Update

Had a great Life Group on Sunday. Have had some new faces that returned so that is great. We are doing a study on The Purpose Driven Life. Still frustrated trying to get more people to that but in time they'll come. Have LOTs of folks who are definitely interested. Moving them from interested to attending to committed to serving is a HUGE task.

Grant talked to the General Manager of the Big D gas stations in Cheyenne. He pitched an idea to her for a servant evangelism project that we learned of through another church planter. It's called a "gas buy down". We find a partnering gas station who will let us pay down the price of gas by 25 cents per gallon. The pumps are changed, signs changed, and the customer pays the 25 cents off while we then pay the gas station the other 25 cents per gallon pumped. It's a guaranteed win for the gas station. Basically a continuous stream of gas. We pump all the gas for each customer, give them a connection card and show the community our desire to serve first. Simply put, it's our simple way to show God's love to Cheyenne. There is a really cool story from the church we got the idea from I'll have to share sometime. We are planning on doing this Saturday, May 26th. Anyone who would want to come down from Gillette to help would be greatly appreciated. Once this is finalized we'll have more info.

I'm flying to Tulsa tomorrow to pick up my fam and drive them back home. The house won't be so quiet anymore. Can't wait to see them all.

Those are some updates, thanks for following along.

Following Christ,

Jeff

"I just want them to follow God..."

I had the chance to go to Sheridan this past weekend to visit Adam and Amber's home, family and church. It was a quick up and back on Saturday/Sunday but well worth it. We sat down for coffee with Adam's parents and had a great talk about Element and life itself. Adam's dad, Monty, at one point said of his children (not exact quote but close) "I just want my kids to follow God." I told Adam how blessed he was to have parents that see him leaving there home town and church, a place where they themselves live and what they say is "Follow God!". As a youth pastor I've heard so many parents, CHRISTIAN parents say things like: "But you'll be so far away!" "That school costs SO much money!" "If you do that you won't make any money!" And those things were said in response to their children wanting to follow God. "Follow God!" What a refreshing statement to hear. I believe it's empowering for a young person to hear "Follow God!" regardless of what that means to me, OR them! God is bigger than money, than distance or than risk. Loved Adam's family and church. I'm thankful for a team that is willing to follow God and for parents myself that modeled that for me.

General Update

This last weekend our whole team was together. "I've seen a lot of things in my time...but that...was....AWESOME!" lol I think we have a great team. Three out of the four staff couples are already here in Cheyenne. Adam (worship leader) and Amber came to Cheyenne on Thursday and stayed through Monday morning. We had an awesome time dreaming, planning, praying, worrying (do a lot of that as a church planter I found out), celebrating and growing. We made some great progress in the search for a meeting location and pretty much decided on the theatre in the mall. The pluses outweight the positives and it fits the feel of Element. Please continue to pray that all goes well with that. Pray for the theatre manager that we can serve him and be a blessing to him. Adam and Amber found an apartment and secured it for their move here in 1 month. PRAISE GOD! He is faithful to provide. We had a great Life Group on Sunday night. The first time Adam and Amber were able to be here for that. Had a new family and new faces at Life Group. Please continue to pray for Grant as he seeks God for direction and vision with Elements Life Group ministry. Pray for Keenan and Katrina as well as they seek for vision in youth and kids ministry stuff. Pray for Adam that God would clarify vision for worship at Element and to provide teams for these guy's as well. Thanks to all who are praying for us. Your prayers are felt.

Following Christ,

Jeff

The Office

I think we are going to have so much fun in our office. I loved the office life at HPCC. I hope we can have the same atmosphere and fun nature at Element. If you can't have fun working at and going to church then you're sure serving a different God than I am. Anyway, before I start on my soapbox, here are some picture of our office. We take possession May 1st and will start putting it together. The landlord is replacing the carpet and we are going to paint. Enjoy!

1000 Square foot warehouse in the back of our office. We'll use for praise team and drama practice, set design and maybe even summertime Life Group.




Adam's office



Jeff's office


hallway, lol. Copy room and coffee area





Reception area with tremendous street side exposure.

