Measuring Success

How do we measure how we are doing as a church? I wish there was an actual spiritual thermometer that we could get. We could set up a little booth for when people come into the church so we could measure their spiritual temperature. Since we don't have this spiritual thermometer, we measure the success of our churches by the effects of the temperature, but not the actual temperature. Imagine if we couldn't feel the actual temperature outside. Imagine if there was no thermometer to measure how hot or cold it is outside, and the only way to measure how hot or cold was to look around to see the effects of the temperature instead. Maybe you see frost on the ground, or no leaves on the trees, and no freshly bud flowers all which indicate that it is getting colder, but you actually can't feel the cold. Or maybe we see grass starting to grow, flowers budding, birds chirping all which are the affects of it getting warmer, but you can't feel it. It's possible to get a false temperature reading by looking at the effects also. For example, In the spring things start to grow. As it gets hotter and hotter things sometimes die. We could measure the effects (dying grass & plants) incorrectly, and assume that things are cold when they are actually hot or vice versa.

What are the effects that we look at to measure the temperature in the church?

Here are some...

• attendance
• offering
• small group involvement
• members(We call them "vision carriers")
  
• ministry involvement
• baptisms
• salvation decisions

All of these effects can help us in measuring our spiritual temperature, but sometimes they can give us a false temperature measurement. I think that the more that we use all of these effects together to measure the temperature, the more accurate the reading will be. In a church plant, the tendency is to use only attendance and maybe offering as the measure of how we are doing. Believe me, both of these are important, but let's not base our measurement of success on only these two effects. Are there more effects that we should be using to help us get a more accurate spiritual temperature of our churches?

Catalyst Recap

Catalyst was Great this year! There is so much information to digest. I think it will take me a month to sort through my notes and process it all.

The last session on Friday was incredible for me. Andy Stanley spoke about organizational systems. He said...

• There are organizational systems that are conducive to ministry and organizational systems that impede ministry.

• There are organizational systems that free leaders to lead and organizational systems that obstruct leaders.

• Systems create behaviors. We complain about how things are going in our families, our jobs, and our churches, but the results that we are seeing are a direct result of the systems that we have in place in our organization.

He talked about several components of a system. These components will foster the behaviors that you will see in your organization...

• Expectations/Rules

• Rewards (or lack of)

• Consequences (or lack of)

• Communication (content and style)

• Behavior (of those in charge)

He said that systems have a greater impact on an organizational culture than do mission statements. He said that it is the job of the leader to analyze the systems in the organization!

We Are Ready For Lift Off

The fuse is lit...there's NO turning back! Tomorrow morning at 10:30am, Elk Creek Church will officially open our doors to the community! We've run through our diagnostics...and we are clear for liftoff. Our team is prayed up and ready to go. The anticipation is killing me. I've never been a real patient person(God's not done with me yet), and as Tom Petty says, "the waiting is the hardest part".

Giving Birth Ain't Easy...So I'm Told!

Caleb is now 12 weeks old. In less than two weeks, another baby will be born. We've named this one "Elk Creek Church"! We're at the stage in our pregnancy where you just want the big day to get here. The baby's room is all decorated. All of the items are purchased. We've even started to feel some slight labor pains. The launch team has been talking a lot about what the baby will look like when she's born. We're hoping to see lots of visitors on the day of birth. It's going to be a huge celebration cuz' this baby's been in the oven for about 2 years now, so she's ready to come out! I hope to see many of you on delivery day scheduled for September 23rd at 10:30am.

Are You Living Life in Stereo?

After much thought, I have decided to change our opening series title to "Living life in stereo". Although I will be incorporating all of the "DNA" elements into the series, I wanted to accomplish several things. I wanted to shorten the series up a bit from the seven weeks orginally planned and scale it down to five weeks. I also want to focus on our five purposes as a church and weave our DNA into it. What are our five purposes? To Love, To Laugh, To Learn, To Live, and To Lift.

Why am I calling it "Living life in stereo"? I think it's a good phrase to describe what it's like when we are living our lives in balance with the five purposes. Have you ever listened to music through headphones when one side wasn't working? Something's missing, it's not balanced, it's awkward. It's the same when we aren't living life in balance with these five purposes.

