Hey Element Church! Grant’s been in the office one week now. Here is a pic I grabbed of him in Terri’s office. From stocking chips to pastoring people. What do I do now? He’s been a HUGE blessing to me already. I can’t tell you how much weight has been lifted off my shoulders by adding that dude. Crazy! He’s a natural.
Hey Element Church! This is my last installment of these posts that have been brewing in my mind. You can read them HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. I’m sick and tired of Christians thinking you’re not a “real” church until you have a building. I’m equally tired of people thinking you MUST have a building in order to be effective. I think you can make a case for being able to do more in a portable setting. When portable you’re not pouring resources into a facility. You typically will have more money. When portable you don’t as easily fall into the trap of trying to be all things to all people therefore you more effectively use your time and volunteers. I really think you can do more by being portable. But I know that you also have times where you must move into a permanent location. We’ve looked at some questions to ask when doing that. Here is my last one.
5. Where will you be going? If you really find that it’s time to go to a permanent location you’ve GOT to ask this question. I think it is absolutely vital. Where are you building? Will you still be in the city? Will you be too far of a drive from the people you’re currently reaching? What kind of exposure will you get? Does the facility allow you to be the church you’re called to be? And MANY MANY others! This question was HUGE for us in our decision making process. The WHERE to me was just as important as the WHAT. I felt SO STRONGLY that we were to still be in the city that buying land was out of the question. I felt so strongly in the type of experience we do that the building had to allow us to do that. Where we’ll go has got to be asked.
We’re already talking about our next location. This move for Element Church is not “our building”, it is our next location. I don’t plan on us being here forever. If we are, so be it. BUT, we MUST be ready to move if we need to move and these questions MUST be asked. We’re already talking about what is next if God so chooses to bless Element Church with filling it up again. To be honest, I think the next logical step is to buy land and build.
I think there comes a time when there are no more options but to purchase land and build a building that will serve as a permanent campus for the ministry. Church planting I think is definitely in our future, but being the rural setting we are, I’m not sure that alleviates space issues very much. Having a building isn’t bad, it just needs to be at the right time. A church eventually reaches a size where having a building outside of it’s city limits won’t necessarily be a hindrance. The church, it’s staff and leaders however MUST STAY INTENTIONAL about serving in their community in practical ways. Being about what got them to the church they are today. If we build a building and fail to be the church that got us to that building WHAT IS THE STINKIN’ POINT?
To build or not to build…that is the question. WHEW, got that off my mind now.
Jeff
YO Element Church! Had a great day today. I am SO GLAD I am the pastor of Element Church. Can’t tell you how much I love Sunday’s. They are absolutely exhausting but worth every minute. Here are my ruminations on the day.
— 4 people today acknowledged that they accepted Jesus Christ as Savior. I pray that continues regularly as a part of our church.
— 410 in church today. Neither service was overpacked which was good. Anxious to get into school and see what happens. Space problems are a good problem to have. We’re already talking creative solutions if we happen to fill up quickly again. We’ll have to do something until we’re in the building if we start hitting 500 again.
— We’ve had very healthy numbers over the summer. Very pleased about that.
— Continued Rock Band today and spoke on prayer today. WOW, such a huge subject. We barely scraped the surface as I talked about some questions we should ask God in order to have a healthier and more effective prayer life.
— The band kicked off the service with Livin’ On A Prayer. That was sweet.
— 2 weeks ago I went to Adam and asked “Do you know of any worship songs to the Lord’s Prayer we could use?” His response “Ummmm, I could write one!” WHAT? Dude went off and wrote an awesome original just for my message. It’s called Let Your Kingdom Come and we sang it today. We’re blessed!
— I played the piano and sang in my sermon today, you’ll have to watch.
— I mentioned my secret desire to run past the old guy checking membership cards at Sams Club. Have to watch.
