Sunday Rumination (2-17-08)

17 02 2008

Hey Element Church! I was not feeling well AT ALL this morning (nor was Adam) but God saw us through and we had another great Sunday at Element Church. We had one major announcement this morning that I’ll share below. Here are my thoughts on the day.

— 2 people indicated they became followers of Christ today. Again, that is what it is all about. Praise the Lord for these two souls who received Jesus in to their hearts and forgiveness of sins.

— 319 in church today. People must have listened to my plea last week and on this blog because first service was much larger than second for the first time ever. That’s GREAT because it opens up seats in the late service where we see many of our guests.

— After 378 last week it was funny cause the service felt empty. Especially second. Weird how one week can change your perspective. Two weeks ago and 319 would have been a record at Element. Today, it makes is down in attendance from the previous week. Crazy!

— I’m not sure if it was because I wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t feel great about either service today, especially 2nd. Just being honest. :) (did I just put a smiley face on my blog?) People responded well afterward though so that’s a good sign. I’ve learned that you can’t trust your feelings.

— Had a guest drummer today from my former youth group in Gillette. He’s attending Casper College and drove down yesterday to help fill in since neither of our drummers were available this week. Thanks Casey! He did an AWESOME job!

— 319. That’s CRAZY! Four months old.

— I’m getting excited for our next series, Heroes. It’s a perfect series to go through Easter. Our two series following that are going to be GREAT too! Very excited for that.

Ok, big announcement time. We obviously are seeing a space issue. Lots of reasons why we go from 378 to 319 in one week, one very viable reason could be that people were sitting on the stairs last week. lol A church can’t stay at 80% capacity too long before seeing a drop in attendance. Now, we haven’t seen a drop yet, 319 is still “up” for us, BUT lack of space will soon become an issue, and we really don’t have room to grow much more.

We feel as if we’ve exhausted all options at this point on buildings or lease space so we have to do something. We REALLY prayed for God’s direction, had one emergency lead staff meeting and came up with the following option. We are adding a third service to Element Church.

Here’s how it will work in a nutshell. We are keeping our 9 AM and 10:30 AM services exactly the same, and we are adding a staggered service in a different auditorium at 9:45. This 9:45 service is called e:coustic and will be an acoustic style service. There will be no childcare or e:kidz programming and it will not be the full production like our other two services. It WILL be the same songs and same message just a different feel. Adam will still lead worship and I’ll still preach. As soon as Adam is done with worship in one venue, he’ll go start this service in the other and the same for me preaching.

THIS IS TEMPORARY and is meant to get us by until we get another facility. We LOVE the theater but want to be able to grow as much as God sees fit. It requires 15 NEW volunteers that are not currently serving in either of our other two services. We feel this best fits us because it won’t take up any more time in the morning, utilizes facilities we already have and doesn’t require enormous volunteer changes or expertise changes. We are VERY excited as a staff to try this new adventure and continue to do our best to connect people with the Life in Christ. This will help advance our vision of having a God sized impact in our city as well.

That’s it! I’ll post some additions I’m sure. Please pray for our family, we are experiencing some BAD sickness. Love all you guys! Thanks for following.

Following Christ,

Jeff





Last minute plea!

16 02 2008

Hey Element Church! If you’re a regular Elementer and are NOT attending the 9 AM service, we encourage you to do so tomorrow and for the next several weeks. We’re making a big announcement tomorrow concerning our space issues that we think will REALLY help us, but in the meantime our best option is filling up the 9 AM service so we have seats available at 10:30. If you’re reading this tonight and wondering what service to go to, GO TO 9 AM! See you tomorrow.

Following Christ,

Jeff





INTRODUCING!!

15 02 2008

Hey Element Church! I am SO excited to announce a new addition to our Lead Staff at Element Church. First, let me say that our Lead Staff at Element Church are AWESOME! We are not replacing ANY of them but adding to them. Grant, Adam and Curtis (along with their wives who are ministers themselves) are INCREDIBLE. We had our first ever Lead Staff only meeting yesterday to make some MAJOR decisions for Element Church, and there is no one else on this planet that I trust more than those three men. The same can be said for our new addition. I want to introduce to you Andy and Aubrey Hazelet.

Andy is not only one of my former students in youth ministry, but one of my closest friends. Andy grew up in our church in Gillette, and in May will be graduating from Oklahoma Wesleyan University with a degree in Pastoral Ministry. Andy married his bride Aubrey in March of 2007 (I hope that’s right Andy). Andy will be joining us on staff as part of the Fusion Student Ministry team. Curtis and Heather will be JUST as involved as they have been when Andy arrives. Andy will be joining the staff as a volunteer, getting employment outside of Element Church until we bring him on staff as a paid employee. (Both Curtis and Grant are working like this right now as well) Andy will eventually move into the role of our Fusion Director.

Andy and Aubrey were here two weeks ago and through careful prayer and consideration felt God calling them to Cheyenne and Element Church. I can’t wait for all of you to meet them. Both Andy and Aubrey are passionate followers of Christ and have a HUGE heart for teenagers to love and follow Jesus completely. I look forward to more introductions like this as Element Church and it’s staff grow.

