Sunday Reflection

Forgot to share about Adam preaching on Sunday. He did an awesome job teaching on our core value of "worship". It was VERY weird being there at church and not preaching. I listened to Grants sermon the other day as well and wow is he continuing to grow as a speaker and did great teaching on our core value of "family". Talking with my mom the other day of where God has brought Grant from. That's a blog or two in itself. Not to take away from what Grant spoke on or any other topic but Adam probably had the toughest subject to cover. First of all worship is a very broad subject. Second it's VERY important to the church as a whole. Nothing has divided the church more in recent years than worship. I felt Adam did a great job of not talking about our style of worship - feel - look - but the HEART of worship! A few things Adam talked about that I thought was REALLY good. (None of these are direct quotes)

--- The Father is looking for worshipers who will worship in SPIRIT and TRUTH (John 4). Paul said our SPIRITual act of worship is to offer our bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to HIM. That's worship. Giving of MYSELF. In John 4 Jesus said to the woman at the well essentially "Your worshiping this God that you don't even know." We've got to worship God in TRUTH. Worshiping for who He is. In His awesomeness, holiness and POWER.

--- Be careful that we don't worship worship instead of worship God. So easy to worship the kind of worship we like. Or the place, sound, leader of worship. "I wish we had worship like camp...conference...that church."

--- Worship is only strange to those who are unfamiliar with God. If I KNOW God I want to worship Him.

Worship at Element Church will look different at different times. Typically it will be loud, fresh and modern. But we don't want to be bound to a style or sound. Some Sunday's we'll pull out a djembe and acoustic guitar to do an Unplugged set. Some times we'll sing more older songs and others all new. It's going to look different but the God we sing to remains the same. Worship METHODS change, but the God we worship remains the same.

This should be a whole other blog but churches need to realize that worship begins in the parking lot. "Worship" is not JUST the singing portion of church. When our greeters shake hands we are worshiping. When ushers ush they are worshiping. Etc. Another time for that discussion.

Anyway, Good job Adam and good job Grant on sharing your hearts. Love you guys.

Blog Link

Grant has a good blog on "prayer". Check it out.

Post #100: "I will be with you!"

Moses was confronted with the biggest task of his GREAT life. The Lord had seen the oppression of His people and heard their cry. He decided it was time to act. Who did He call to act on His behalf? Moses! But...But...But...was Moses' reply. "I can't go back to Pharaoh." "What will my people say?" "Who am I Lord that I should go?" Basically Moses is saying "Why me?" He asked God "Who am I?" What was God's response? I love this every time I read it. "I will be with you." That was his response to who Moses was. What is God saying? "Moses, IT'S NO ABOUT YOU!" I am more and more convinced that the Scripture is trying to teach us who it's all about. "But God what's your plan?" "But God I need this." "But God if you'd only do this." "But God what about me?" God's answer to us is "I will be with you." That's all we need to know. Whatever God is calling us to do. Whatever task needs to be done. Whatever word needs to be spoken God wants us to know, and to remember "I will be with you". That's STILL His answer. He won't always reveal His plan. He doesn't HAVE to explain Himself. He doesn't NEED to butter us up with who WE are CAUSE IT'S NOT ABOUT ME! "I will be with you." Should be enough for us. Whatever we face. Whatever we do, we are not alone! Couldn't think of anything better to post for my 100th one. I read that story today in my devos and was encouraged again to know He is there.

In His Presence,

Jeff

Weekend Wrapup

I'm excited about this week. Fun getting ready for our next preview service. Here are some thoughts about today and the upcoming week.

--- Had 51 today at Unplugged. Again, had new faces. That is our constant prayer. Lord bring us new faces. Had several people gone today. We are currently touching about 70 - 80 lives regularly on Sundays through Element.

--- Had our largest offering to date today. Our people generously gave over $1400. As people connect with mission and vision they begin to give more. I believe that people WANT to give to something God will do.

--- Volunteers are picking up. We ran out of volunteer cards today. It was encouraging to see people and hear people talking about volunteering. Out of all the things in this process, that has been the most challenging to me. I feel confident we can get people to come see our "product" (I know bad word) but we MUST build teams well. If we don't have good teams and systems it won't matter how many come to our services. I tend to be a Maverick, wanting to do everything myself so again, I need to get better at that.

--- I am excited about this Sunday. Getting back in the theater, preaching, doing some different stuff in our service. It is our 2nd preview so not doing HUGE stuff but showing a different kind of Element service. Got a drama, and video feature this week. Wanting to show a different side of us.