— My mom and dad have been in town since Thursday. They are watching our kids while Sab and I have taken the team on our Advance. I love having my parents around and loved having them at Element today. My dad is a MAJOR influence in my preaching. I couldn’t do what I do without what they did.
— We will hopefully be announcing some work times for the building as we have our permits and will be talking to our contractor this week.
— This was the 2nd week of not pulling the trailer or coming early for set up. WOW what a change for me. The chance to study and pray more relaxed on Sunday morning has been huge. Thanks again to the ROCKIN’ volunteers we have.
— Gas buydown on August 30th. Sign up at church.
— All the pastoral staff is on our first ever staff advance (we’re not retreating, we’re advancing). We are staying at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, CO. All day Monday and Tuesday we’ll be doing some intense planning, dreaming and God searching on behalf of Element Church. We REALLY want to nail down some vision and stuff for this next year. We’ve had an awesome time so far.
— This is a perfect setting for our advancing. Beautiful mountains and no tv. They had internet so I can survive, lol.
— Please be praying for us as we are truly wanting to know what God wants to do in, around, through and for Element Church. Sound familiar? Grant will be praying through Life Group stuff, Andy and Curtis through Fusion stuff, Adam through worship stuff, and we’ll all be doing some collaborative work on the overall Element direction. Greater things are yet to come! Can’t WAIT to see what they are and be a part of it.
— Below are some pictures from our time so far. I LOVE OUR TEAM! This really can’t be called work when I get to be with these guys and their spouses so much. The only person I ever laugh harder with in my life is with my brother.
— I took the team out for a round of putt putt. Adam and Andy beat me by one stroke. Grant…would have schooled us on the real course so it was our time to shine. We then had ice cream. Tonight was relax time so tomorrow we’ll hit it hard.
I’ll post more from our Advance! Again, please pray for us.
Advancing,
Jeff
Man Tuesday could not come fast enough! My wife left Owasso, OK on Monday morning and drove halfway home. Tuesday my family FINALLY arrived back home around noon. I text my wife and said I felt like we were dating all over again, LOL. I was nervous for them to show up.
Makalah came running to me first and gave me one of her famous Care Bear hugs. She looked at me and said “I bet you missed your Care Bear.”
Mariah just stared at my face as I held her and wouldn’t say a thing. She just looked at me and hugged me. I’ll take that any day.
Jonah jumped in in my arms and said as only he can “DA DA” He has always, and still calls me da da. not sure why but it’s kinda his thing. I’ll take it! He called me from his friends house on Thursday to tell me Happy Birthday and that was the best thing he could have done. I’m sure he was reminded by his friends parents of my birthday, but the fact that he would call and say it was awesome.
Jaydah didn’t know what to think. She wasn’t ready to just come to me when they showed up. At dinner that night though we finished eating and we started our family devo time. I took her out of her high chair to hold her. As we were each sharing what we’d pray for I think it hit her who I was. She wrapped her arms around my neck over and over and would look at me, smile and say “DadDY, DadDY” Oh man, she’s got me wrapped around her finger.
Sabrina, fell on the floor weeping at my feet thanking God she was back in my presence. HA! Can’t tell you how nice it was to have my wife back. I don’t know how I’d do this church thing without her by my side. Anyway, I talked enough about them being gone, so I thought I’d share on their return.
Glad to have them back,
Jeff
Hey Element Church! My post streak on building continues with #4. I think I have one more in me. Like I said. My head’s been filled with this question, and I’ve been processing it for quite some time “To build or not to build?” You can read my other three posts HERE HERE and HERE.
#4 How are your volunteers? First off. I know I came straight at Element full force about volunteering on Sunday, but it had NOTHING to do with the quality of our volunteers and EVERYTHING to do with our rapid growth and need for more of our regular attenders to step it up.
Portable church is VERY tough. It is tough on equipment, staff and volunteers. We could totally do church very bland and vanilla, but I wouldn’t feel like we’re giving it our all. We do church big because that’s how we feel God called us to do it, and with that comes some major set up. I think we do a bang up job on set design, e:kidz areas, lobby, etc. Set up starts at 5:45 for some guys and most show up at 6 or 6:30. Yes, that is AM.
