more of a passion to lead worship. I need to wrap this up, but they were very careful to pursue God’s direction in all of this and in late January, early February made the commitment to come to Cheyenne. WOW! How amazing our God is. To orchestrate the lives of 4 families to come to a city none of us knew anything about, to share with people about a God we are desperate to know more. I LOVE IT! This week we get to do our first event together as we start Element Unplugged. Check it out at www.elementweb.net I love my team. I love Element Church. I love Cheyenne. And I LOVE serving our God.

Following Christ,

Jeff


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Categories : Church Planting, Personal

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