PROJECTOR WORKS!

This morning we got the projector working finally. THEN, we had to figure out 50 feet of s-video cable, so we got that figured out this afternoon. It feels like we've done all we can for the preview tomorrow. Tonight we are having praise team practice and then IT'S ON for tomorrow! Set up begins at 7 AM and preview begins at 10 AM. I know I've said this 100 times but I have no idea what to expect tomorrow. I haven't had many nightmares and usually I do and then things go AWESOME! So does no nightmares mean it's not going good or that God is just granting me peace. LOL Please be praying for us tomorrow. Pray that new people would come check us out. Pray specifically that people from the gas buydown and Superday come to check us out. Pray that God would grant us favor as we present the Gospel and worship God together. WOW, I can't believe our first preview is here. We'll have pictures and video hopefully tomorrow or Monday. I'm sure I'll blog tomorrow about how things went.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Random Thoughts and Updates

--- As of today, we can't figure out the projector in the e:worship auditorium. We don't know if it's my laptop, the connector, or the theater projector connection. We have one last try with something tomorrow and then we steal a projector from e:kidz for a week. I really hope the theater one works. Hate not to be able and use that.

--- Took pizza to the theater employees today again! A new group of workers this time and they were shocked I'd bring pizza. Shawn (manager) AGAIN bent over backwards for us today trying to get that projector to work. We are giving Shawn a gift card to Chili's on Sunday to thank him for his help.

--- I'M STOKED FOR SUNDAY! Terri made 80 worship guides. Have no idea how many we need or will use. I don't even want to put a # on expectations. I know we have some High Plains folks coming down and family of Adam is coming.

--- I feel we have a great worship experience put together. For our first one I think it's going to be very good. Only go bigger and better from here. Can't wait to worship God together for the first time at a real church service. 1 1/2 years in the making. WOW!!

--- We've had lots of phone calls to the office this week of people asking about our church. Had one phone call today of someone who saw our church and # on our trailer. (Need to get pictures of that on here) Someone called off our window sign too.

--- I'M STOKED FOR SUNDAY! I totally believe in what we do and what we offer. People are dying for life and we have it. I want to show thirsty people where they can find refreshing water. I want to show the hungry where they can be fed. And I want to show people who are DYING to live where they can find life.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Kindness

Terri bought and took cookies to every office in our office building today! She put them in a little gift bag with an Element Church info card and a handful of invite cards for preview. Doing little stuff like that I hope will let people know what we are about. Tomorrow I'm gonna get some more pizza for the theatre crew. They have been outstanding to us. Thought that was a cool thing Terri did. She has been INCREDIBLE for us in the office. Can't imagine doing this without her help. GOOD JOB TERRI!

Theatre Set Up

Wow, today was exciting. It seems there aren't enough hours in the day to get done what we need to get done for Sunday. Today we got to go set up all of our e:worship stuff in the main auditorium. It was a BLAST! Made me ready to get it on on Sunday. From the time we started backing the trailer up to the time we had everything set up it was 1 hour and 5 minutes. That was a killer time and we were going very slow. Now that we know how it goes in we should shave a bunch of time off that. It took us 35 minutes to tear down and load the trailer. Again that is going slow. I am very excited about how well everything worked. We are gonna be last minute on projector issues. We did not buy a projector for e:worship since we are able to use the theatres, HOWEVER, as of today we did not have the proper connection to hook up our laptops to their projector. Tomorrow we think we'll have it solved. MAN, I am so excited for Sunday. The e:kidz area is gonna be a total blind set up. We didn't have time to get in their today. I think it will be ok. Our sound system sounds GREAT in there. Adam fabricated a stage for us which gets us off the floor and more level with the people. That was HUGE. If we didn't have the stage I think it would look tacky with us all the way on the floor. There are some pictures below. We are dead center on the front row, but according to the picture it looks like we aren't centered with the screen. May need to adjust that. We are going to record the whole service on Sunday and I'll get some highlights up on the blog Sunday. Tomorrow and Saturday we'll be tying up loose ends and then gearing up for Sunday morning. WOW, we are really doing this! Love it.

Following Christ,

Jeff

CRAZY!