The band shows up at 6:30 to start set up. They lead worship for two services and then tear everything down. We average getting out of the theater by 12:30. That is 6 hours they are there serving God and Element Church. We have a team that shows up at 6:30 to set up all the e:kidz stuff. Volunteers set up a theater we affectionately call “The Locker Room” where we provide child care for early arriving volunteers and a hot breakfast is served with coffee and drinks for all volunteers. We have a hospitality team picking up donuts early and making coffee for us to enjoy. Our e:team is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! I don’t think most people knows how many people and how much work one Sunday takes.
Out of all the Sundays and the countless hours we’ve been doing portable church I have heard few if any complaints. And I hate to even say complaints. It’s more just the expression of the normal wear and tear of how much work it is. I think most if not all of our volunteers would continue doing this if they had to, but as I see it, it is beginning to wear on everyone. Doesn’t mean we wouldn’t do it, just think we need to be sensitive to that. If the band were not on set up and tear down I think that makes a big difference. If there were multiple set up/tear down teams that does as well. Most of our set up people are there every week rain or shine. That is a HUGE commitment and we praise God for servants like that.
Every church is going to be unique in this. I’ve seen churches be portable for 10 years and be successful. I know of some churches who plan on always being portable. I think one thing we all need to realize is that being portable is not for every church and it’s not for every pastor. I LOVE being portable. I think as a new church there is something very attractive about that, but I think that volunteer burn out is a HUGE risk factor that you must be completely aware of. As a staff at Element we try to show our volunteers how much they are appreciated in practical ways regularly through the year. We always want them to know how much they mean.
Question #4 in looking to build or not to build. How are your volunteers?
Asking,
Jeff
Hey Element Church! You can read posts #1 and 2 HERE and HERE. Like I’ve said, this has been sitting in my brain, welling up within. Thought it was about time to post. When should a church move to a permanent location? When is it right to build or not to? I’ve been honest with my struggle of whether we get a building or not. I have many fears about it but these questions I’m posing here have, over the past months, help me answer “YES!” for Element that at this time we need a building.
3. Do you need more room? To be honest, if we didn’t need more space, I’m not sure we’d consider moving to a new location. I LOVE the feel of the theater. YES, the theater has brought headaches but lets be real, we couldn’t have done church the way we have, without it. A portable location is TOTALLY non threatening. “You meet in a theater? COOL!” Heard that a lot. Mainly from UN-churched people. Seats are already there. You can’t beat stadium seating. The acoustics are amazing. But we ran out of space.
We launched in October with 200 people. By November we made the pain staking choice of going to two services. By the end of January we were closing in on 400 and needing to look for options. We crested 500 3 or 4 times this Spring and tried the staggered third service and probably averaged 20 people in there. It just didn’t open up enough seats. Our last 10 weeks we averaged 458 people. When we first met in the theater we swore we couldn’t do over 400.
The space issue had to be resolved. Will having more space MAKE us grow? NO! BUT it gives us the ABILITY to grow! I know some people are going to take this the wrong way but I’m going to say it. I don’t think God wants His church to NOT grow. I TOTALLY understand that there are all types of churches and church sizes. It doesn’t mean that if a church isn’t growing it is not in God’s will. It DOES mean that if a church isn’t willing to do what it takes to grow they might. It sure seems obvious to me that God MIGHT want to bring more people to Element Church. HOPEFULLY it is people who do NOT know Jesus or are disconnected from church and looking to find their way back home. Whatever the case, we have reached our ceiling and I think it behooves us to enable ourselves the ability to reach more people.
Is it possible we’ll move into the new building and not grow? SURE! But I tend to believe that greater things are yet to come. I just want to be faithful. This was one of the biggest factors in our decision. It was just too full. When first time guests get shoved into the front row, it’s not a good thing. We want the experience to be welcoming, inviting and comfortable for all who attend.