--- I forgot to call my mom on her birthday this week. Didn't call till today (just a few days removed from Thursday). I am now known as the "Bad son" and bad in this case does not mean good.

--- We worked on building 2 more pieces to our stage today. It will be nice to have those added for preview.

--- I am amazed at all of this. That people want to come to our church. That God would choose me for this. That the team I have wants to work with me. BLOWN AWAY! God is so good. I have learned so much and can't wait to get started tomorrow morning early. Adam and I are meeting at 7 at the office tomorrow to finish the stage. Going to play basketball with a couple guys from the church.

--- OK, that's the update. Will blog some more this week about what God is teaching me and Element stuff. Thanks to all who follow!

35 Days: 10 Hours: 12 minutes Until...

OU KICKOFF! 98 posts on my blog and this is the first one about OU I think. Can't wait for College football to start. I like NFL but I LOVE the Fall and college football. A chilled Saturday morning, College Football Gameday, McDonald's breakfast with my kids, all the kids sporting their OU gear. LOVE IT! For those of you who want to watch the countdown (I know nobody does) you can watch it here. I know...I know... I'm sick! But I admit it.

Sooner born and bred,

Jeff

Why wait?

God waits sometimes, you ever notice that? I mean, it seems sometimes that He waits until the LAST POSSIBLE SECOND to come through. Why does He do that? I'm working my way back through Genesis again (LOVE GENESIS)! I just read the story of Abraham and the faith He had in God. The story of being willing to sacrifice his own son. As I was reading I was again drawn to the verses in the story (v. 10 - 11). Abraham raised the knife to kill his son and "At that moment..." God spoke to him to stop. Why wait? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego...When did God move? AFTER they were in the fire. Daniel? After he was in the Den. Paul and Silas? After they were in prison. Why wait? The waiting isn't for God, who is it for? FOR US! I think so often we don't step out and take risks for God cause we can't see him working yet. What if, WHAT IF, God wants us to step into the fire first, brave the lions den, or be willing to sacrifice something of GREAT value before He steps in? And what if he doesn't step in? Shadrach and the boys had it figured out. "Our God is able to save us from the fiery furnace. BUT EVEN IF HE DOESN'T WE WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO YOU OR YOUR IDOL." They had a "Even if" faith not a "What if" faith. Why wait? For us! He waits for our benefit, so we can see our God come through!

Thunderbirds, Serving, and Victory

--- Adam, Terri and I all served the local community college as volunteer ambassadors today at the annual Air Force Thunderbirds show. The show was AWESOME! I love air shows and watching that kind of stuff so it was cool to be a part of. About 12 - 14,000 people come out to watch. Thousands of cars, thousands are shuttled in and they literally shut down the major road to the college to get people out when it's over. All lanes devoted to outgoing traffic. It was quite the site.

--- Now on serving. What we did today really seemed pointless. I guess if anything the college knows that Element Church wants to serve. BUT, they didn't really need us. When I go to events, I guess because of my personality, I always think of what could be done better. There were LOTS of things that could have been VERY different. As Adam and I were standing there being Ambassadors (doing nothing) we were brainstorming what we could offer the college next year to make it a better event. It's one of those things where we stepped out and said "Let's serve!" And it didn't work. That's going to happen. BUT instead of saying "That sucked let's never do it again." Why don't we say "Man, you could do some really cool stuff at this event, lets do something that will make a HUGE impact." I know this was a very small "step" but lots of churches won't even take the initial step of trying something. Others try something and because it "fails" they'll never try again. We won't do that.

--- Buckle up Maverick we're about to take off. Now what my heart is burning over. I won't go into the whole story of what caused this today but we got into a conversation with a tourist at the event about some spiritual issues. This guy was a believer and basically was debating with us that there is no victory in this life BUT the blood of Jesus is so powerful that it just overlooks who we are and finishes the work for us. I tell you what. I tried staying out of the conversation. Adam was very much holding his own but I had to jump in. If I hear another person, pastor, church, or movement talk about how we just can't ever give our all, can't have victory, have to keep on sinning cause we are so fouled up I'm gonna STINKIN' PUKE! Is the devil more powerful than the blood of Christ. Is sin so conquering in our lives that God can't stinkin DESTROY IT! If there is no victory then I want out. I don't want anything to do with a God who can't fix my sin problem. Eve said "If we eat the fruit we will die." The devil replied "NOOOO, you won't die." And guess what? He offers the same lie today! AND PEOPLE ARE FALLING FOR IT! No wonder there is no victory. No wonder people are left empty, unsatisfied, unfruitful and flat out depressed in their spiritual life. SIN CAUSES DEATH! My heart feels dead, empty and useless. MAN, I get fired up over this. The Life that Jesus offers is an abundant, overcoming, fulfilling, flat out DESTROY SIN AND KICK IT OUT kind of life. It's high time that we LIVE our faith not waiver in it. That we let the blood FREE us instead of sin enslave us. That we show this dying world what it looks like to LIVE!