Following Christ,

Jeff





What’s next?

15 02 2008

Hey Element Church! I came across a blog of mine from July as I was organizing parts of my blog page. I thought it fit exactly where we are at in our life of Element Church. I understanding we are not facing a life or death situation but the principle of waiting still applies. Check it out here. Also, we are excited to be announcing “what’s next” for Element Church this Sunday. We are taking on a HUGE task in order to reach more people with Jesus Christ. Make sure you’re there to catch the vision of what are going to be doing. If you are currently not volunteering at Element Church, I encourage you to get connected somewhere. There is nothing like serving God through your local church and helping people experience Life.

Following Christ,

Jeff





What’s next?

15 02 2008

Hey Element Church! I came across a blog of mine from July as I was organizing parts of my blog page. I thought it fit exactly where we are at in our life of Element Church. I understanding we are not facing a life or death situation but the principle of waiting still applies. Check it out here. Also, we are excited to be announcing “what’s next” for Element Church this Sunday. We are taking on a HUGE task in order to reach more people with Jesus Christ. Make sure you’re there to catch the vision of what are going to be doing. If you are currently not volunteering at Element Church, I encourage you to get connected somewhere. There is nothing like serving God through your local church and helping people experience Life.

Following Christ,

Jeff





What’s next?

15 02 2008

Hey Element Church! I came across a blog of mine from July as I was organizing parts of my blog page. I thought it fit exactly where we are at in our life of Element Church. I understanding we are not facing a life or death situation but the principle of waiting still applies. Check it out here. Also, we are excited to be announcing “what’s next” for Element Church this Sunday. We are taking on a HUGE task in order to reach more people with Jesus Christ. Make sure you’re there to catch the vision of what are going to be doing. If you are currently not volunteering at Element Church, I encourage you to get connected somewhere. There is nothing like serving God through your local church and helping people experience Life.

Following Christ,

Jeff





A HUGE favor!

13 02 2008

YO YO Element Church! We are expecting another AWESOME weekend at Element this week, and while attendance has been great we are REALLY in need of some of you 2nd service folks to switch to first service for an extended period of time. SO, if you are an Elementer and can spare to come earlier, we’d LOVE for you to help us out in that way. In doing this you are opening up seats for more people to hear about Jesus. Our 10:30 service is by far the most used for first time guests, and we want to make sure they have a seat. Last Sunday we had 378 people and we would love to see more. We’re working tirelessly on options for more space. We are hoping to maybe have some announcements this Sunday on some options. Hopefully we’ll see you on Sunday. Don’t stop inviting!!

Following Christ,

Jeff





Next Series

12 02 2008

Hey Element Church! Wow, has this year started off amazing with our first two series. I never would have imagined the reaction we got out of Deal or No Deal, or Satan’s Sex Ed would have been this. I knew they were two VITAL topics to our spiritual lives and two topics that were drowning our society but WOW! Well, our next series does not nearly compare in controversy BUT I am just as excited about it. I’m not sure I could take another series right now as heavy as these last two we looked at. This Sunday we’ll start promotions on our next series entitled “Heroes: Ordinary people living extraordinary lives”. I thought I’d give you a sneak peek here on the Element Insider. Check out our invite cards below. There is also some surprise Easter service news on there as well.








Element Church Resources

12 02 2008

Hey Element Church! Adam got the resource web-site all loaded up today. You can check it out HERE. Every transitional video or promo video we’ve been done since launch has been uploaded to the web. If you weren’t a part of Element Church before launch, I encourage you to watch our short film we took on for our CSI series. It is called “Search”. It led up to our launch Sunday. We put an INSANE amount of time and energy into this video when only 70 people were coming to Element. I almost wish we would have waited until now to do something that big because more people could have seen it. We were laughing at why in the world we would do that big of a video in pre-launch stages with all the other WAY more pressing things needed to be done. Needless to say it made for a tireless couple of weeks. Grant walking through a cemetery with a lantern at midnight. Keenan laying in a coffin. Some sort of loud stinkin’alarm on the battery we were using to light up three major flood lights going off whenever it was overloaded. Standing in the rain trying trying to get the right lighting on Keenan’s face, standing outside a freaky warehouse. That memory of making that video will never go away. Anyway, thought it was cool that Adam got all our vids loaded up. We’ll keep doing that. So, make sure and check it out. GOOD JOB ADAM!





Ruminatin Additions (2-10-08)

10 02 2008

Hey Element Church! Here are a few early additions already.

— Adam has an afterthought post up here. Check it out.

— If you are an Elementer, please come to first service if you can. That is the best opportunity for us to open seats in the second service. Second service is typically the one in which our newcomers or un-churched people will attend and we want to make sure we can seat them. This is a GREAT problem to have, but it is a problem. lol Gotta love it!

— If you haven’t checked out Element Gives Back lately you should. There are some new stories from the past week or so. Good stuff. You guys REALLY did a great job on this.

— If you own a building that can seat about 500 people with the capability of growing into that and providing space for our kids WE’D LOVE TO USE IT! lol Actually, we ask all Elementers are those reading this blog if you would join us in prayer for our next location, or a creative way to create more seats in the theater.

OK! Maybe more later.








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