Following Christ,
Jeff
Hey Element Church! I know many of you are waiting anxiously to see what the next step is. Believe me, I am too. It looks like we need to wait until our contractor is back from his missions trip to Mexico. I tried contacting him but am not going to continue bugging him while serving God in Mexico. (As much as I want to) He needs to look at the notes the city gave us and give us direction so we’ll be patient and wait for his return. He is getting back Friday, I need to talk to him but I would plan on work starting Monday evening. (My desire anyway) Our pastoral staff and wives are going to be in Estes Park, CO for first annual staff planning retreat. We are getting away for two days (Monday and Tuesday) to nail down sermon series’ for the next year, vision, outreach events, etc. We’ll be doing a LOT of praying and seeking God. Please keep us in your prayers for that. We’ll keep you posted on any updates.
One cool thing, we may be moving our offices out to Carlson MUCH sooner than later. The owners are showing us some available finished space today that they asked if we wanted to use until our build out is completed. This would be VERY helpful as Grant needs an office and our current landlord (Who has been WONDERFUL to rent from) would like to more aggressively purse a new tenant here. Anyway, we may be moving offices real soon.
Alright, we’ll keep you posted.
Jeff
Hey Element Church! You can read post #1 about this HERE. I’ve been wanting to blog about this for some time now and thought that now was a good time. The #1 question we received when we started Element Church from other Christians was “Do you have a building yet?” That bothered me. Are we not REALLY a church until we have a building? Why was that the most asked question? Why is it every churches goal to have a building? To be honest, it was my goal when we started NOT to move to a permanant location this quickly, but due to post #1 and some other things I think it plays into answering the question “To build or not to build…” Here is #2
2. Have you exhausted all options? I’ll be honest, I’m stinkin’ jealous of church plants that get to use movie theaters that seat 800 people with 60 foot screens, and church plants that meet in high school fine arts auditoriums that are state of the art and seat 1200 people. We are in a unique church plant situation. While we are one of the largest communities in Wyoming, we are VERY small compared to other metropolitan areas around the country where many church plants take place. With a smaller area comes less meeting options.
Once we started filling up two services the search was on for a new meeting facility. The idea of a permanent place was our LAST option. We looked at going back to the Holiday Inn. We looked at doing a video venue in the theater. We tried a third service. We tried and tried and tried to get into the school system, with no avail. We considered the civic center. Some things that were available just wouldn’t have worked for what we felt we needed to be as a church. The fact that we needed new space but NOTHING was available to remain portable and true to who Element was, opened the door for us to look into permanent locations.
I’ve heard of so many churches that USED to do outreach, USED to be in the community, USED to (fill in blank) UNTIL they got a building. I DON’T WANT THAT! I’ve said from the very first Unplugged “We WILL NOT be about a building!” And I stand by that. Having a building MUST ENABLE us to do more outside the church, not keep us more in it. If it doesn’t it is a waste of every stinkin’ cent. I LOVE the fact that we are still in town. There is nothing wrong with having a building outside of town, but I felt strongly that was not for us. We needed to be in the city. Down the road that may change (coming in another post) but for now we need to be.
When asking the question of whether to build I think we ask “Have we exhausted all options?”
Following Christ,
Jeff
Hey Element Church! This blog has been stirring in my mind and on my blog idea list, literally for months now. The question of “Should we have a building or not?” has/was/is heavy upon my heart. I think it is a legitimate question for any church plant. Especially one like Element which is still so new (10 months old). The fact that we were even considering the option of having our own building is amazing seeing that we were only 6 months old when the opportunity arose. Here are some things I think any church should ask when faced with the issue of getting a building or not.
1. What is God saying? To be honest, we weren’t necessarily looking for building when the Carlson building was presented. We knew we were out of space and something needed to be done. We took a peak at 2 other permanent locations here in town and if we would have pursued those, it would have been us forcing God’s hand. With our new location, at least to us on the Lead Team, it sure felt like it was a God thing. How do you know if it’s a God thing?