There, I said it. Man, that gets me going.

Fired up,

Jeff

Unplugged

This Sunday Adam is speaking on our core value of worship. It will be weird for me to be at Element and NOT be speaking. I love preaching but I am very excited to hear Adam this week. We were talking in the office today about his sermon and then about what I'm speaking on at Preview on August 5th. We were both getting fired up about what God is going to say.

Had staff meeting today. Talked about developing teams and getting volunteers plugged in. That is really hard right now. Not only are we trying to just get people to come to our church, but when they come and feel connected we have to build teams. I assume for the "new" person it will take some time of building trust and ownership before they'll jump in and serve in the church. Don't get me wrong, we've had some GREAT people step up and serve already but to get where we want to go we really need to start building teams well. As we grow that is going to be vital.

That is definitely an area I need to grow as a leader. I can get up and preach a message every day but I need to work on building teams, executive issues, planning, etc. I like to dream and I'm not necessarily the greatest at planning that dream.

We talked a bunch about launch day and upcoming sermon series. I've been working on a sermon calendar. I'd like to have the sermon series ideas for the whole year planned out and then be several weeks ahead on having sermons (at least rough drafts) done. I think we are going to have some cool sermon series over the next year.

We're going to have some very cool FTG (first time guest) follow up. Excited about what we're going to do there. Also, I'm pumped about our launch day campaign. We'll reveal that in the weeks to come.

Ok, those were random thoughts. (sorry Grant)

Blog Link

Adam has some good insight on worship today on his blog. Encourage you all to check out Adam's and Grant's blogs often. Just don't skip mine okay!

Blog LInk

Grant's latest blog is really good. Both his and my latest kinda dovetail which is cool how God can work that out and place the same things on our hearts. Interesting!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Kirby Vacuum Salesman

(My head is about to explode from some cold I got and I'm doped up on cold medicine so bear with me) I got home from the office today at about 5:15 PM and walked in the door to see a young lady trying to sell my wife a Kirby vacuum. I guess that Kirby only sells door to door. If you buy one it's from them. For 1 hour she tried to convince my wife of how incredible this vacuum was. She told about all the gadgets, the price you'd spend on buying vacuums your whole life, the different features, etc. It turned out to be an big STINKIN' WASTE of our time. I kinda feel like we in the church do that sometimes. We dink around with church trying to convince that Jesus is the product for them, we tell of all the "gadgets" you get with Christianity, how well it works, how it's all we need. And all we really do sometimes is waste people's time. Now, I believe that Jesus is EXACTLY what we need, that Christianity works, that it is the HOPE OF THE WORLD. I can talk until I'm blue in the face though, AND IF I DON'T SHOW IT WORKS FOR ME WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT IT? Jesus demands our ALL OR NOTHING. He says I will totally transform your life. I am all you need, and we tell the world that and then go out and find our life, our satisfaction, our fulfillment in everything BUT him. We end up like Kirby vacuum salesman. Sitting in people's lives wasting their time trying to sell a product. Maybe if the church started LIVING the product people would want to try it. Ok, my rant is over. I'm speaking to myself as much as anyone!

Weekend Wrapup

--- Got back from camp last night at 12:15 AM. We were locked out of our house. I had taken our extra set of keys with us and we could not find them anywhere. The kids where all in the yard crying (since they were awaken from a deep sleep) and we had our luggage in the driveway going through it looking for a key. Thankfully one of our windows was open and I put Jonah through there to go unlock the front door.

--- Saturday we had about 4 hours to kill before a wedding we had to attend. We were in Thermopolis, WY and needed to go to Ten Sleep, which is 59 miles. We decided to go "a long way" through the Wind River Canyon, which is a SPECTACULAR drive. Our Rand McNally Atlas showed that Wyoming State Highway 434 connected from Ten Sleep South to HWY 20 which came out of the canyon. We decided to take the detour and go on 434 up to the wedding. To make a long story short, 47 miles of the highway was just a ranch dirt road. And when I say "ranch dirt road" I mean a ranch dirt road. On some of it, it was just 2 tire ruts to follow. We were literally driving through people's ranches on a dirt road. In one Clark Griswold moment I had to honk the horn at a dead stop to get a cow off the road so we could keep driving. We were low on gas, ZERO cell phone coverage and in a part of Wyoming that most Wyomingites will NEVER see on purpose.