The five purposes further defined:

To Love - To give of ourselves and serve others by discovering our God-given gifts, abilities and passion.
To Laugh - To get connected with other Christ followers and to share our life with them.
To Learn - To grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ through God's Word, prayer, and spiritual disciplines.
To Live - To live our lives in such a way that others see Jesus in us and want to follow Him.
To Lift - To lift up the name of Jesus and magnify Him through a lifestyle of worship.

It's gonna be a great series to "kick off" the launch of Elk Creek Church.

Remember when...

The technology that we have available to us today is incredible. Just think about it...most of the people reading this blog can think back to the time before the internet and before cell phones. I remember getting the internet on my 386 IBM. It took 3 days to log on and half the time it would boot you off before you were able to get anything done.

And then cell phones. My first bag phone was the size of an overnight bag...but I don't remember losing calls like I do now...hmmm. Remember pagers? wow...and to think that we actually used pay phones at one time! My kids look at me funny when I tell them these things! It's hard to believe the advance in technology in just a few short years.

I think about the technology that I use everyday in church planting and how much more productive we are able to be because of it. Most of the items that we purchased for our church were purchased on the internet. Other amazing technology that we have available to us are...Our website, YouTube, MySpace, iTunes, Google, this blog, eNewsletters, email, eBay, Vonage, and of course...this cool gadget!

And then there are times that I wish it could all slow down for just a little bit. What would it be like if we were able to discipline ourselves to take one day each week where we say no cell phone, no email, no computer? Too much of a good thing can sometimes be a bad thing.

23 days until launch!

Wow...it's hard to believe that in 23 days, Elk Creek Church will be officially launched!

I am so excited to see what God is going to do through Elk Creek Church! I sense God at work in our community. Our Tellstart calls were made this week. 40,000 calls were made to people all over our area. We have had a great response from people wanting more information about Elk Creek Church. I had the pleasure of personally talking to lots of people this week, most of which do NOT have a church home! There was a common thread that I heard as I was talking to people. A lot of people said something like, "I feel the need to get back to church" or "I used to go to church, but I got out of the habit".

There is no doubt about it...we are a church for the unchurched! We are creating an environment that attracts people to church that have seldom or never stepped foot in a church! My heart is to see people come to Jesus and find their God-given purpose in life! We will be a church of ACTION! We are NOT a church for people to come and just get fed, and not do anything! We are not a spectator church. WARNING: If you come to Elk Creek Church, you will be challenged to BE the church through serving people! But I promise you, your life will never be the same as you learn what it means to give your life away for something greater than yourself! Are you ready for this? Buckle up and hold on...we're in for a great ride!

House Church Rules

Not "rules" as in "Do's & Don'ts", but as in "Rocks" or ....oh nevermind, hopefully you get the point!

I have enjoyed meeting in our house for church over the past 7 months. It is such a fun vibe. We laugh, sometimes cry, sing together with this guy tearin' up the guitar each week! I love seeing our living room full with kids in the middle of the floor all close together. I look around the room and see all kinds of people, young, older, different nationalities, different backgrounds, different stories to share. It's a safe place.

Yesterday we talked about the 1st Gen Church in the Book of Acts and how these early Christians did life together. We focused our time on what it means to be Generous. Each person wrote on sticky notes their ideas and thoughts on what "being generous" looks like. We went around the room and each shared what we wrote. There were a lot of similarities, but each person had some unique ideas. The thoughts varied from establishing a "car repair fund", to leaving a stack of quarters at the car wash for the next person, to opening our homes for ministry. The sermon on launch sunday (9/23/07), will be about Generosity. It's part of who we are at Elk Creek Church. By and large, the "Church" has lost the discipline of being generous. When I truly let the reality of what Jesus has done for me sink deep within my heart, It overflows into generosity. Jesus is the center of it all. His generosity is what leads people to repentance.

Church Planter Interact

Naomi and I spent Friday evening and all day Saturday at a Church Planter's Interact in Carlisle, PA. I consider it to be a priviledge to be a part of the FGBC. We always leave these type of events refreshed and re-energized for ministry. Jim and Kitty Snavely along with GBNAM have an amazing heart for church planters.