A. Timing: The owner of the building called us and said he heard we needed space and had some he thought might work for us. That same week at our Egg Drop a local Christian contractor said “If you ever need to remodel or build something let me know and I’ll donate my time as your general contractor”. Not one year earlier 6 of us layed hands on that same building and prayed for God to give it to us. Our third service (e:coustic) wasn’t working as a space reliever.
B. Scripture: God reveals His will to us through Scripture. On March 11th, the week this opportunity arose, I read this passage in my devotions. Zechariah 8. Here some specific verses that felt were confirming from God. 8:6-8 Bring them home? That is the exact phrase from Isaiah 43:18-19 when God confirmed my call to come to Cheyenne. V. 9 says “Be strong and finish the task” V. 13 b says “Be strong, and get on with rebuilding the Temple!” The whole chapter screamed to me “THIS IS MY WILL!”
C. Prayer and Fasting: We prayed and fasted about this decision and all of us had a clear spirit that this is what God wanted. If you make a decision of this magnitude without serious prayer and fasting you are in for a HUGE mistake.
D. Are you scared? This decision scared the daylights out of me. God rarely calls us, if EVER, to something we can do on our own strength. This was a HUGE financial leap for us. We have a GREAT deal at the theater (which is another blog for another day about God’s provision). We were planning on bringing Grant on staff, and absolutely needed to. We have budget items like our outreach events that we are unwilling to NOT do. So making this step was a major leap of faith for our church. To me, it was a move that if God didn’t provide we were done for. It was an “advance in spite of the setting” move for us.
E. How do you feel? Even though we were scared, our spirits said it was ok. We can’t always trust JUST our spirit but I know, even before we launched, we walked into possible meeting places and our spirits immediately said “NO”. When we walked into this building, speaking for staff here, but I believe all of our spirits said “This is home!” When all those other things and our spirits agree, I think it’s a good sign.
I have a couple other thoughts on this so we’ll make this installment #1.
Following Christ,
Jeff
Every day needs to be Grants first day in the office. First off, we had an AWESOME service yesterday. The offering count came in today and I’ll just say we serve a great God. God has consistently provided for us. We got $6900 for the Climb yesterday. PTL!
Then today we just had a great time of prayer in our Monday morning PP time (Prayer and Planning). MAN the Spirit was heavy in my office as Grant, Adam, Andy and I prayed. This is our first pastoral staff hire since we started Element. Can’t tell you how awesome it is to bring him on. In our prayer time Adam prayed something to the effect of “God, we don’t understand all of this but we need that building permit. Lord I pray that today we get the permit!”
Had our first all staff meeting. Each Monday the pastors get together for Lead Team meeting but the first Monday of the month we designate for all staff (secretaries, etc.) to be there. Today was our first one. We talked gas buy down stuff and even started dreaming and planning for our one year anniversary. We thought “How cool would it be to be in the building on our first Sunday as our anniversary?” I thought we shouldn’t plan on it. Terri challenged me asking why not. My response was “Well, if we got the permit today then maybe there is a chance.”
AND GUESS WHAT CAME IN TODAY?!!! Terri went to the city around 4 PM thinking she was picking up some suggested changes to our plans and she SIGNED FOR THE BUILDING PERMIT! I can’t tell you how much of a PRAISE THE LORD this is. Our General Contractor is on a missions trip in Mexico till Friday but I have a phone call in to him trying to find out what we can do to get started. We’ll put news on here as we get it. We totally want to start work ASAP. My mind is flooded with thoughts and emotions. Got so much I want to blog about right now. Crazy. Anyway. We have the building permit and now just need direction on what to do next. PRAY PRAY PRAY that we get started and that God quickens the building process. Amazing!
If you have specific questions call the office or email us.
Trusting,
Jeff