Carmike Frontier 9

This is a possible meeting location. We love the feel of a theatre. Very modern. The seats are already there and if we are portable that is huge in set up time. We CAN use the theatres High Definition projector for our services and that is awesome as well. 2 major factors that we'd deal with here. #1 the largest auditorium holds 188 people. That is with every seat filled. If we eliminate the front row for some sort of stage set up your down to 155. Two services would be nearly impossible especially with the age demographic we'd be reaching. There probably aren't too many young families who will want to get up and be at church by 8 am. So that is something we have to consider. #2 Starting in April through August of each year the theatre summer schedule begins. This means a lot of movies starting at 11:30 or 11 AM and the big blockbusters (Spiderman, Transformers, etc.) have 10 AM showings. This completely eliminates the use of the theatre during those months. SO, if we do go with the theatre it will be to get us started and we'd try and find something else starting April of 08'. The cost of the theatre is fantastic and the manager has been wonderful to work with so far. Very accommodating. Anyway, here are some pictures of the theatre. Please pray for God's direction in this. Other than staffing, I think that the meeting location is the biggest first year decision.

Office, Life Group and meeting space

A quick update on what's going on. We got the keys to our office. They are replacing the carpet and letting us paint before the official possession date of May 1st. I'll post pictures later. We had Life Group last night and had some new faces. That was our prayer. Counting kids we had 13 I think. Still praying for others who are interested but not yet ventured to our Life Group. I praise God for the new faces. That was our prayer, that this week we would have new faces at Life Group. Today we are looking at a storefront property for lease. We have unofficially secured a location at the Carmike Theatre in the mall for our Sunday morning worship but this other building we kinda happened upon during a drive on Saturday with Adam and Amber. Don't know cost or anything so if you read this before my next update on what happened with the building please pray for God's favor upon us. This storefront would open up so many other opportunities that the theatre just can't provide. Ok, I'll expound on some of this later. Please continue to pray for divine connections for us and for God's direction in all of our planning.

Following Christ,

Jeff

"I don't feel like it!"

Terri and I worked at the Soup Kitchen today. It was the biggest turnout since we started working there on Friday's. Today, I DID NOT want to go to the Soup Kitchen. Adam and his wife are here this weekend and we were up until 2 AM planning Element stuff. It was a blast. Consequently today I was draggin'. I set my alarm for 7 AM cause I knew I wouldn't want to get up this morning. Got up and did my morning routine. Downed about a gallon of coffee and had my quiet time with God. It was in my quiet time I came to the conclusion that if any day I shouldn't have to go to the soup kitchen it was today. And as that thought entered my mind God planted another one. The thought(s) He gave came from the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis which I'm reading. I went back to my book to find the underlined thought God was blasting me with. "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor, act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him." WOW Just do what you are supposed to do REGARDLESS of whether you feel like it or not. "The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of." and "Ask yourself, 'If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?' When you have found the answer, go and do it." MAN! I went. I didn't feel like it, but I went. And like always, I was glad I did. Sometimes we just have to do something because we are supposed to, not because we feel like it. When we do those things captures a strategic point from which, a few months later, you might go on to a victory you never thought possible. How can God give us victories in the "big" stuff, if we won't simply do what we are supposed to do even when we don't feel like it. My heart was stirred at the soup kitchen. Stirred to compassion, gratefulness (MY how much we have when we see it compared to other people). We only want to compare ourselves to those who have more. why? It gives us an excuse to want more. I prayed for those people as we handed them their tray. Prayed that they may know God even in the smallest of ways, because when we touch God, we are changed. What do you need to do, even though you don't feel like it?

Following Christ, (and being stretched)

Jeff

Gravity...