I always enjoy engaging with other church planters. I learn so much from being around them. We share successes, struggles, and ideas and spend a lot of time praying and encouraging one another.

10 Things That I Have Learned So Far in My Church Planting Experience!

1. I have learned how expensive planting a church really is.

2. I have learned that God is always faithful when I step out and take risks in obedience to Him.

3. I have learned the value of having several people that I respect to bounce ideas off of.

4. I have learned that it’s harder to gather the “un-churched” than I thought it would be.

5. I have learned that I can’t please everybody!

6. I have learned that I need to purposeful about spending time with my family. I can always plant another church, but I can’t plant another family.

7. I have learned that church planting is a team effort with my wife.

8. I have learned the importance of keeping the vision constantly in front of our team.

9. I have learned NOT to chase after other "Churched" Christians. If God leads some to us, I'm cautiously ok with it, but I won't chase after them.

10. I have learned to trust God to provide for us - from the people to the money. God is faithful!

Portable Pro's & Con's

We are a mobile church...a church without a permanent home. It comes with both pro's and con's. Let's look at them...

Pro's...
1. It helps us stay focused on "being the church". Relationships are stronger and our sense of mission is strong. Our view of
what church is, is "people", not "buildings".

2. There is a natural anti-polarizing effect when meeting in a school, or a theater, or any public place. It's neutral ground. It
challenges the view of what church is to the unchurched. Church buildings sometimes polarize "the Church" from "the
World" and the two don't naturally collide with each other.

3. It forces us to be resourceful and creative. How do you create atmosphere in a high school cafeteria. It takes work to
eliminate distractions and create an environment where people can come and meet God. It's amazing what curtains can
do!

4. It raises the bar of commitment in the people who are serving. It takes a lot of commited people that are willing to show
up several hours before the service to set everything up and then tear everything down, for a service that lasts 1 hour and
15 minutes. The volunteers understand that without their hard work and commitment, we wouldn't be able to pull off
what we pull off.

5. It keeps us from being too comfortable. The more comfortable we are, the more complacent we become. It keeps us on
our toes, knowing that at any moment we might have to find a new meeting place.

Con's...
1. It costs a lot of money to rent a school for a 1 hour and 15 minute meeting each week.

2. It costs even more money to have an office space or a place for ministry to happen during the week.

3. Unfortunately, sometimes your reputation as a viable church is measured by...if you have a building or not.

There are probably more pro's & con's, but these are the main ones for me.

40 days til' Launch!

Launch day will be here before we know it!

Here is the marketing schedule...

1. TV Commercials starting this week. We will be airing 60 spots each week on TBS, TNT, FX, & Food Network. We are working
with FaithHighway on our commercials.

2. We are calling 40,000 homes beginning on August 28th. Tellstart is the company we are using for this.

3. We will putting out door hangers like crazy beginning August 26th.

4. 20,000 Direct Mail pieces will be going out on September 10th.

5. Press releases will be sent to the local papers on September 14th.

6. Yard Signs will be placed at all intersections on September 19th using this company.

September 23rd...Lift Off!!!

TV Commercials Starting Today

This commercial will be airing starting today on TNT, TBS, FX, and Food Network. It is airing approximately 60 times each week from now through the end of September. I will be monitoring the website traffic closely this week to see if the hits correspond to when the commercials air.

49 days until launch!

I can't believe that we are finally winding down to our 9/23 launch. When we moved to Southern Chester County in April of 2006, our launch seemed so far away. I am glad that we gave ourselves the time that we did before planning to launch. It gave us time to pray, plan, and prepare. It's so cool to see how God worked all of the little and big details from where we would meet to the worship team to the money to finance all of this. God is so good!

There will be a lot of activity happening from now until launch. Our TV commercials start to air next week. You can check them out at on YouTube . They will be airing 60 times each week through the end of September. We also have 20,000 direct mail pieces going out soon. We are also using Tellstart that will call 40,000 homes in our area letting them know about our launch and giving them an option to receive more information.

I can't wait to see what God is going to do through Elk Creek Church!