WOW, it's been a fast week! Working all day Sunday really helped us get ahead. We have been able to do a lot more this week than I thought we would. In typical Jeff style we've added some creative elements to the preview service that made more work but MAN am I excited for this Sunday. We are going to kickoff the service in an AWESOME way! For just our first preview we're going BIG! We are going to appear bigger than what we are and that's ok. We got our banners in today and they look absolutely amazing. They are really gonna help with the feel of the theatre and putting our brand on it. Tomorrow at 9 AM we are doing a test set up at the theatre to test out the sound system. We hear there are some people coming from High Plains to preview, that makes me excited. We STILL have no idea what to expect Sunday. We went to lunch with one o the guy's that has been a part of Element since Unplugged started and he said him and his wife have been inviting everyone they know and leaving invite cards at restaurants and stuff. We have had more web-hits this month than any previous month. Had a small spike on the day of Superday. Our custom stage has been completed and we loaded the trailer up today with room to spare. Tomorrow we'll take pictures of our setup so you can see it.

Closing thoughts:

--- I CAN'T WAIT for Sunday!
--- The opening of preview is going to ROCK!
--- I love Element Church
--- I LOVE our team!
--- I'm going to be very tired on Sunday!
--- I CAN'T WAIT for Sunday!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Weekend Wrapup

HA! Only I would think that's funny. Great weekend again. Superday yesterday was great. Like I said in this earlier post, I think we could have done things better but that's where we need to learn. Pray for us that the contacts we made at Superday would check us out and see what this God thing is all about.

Unplugged today AGAIN was very good. Just great to see people connecting to us. Every new person that has come to Unplugged has now been back the following week. I told Grant today that I LOVE what our mission is. To connect people with Life. People are dying for life. I am convinced that if someone is honestly searching and they come to Element Church that they'll stick. I believe with all my heart in what we are doing. We had 34 today, same as last week. One family had some members sick. Still waiting for some other connections to show up. Be praying that the interested people we've met would check us out.

We've been working all day today. Excluding a 1 hour lunch we worked all day until 7:30 PM. A family in the church was moving across town so Grant, Terri, Nate (Grants and Terri's son), Amber (Adam's wife) and I all helped them for several hours. Adam, Kyle (intern) and Morgan (Grant and Terri's son) took the one hour lunch and then went to the office and finished building the stage for Preview. At about 4:30 a lot of us converged on the office and organized all the crates. We loaded the stage and the crates we'll use into the trailer. We hooked up the sound system and jammed for a while. I'm pumped for Sunday. Having the full deal is gonna be SWEET! I'm convinced of this. No matter how tired you are, how discouraged you are, how down you are, if you serve with a willing heart God lifts you up and fills you up. Absolutely convinced of that!

This week is shaping up to be CRAZY! Wouldn't want it any other way. Thursday at 9 AM we get to set everything up in the theatre to test it out. Looking forward to that. Again Shawn and Carmike theatre have been AWESOME! Ok, lots more to come this week. We'll get pictures of our set up on Thursday.

OH, our Unplugged sermons are going to be online now. We bought a little digital recorder so we could put them online. They won't be the greatest quality but it'll work for now. I'm very tired. Good start today to a GREAT week!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Superday Recap

Today was a good day. I am VERY sunburned, even after coating on the sunscreen. What a great way to get our name out there again before our preview next Sunday. We had some great connections and conversations again. Already thinking how we can up the ante next year. There are some things we could have done better at Superday today, we just didn't know what to expect being our first time doing it. Better signage is the main thing. And a more organized way of getting connection cards out. Next year maybe we could do a drawing or something too, for some cool stuff. Been thinking about that lately. I'd like to find a way to corner the market on inflatables too. I think they are BY FAR the biggest attraction for kids at this thing. We are going to call Superday this week and see if we can do more next year, maybe be the only ones doing inflatables. The Superday committee actually sponsored 3 inflatable areas. We were the only church that was offering a service as far as an activity at Superday. That amazes me. Two or three churches had exhibits where people could come and see what they offered. The Salvation Army did free water. Other than that, I didn't see any church in the brochure. 20,000 people at your door, guess what? WE'LL DO IT AGAIN NEXT YEAR EVEN BETTER! Below are some pictures of the event. Thanks for you who were praying! A bunch of people were very interested in Element and said they would come to preview. I love doing stuff like this. Serving is the best way, THE BEST WAY, to engage the community. And we'll keep doing it. Again we had AWESOME volunteers, some who stayed all day. Ok, I'll stop. Pictures below.