Not the kind that keeps us on the ground. The kind that says "Oh my, this is serious!" I've had the feeling a couple times in my life and it wasn't good. The time I attempted a double black diamond at Snowmass mountain in Colorado. The time my brother and I took an exit into East St. Louis with no on ramp on the other side. The time we got our 85 Chevy Celebrity stuck while trying to go muddin' down a country road. This time it's a good thing. It's the kind of gravity that should motivate us, propel us, light that fire in our bellies. It's the gravity that a first responder must feel as they step onto the scene of a car accident. The gravity that an athlete feels in the championship game in the "must score" situation. It's the gravity that says "You might be the only way someone in Cheyenne will hear the Gospel explained." It's the gravity that says "If I don't do this I'll die, AND, if I don't do this they might die!". I don't know. I'm away from Cheyenne right now taking my wife to her parents in Oklahoma. I'm flying back tomorrow. Maybe I'm just homesick. The "gravity" is telling me to get back and start plowing ground again. The "gravity" causes me to look at every empty building in Missouri, and Oklahoma and I tell Sabrina "OOOOOOH, that would make a great church building." lol Anyway, hadn't wrote anything in a couple days. That's what I was feeling. That thing that drives you forward to do the right thing, the ONLY thing. Gravity... Hope that made sense. Probably didn't.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Our best!

We had the chance to celebrate Easter with my sister and her family in Greeley, CO this past Sunday. Not only did we have a great time with them and our kids' adopted grandparents (sisters husbands folks) but we enjoyed a phenomenal Easter service at their church, Greeley Wesleyan. The worship not only sounded great but it was genuine (big difference). And their pastor preached one whale of an Easter message. Through this week I've been thinking about something, and it really has nothing to do with Greeley Wesleyan, although the quality of their service triggered my thought process. There are so many churches who put days, weeks, perhaps MONTHS, planning their Easter service. They want to pick out the perfect songs, graphics, dramas, cantatas, because "Someone new will be there to hear the Gospel for perhaps the first time". They spend money on larger and better advertisements, challenge their people to "INVITE, INVITE, INVITE!" Put together special choirs, etc. You get the picture. My thought (I know you're wondering when I'll get to it). Shouldn't this be our attitude EVERY Sunday. Isn't every Sunday the celebration of the risen Lord? Isn't every Sunday a chance for "Someone new to be there to hear the Gospel for perhaps the first time?" Seems lots of churches roll out the red carpet for Easter and then settle for the other 51 weeks of the year. I hope at Element we'll give our best, our ABSOLUTE BEST! Every Sunday. We give our best not to "sound good" or "look good", but in the hopes that perhaps we will engage someone with the greatest message known to man in a way that they can best see Him and know Him. If we don't give our best, why give at all?

Following Christ,

Jeff

Common Ground

Grant and I attended the monthly Cheyenne Association of Evangelicals meeting today. We were able to meet many of the ministers we had not yet connected with at this meeting. There were Presbyterians, Charismatics, Methodists, Baptists, Non-Denominationals, etc. at this meeting. Couple of thoughts. #1 They genuinely desire to see Cheyenne reached for Christ. This leads to a "one body" mentality. Sure, we have some major doctrinal differences, but each pastor there I can genuinely say that their top goal for Cheyenne is to see people won to the Lord. This leads to #2 . They seemed genuinely excited that we were here. They were not standoffish, intimidated or annoyed that we are in town. They completely understand that more Bible teaching churches means more people touched with the Gospel. Anyway, it was cool to connect with that group and we look forward to partnering more with them to reach Cheyenne.

Following Christ,

Jeff

New posts

Grant and Adam both have new posts up. Thought I'd offer you a link to their blogs.

www.elementworship.blogspot.com

www.elementconnections.blogspot.com

Becoming part of the tribe!

Ever notice how we naturally resort to the "tribe" mentality when someone new comes into our group. Not saying it's wrong I just think it's natural. Over the past few weeks I've been able to see this first hand in two different circles. In my attempt to try and get to know people I've started working my way into those two circles. I love playing basketball so I've started going to men's open gym during the lunch hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It's funny, I received the same reception at men's open gym that I did at the pastors prayer group I attend each Tuesday. Again, nothing wrong with that. What reception am I talking about? The "size him up" reception. I am far from being a great basketball player, although I know I can hold my own in a YMCA open gym. But what do the guy's there do from day one? They hesitate to pass me the ball, the look at me as a 3rd or LAST option on offense. They want to watch "can this guy play or is he just here cause he's fat and wants to lose weight?" I've been to open gym 5 or 6 times now, yesterday guess what happened? I'd broke into the tribe. I became an important part of the team, they looked to pass me the ball when I cut, posted up. I was rewarded for crashing the boards (rebounding), and playing hard defense. Today at the pastors meeting (after attending 3 weeks and meeting personally with several of them) they prayed for our church. They asked "How are things going Jeff?" I became part of their tribe. What are you getting at Jeff? Glad you asked. Why do we want to provide inflatable games at an Easter Egg hunt? Why do we want to serve pancakes during the pancake feed at Frontier Days or give out free water at the Memorial Day provide, or provide a gas buy down for folks on the air force base? Because Cheyenne is going to size Element Church up to see whether we'll be accepted into their tribe. My desire is that we will crash the boards, play hard defense, hustle down the court, do the things that doesn't get the glitz and the glamour and guess who will call on us in a time of need? The tribe! That's how I see it anyway. Our willingness to work hard and serve our community gains us respect, acceptance and open doors. THEN we can share with them the Gospel that compels us to do so.

Bummed!

There are some great churches and church planters out there. Since diving into the world of blogging I've found some GREAT blogs out there by other church planters and churches. Reading some of their blogs today about their Easter weekend experiences kinda bums me out. I really felt like we had a great event set up for our first splash into Cheyenne. I totally trust that God has something else in store for us that will probably blow our minds, but tonight, I'm bummed! Some of these churches do some WAY out of the box events on Easter weekend, including dropping 50,000 eggs from a helicopter with some eggs holding a chance to win some sweet prizes. One church plant had 4,000 people from their community show up. INSANE! Now my mind goes to the next thing. What is our next event. How can we serve the community. We want to serve our community first and foremost, but as a new church in town their is a secondary thing in our serving. I don't think these 2 things oppose 0r contradict each other, I'm still working this out in my mind. As a new church we want to generate some new buzz in town WHILE serving. We will always do things that may never be known by the community simply because it's the right thing to do (serve at the Salvation Army soup kitchen, help the crisis pregnancy center, food drives, clothing drives, etc), BUT, now more than ever we want the community to SEE us in action doing something that is not common but stands out. Does this make sense? This is hard to do on limited funds. With unlimited funds, DUDE, look out. I can think of some pretty sweet stuff. With limited funds we want the biggest bang for our buck. Tonight I got an email about an event we wanted to do in June. The cost far exceeded my expectations. SO. Do we do it or not? That is the question. All this is processing I have to do as lead pastor. Please continue praying for us that the right events would rise to the surface. That we would be VERY wise stewards of what's been given to us. Doing an event just to do one is pointless to me. I want people who are longing for Life to see Life in us as we do an event. I want people to ask "What is it with this Element Church? They are always doing things for the community." Anyway, random thoughts on an Easter night.

Following Christ

Jeff

Risk

Grant posted a GREAT blog today on the Element Connections blog about risk. I have been challenged by this for the last year now. What am I doing for the Lord? Am I being ALL that He wants me to be. And I'm not talking about in my ministry. As a neighbor. A friend. A husband and a dad. As a normal, everyday person, outside of church planting am I being who God wants me to be. Am I willing to take risks in my faith. I hope no matter how old I get, in fact, my hope for all believers is that no matter how mature we are in our faith, how young or old we are that there would be no risk too great if it is what our Lord wants us to do. Risk for risk sake can be self serving. "Look at me!" Risk for God's sake is Kingdom serving and might get me nothing in return. The reward for the risk might be ridicule, rejection, resentment (good 3 points there huh). Anyway, Grant did a great job. So check out his blog. What's the risk? HA, I'm so funny!

Easter Egg Hunt Cancelled

Well, they have cancelled the Easter egg hunt. The director called me pretty bummed. He felt like our addition would really benefit the event. He asked us to please try to work with them again on something. I mentioned Super Day (the last Saturday day in June the Parks and Rec does a HUGE event, literally thousands of Cheyenne folks come out to the park for this event) as something we'd like to be involved in. Said we'd like to offer a whole set of inflatable games for that. He loved that idea and said it sounds like that would be a "Feature Event". Maybe the Lord has that in store for us. We ran 2 ads in the paper this week for the egg hunt and had more hits on our site in one day than ever before. So, that got us some exposure. Anyway, thanks to all you who prayed. We trust that God has something else in store for us. We really felt good about this event but we feel even greater about our Lord. "The Lord's plans stand firm forever; his intentions can never be shaken" (Psalm 33:11)

Unless you become like these little children...