Following Christ,

Jeff

The heat is on!

One week and three days and we'll hold our first service in the theatre. WOW! We've got some major plans in the works as well. We (Adam at this point) is trying to build an entire 2 foot high stage before next week. We've got some custom element SWEET banners coming to show our ministry areas and directions to things in the theatre. I nearly completed my sermon today for our July 1st preview. We still need to organize the sound equipment, load the trailer with the sound equipment, learn how to use the sound equipment, set up the sound equipment for the first time, set up the kids area, hospitality, e:connect table, (should I continue). Ya know what! I LOVE IT! Scares the crap out of me, but I love it. I love doing what we're doing. I love sharing our vision. I love meeting people. I love writing sermons. I love dreaming. I love the unexpectedness. But MAN the heat is on. Adam and I were laughing today about the time crunch. This is just for one preview service. I'm a dreamer. In fact I think all of us on staff are. That can be a problem cause we keep wanting to do bigger things. We were in the theatre today (for the 4th time in two days) testing out a stage piece. I stood on top of it and said "I can't wait to be in here". You're gonna here this a lot from me the next week. I AM SO STINKIN' EXCITED TO HAVE A SERVICE IN THAT THEATRE! I might be preaching to six people but they'll get the whole sermon. We have no idea what to expect. Ok, typed enough. The heat is on.

Following Christ,

Jeff

I'm now delivering pizza!

No I have not had to get a 2nd job. We wanted to do something kind for the Carmike Theatre since they have been so kind to us in providing a meeting space. SO, yesterday I took up two large pizzas to the five employees who were working. The two guy's who took (yanked) the pizza from me were very appreciative. It's just a simple and easy way for us to serve the theatre. We are going to try and work a deal with the theatre as well to purchase movie tickets from them at a discounted rate to give out to our first time guests as a connection gift. We've got some cool ideas for launch day gifts as well. Anyway, thought it was cool to take the pizza up and we'll continue to do stuff like that regularly to honor and serve the theatre. They have been GREAT to us!

Superday and Preview

Our next servant evangelism event is this Saturday at Cheyenne City's Superday. We are providing inflatable games for the families who attend. We are using this event to leverage toward our first "full" preview service in the theatre. Below are the connection cards we got made to give out. Adam did a great job of putting them together. We had a great team meeting tonight mapping out some preview stuff. Volunteer lists, set up, that kind of stuff. It's great to have the team to sit down and talk stuff through with. I don't know how guy's do this alone. We'll update more on Superday, Unplugged and Preview in the coming weeks.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Front:

Back:

Ministry

Adam did a great job on a blog about "ministry". Check it out here.

21% increase

When you're a smaller church increases and decreases seem much larger. We could say that we grew 21% in one week. Last week we had 28, this week we had 34. Two new families were at Unplugged today and the two new families from last week were there. It was great again to meet together. Adam did awesome leading us in worship. It was stinkin' HOT in our room. The heater was stuck on or something. We need to get that fixed next week. Talked about vision today. It was good. Took a few lessons out of Paul's first missionary journey and asked the questions "Why are we here?" "Why am I here?" and "What should I do?" As it relates to vision. Already looking forward to next week as we talk about essential ministries at Element. Our first Preview is 2 weeks away. This week and next will be jam packed getting ready for that. I love doing this.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Our church!

Couldn't go to sleep again last night. (same as last Saturday) The brain shut off button was malfunctioning. My mind races with the "what ifs" of Sunday. Not nervous what ifs but excited ones. Got up this morning to do my devotions and started 1 Corinthians. Read out of my Oswald Chambers devo and started praying. Something struck me as I was praying. Today at Unplugged we are talking about vision. What is God's vision for Element Church? So as I was praying I said something to the effect of "Lord, I pray I would communicate in such a way that people would catch the vision of OUR CHURCH." We have an "our" church now. That blew me away. For so long it's been "the church" but now we have an "our". People came last week. New people are coming this week. That blows me away! That God could stir the heart of people in Gillette and Sheridan in all stages and walks of life to start this thing called Element Church in a city 4 hours away and people in Cheyenne are looking for something to belong to and they become part of our church. Now before someone reminds me "It's not our church it's Gods". I hope you know what I mean. We are a group of people who are taking ownership of this "new thing" God wants to begin. WOW! Our church. It's not just me anymore, or 8 couples on a team, it's become "our" now. I'm excited. Can't wait to worship with everyone this morning and share what's on my heart.