Words spoken by Christ to his followers was shown today in the hearts of my children. I love our kids. They can be absolutely INSANE, A LOT, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. At our evening meals each night we try and read a Bible story and each person around the table prays for someone in our lives. Many times Sabrina and I just laugh at how happy God's heart must feel when he hears children pray, it's so special. Well today, we were looking at a snow covered ground, wondering if it will clear up enough to do our servant project at the city Easter egg hunt tomorrow. I fully trust that God can change the weather regardless of what Jeff Matthews predicts as chief meteorologist of KGWN News Channel 5 here in Cheyenne. I called Pete at Fun On The Go to see what the latest time is we could cancel without paying for the full event. Dan, at the Parks and Rec Department, is waiting to see what happens through the day before he makes a decision. While I am on the phone, getting info, asking about cancellation, Jonah asked Sabrina if we could pray for God to change the weather. His motive is so we can have all 4 inflatable games and not just 1 if we go indoors, BUT, he fully believes that God can do it. Do I? Do you? Do we REALLY believe God can do anything? Do we ask God with expectancy of what He can do? I hope we do more often than not, but I have to admit that sometimes I haven't. We ask with a "probably not" mentality rather than "probably so". Anyway, we gathered together and Makalah prays in her sweetest Makalah voice: "Dear Jesus, pray for Easter....Amen". I know the Holy Spirit took those words straight to the throne of God and interceded on behalf of our daughter. WOW, how cool is that? May we (I) have the faith of a child (Makalah, Jonah, Mariah). It was a great teaching moment for me. Not to teach, but to be taught!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Salvation Army

Stopped by the Salvation Army Church today here in Cheyenne. Met the Captain who was preparing his Easter week messages. Didn't realize there were still actual Salvation Army Churches left around. It's a nice little brick church that holds worship services every Sunday morning at 10:30 AM. I stopped in to check on their soup kitchen. They feed a lunch each day to people in Cheyenne who were in need. I was introduced to one of their volunteer managers who then introduced me to their cook. They have someone in charge of the meal everyday. Makes it much simpler to be involved in. The Soup Kitchen in Gillette, you are responsible to choose what to cook and cook it all. I asked the lady in charge if they were in need of any volunteers to help on any day. Turns out that she has absolutely NO help on Friday's. Guess where our staff will be every Friday? That's right, Chili's! lol, We will be helping serve the needy down at the Soup Kitchen. I don't know if any other churches take a day or not but we will and I, as lead pastor, as well as our staff will be the first to serve. If we want a serving church we better be willing to serve. Pray for us that we can make a difference to the Salvation Army as well as those who come in who are in need. I think it will be very cool to close our office each Friday so we can head down to the soup kitchen to serve. Being the hands and feet of Jesus is not always convenient but it's always right.

PRAY PRAY PRAY part 2: Weather Update

The weather channel site is calling for a high of 38 degrees and chance of rain/snow. The local CBS weather station is calling for a high in the 50's and partly cloudy. SO, either way you look at it the weather outlook is going down from the 60's predicted earlier this week. Again we ask that all of you pray like mad for the creator of the weather to grant us His favor on Saturday. We are praying for divine connections at our event as we offer inflatable games to all the kids. We got signs made and connection cards. We trust in the Lord and in HIS mighty power. Thank you for praying. Here is a pic off of the local CBS news site. To keep updated go to www.kgwn.tv/weather

"What did we get ourselves into?"

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?"

Great leadership!

I 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

What element of Easter are you looking for?

The 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 3x3 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.

Watching the game...having a Pepsi

I'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!

"I wish you were already meeting..."

...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

PRAY PRAY PRAY

We 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:

"I think about it every day bro!"

February 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.