Following Christ

Jeff

The importance of a strong team (and good leadership)

I can't tell you how blessed I feel to have the team around me that I do. Keenan and Katrina are invaluable to element church. They came in September and by living their lives for the Kingdom led us to MANY of the relationships we've made. Grand and Terri are invaluable. Grant is a walking billboard (not a joke about his height) and Terri has gone above and beyond her call of duty to get the office set up, AND keep it going. Adam and Amber have only been here two weeks and they are also invaluable. How refreshing it was for me to worship at Unplugged and know it would be done well, preparing the way for the Word. I don't have time and you wouldn't take the time for me to write about my teammates. NONE of them have a college degree in ministry. NONE. Yet all of them are and WILL be superstars in ministry! I'd take a heart on fire for God and HIS ministry any day over an educated person with no fire in their belly. Are their bumps in the road with a team? YES! Is their patience required in a team? YES. Keenan and Katrina have lots to learn. Grant and Terri have lots to learn. Adam and Amber have lots to learn. Know what? I have TONS to learn. One thing I've realized as now "the boss" of the team is I have sooooooo much to learn on leadership. For every challenge and correction I give to a teammate I need to be challenge and corrected. Strong team is important but a strong team needs a strong leader. I pray I can be that man. As I have patience with my team I hope they have patience with me. I know I'm not the greatest in leadership, but I know I serve the greatest God. And all of us TOGETHER will get this thing done. We'll look back and laugh at some of the stupid things we did. At some of of the things we learned that will seem so obvious, but as we look back I hope we'll see a trail of souls that were won into God's Kingdom because we were willing to be leaders REGARDLESS of how much we knew. Hope that made sense! I love my team. Today I wouldn't trade any of them for anyone else. I mean that.

Following Christ,

Jeff

5 thoughts about my wife

1. She is beautiful!
2. She started her own business (tastefully simple: gourmet food) when we moved her and last month she was #4 in sales out of a TON of people in the region. Not sure exactly how many but it was a lot. (Through her business we are seeing two families check out Element)
3. She is an amazing mother. I don't know how she does it everyday with 4 kids. She takes care of the kids, the house, AND volunteers at church and runs a business. Plus she puts up with me.
4. I couldn't do this thing called church planting without her.
5. We love watching tv and I love watching tv with her. When she gets home in 10 minutes we are going to watch Last Comic Standing together.

I don't give her enough credit and she deserves it.

Humbled,

Jeff

Can't Wait!

I can't wait until Sunday. We're going to be talking about vision. Why are we (element) here? Why am I here? What do I do? We are going to be taking a journey through Acts 13-15 looking at Paul's first missionary journey with Barnabas where they basically spent 1 1/2 years planting churches throughout the region. There are some great principles on vision in those 3 chapters. We've multiplied our Life Groups from one to three. That is very exciting. Last night a group of "younger" adults met. One of the new couples who came to Unplugged on Sunday came to Life Group last night. Tonight Grant and Terri are hosting their Life Group and another new couple is planning on being there. This Sunday night we are holding our Life Group at a new home. We're expecting some more new faces at Unplugged this weekend as we talk about vision.

Our Vision: That God would so impact the Cheyenne area through Element Church that if it were gone the community would miss it.

I want to be a church, the vision I feel God has for our church, is that we'd love people so much; serve people so well; minister so creatively, relevantly, practically and effectively that if our church was gone the community would miss it. I don't ever want to stop serving. I don't ever want to stop stretching. I don't ever want to stop being a place where LIFE exists. Element Church will always be looking for the next thing to do for Cheyenne. ALWAYS! We will always be asking how our services can be better. ALWAYS! We will always serve whether anyone attends our church because of it. ALWAYS! AND we will always passionately pursue a God who has vision.

I truly believe that God has ordained the local church to be the hope of the world, so we will always ask how we are being that hope. ALWAYS!

Did I mention I can't wait until Sunday. And I hope I will ALWAYS feel that way!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Monday Morning Update

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

Unplugged

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

The Team Is Assembled

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