--- We had 44 at Unplugged today with 6 brand new people. It's amazing to see the new faces each week and hear how they found out about us. People are inviting friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc. Over lunch we counted how many "could have" been there by counting our regulars who were gone. We "could have" had 71 people today. That's crazy to me. Our next preview is in 2 weeks.

--- I am very tired. Preaching every night this past week and then getting home late last night, up early this morning to freshen up on my sermon and then off to Unplugged. Been a long week.

--- We are volunteering at the Thunderbirds Airshow this week. That will be cool. They were practicing today over Cheyenne and you could hear them flying over our house. Frontier Days is this here this week and the Thunderbirds come every year.

--- Preview is in two weeks. We have lots to get done before that happens. Adam is speaking this week at Element on our core value of Worship. Excited to hear him speak. He's doing a fantastic job with worship. Again, so nice having someone you trust leading the music.

--- My heart swelled with pride yesterday as my kids were asking for a certain worship song on a cd to be played in the van. They were singing right along. It was cool seeing them sing a worship song. Had to make God smile.

--- Got some stuff I want to blog about this week that I've found in my devo's. Stay tuned for that. Thanks for all your prayers and for those who are following along.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Final Night

Wow! I am tired and ready to be back at Element. I don't know how I ever did youth ministry. It's gotta be more tiring than church planting. The camp (Bear Tooth Mountain Christian Ranch) is AWESOME! Beautiful up here. Wonderful staff. GREAT food. I think I gained weight at church camp. That doesn't usually happen.

Tonight I challenged the kids with "What will your story be?" Probably 20 - 30 students who had yet to make decisions for Christ did so tonight! Again, the altar was jammed with kids saying "I want to give my ALL. My life for the Gospel." They blew the roof off the place with the last worship song.

Anyway, thanks for your prayers. Can't wait to be back home again!

Making my story,

Jeff

Just noticed something

This is Grant's first line from his latest blog:

"Today was a great day at Element Church. Jeff is gone to a youth camp in Montana"

Hmmm, was it a great day at Element BECAUSE I was gone or was that just coincidental that he started off his blog like that. What's going on Grant?

Concerned,

Jeff

Wednesday Update

Service went awesome last night! Really challenged the kids to have a world changing love. "I can't change THE world but I can change MY world and when I change MY world THE world changes." HA clever little statement I made up. Kids are really connecting to the messages. Had lots of comments from the small group leaders about how kids were responding. Tonight we are ending with "What Will Your Story Be?" That we are responsible for the story of our lives. We only get one shot to live it. What would be said about me at the end of my life? Anyway, it's going really well. We are going tubing down a river today with Jonah and Mariah. That should be interesting. Get us city slickers in a tube in freezing cold water. lol See how that goes. We'll be taking off tomorrow morning for Thermopolis. Looking forward to that. Then we get to go to Cody Thomas' wedding (kid who came through our youth ministry at HPCC). And we'll get into Cheyenne late late Saturday night/Sunday morning. Go to Unplugged and we are 2 weeks from our next preview. WOW! time goes fast. Thanks for your prayers. They have been felt.

Following Christ

Jeff

Good Post

Good blog by Adam today. Anytime Adam and Grant blog it is really good. Keep checkin' up on their stuff. Camp is going great. Looking forward to being back home though. Two more nights of speaking and then Friday morning we are driving through Yellowstone and going to the world's largest natural hot springs in Thermopolis, WY. They have a water park with the natural hot water there. Anyway, it will be fun.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Quick Thought

Hey, wanted to keep people updated. Here are a few quick thoughts.

--- First rally went great last night. It's SMOKIN' hot up here. Sweated like a banshee preaching. Gave a sermon on "My ALL or nothing" About half of the camp came forward. It was very cool. Now the rest of the week we work on "How do I keep it going." It's easy to catch on fire but how do I stay that way.

--- Unplugged on Sunday went great from what I hear. More new faces and people interested in Element. Our family was gone so automatically take 6 off the attendance. lol We had 42 people. Two of our families both brought guests who said they'd be back.

--- Adam had a visitor come to the office, a young gal, who talked with him about our church. She said we'd see her at Element. Pretty cool.

--- Can't wait to get back to Cheyenne. I miss our team, miss the church, miss everything about it. EVEN THE WIND!

Ok, gotta run. Found some time to check email and now gotta pick up the kids from their kids program.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Mountain Devos

Nothing like waking up in the mountains and reading God's Word outdoors in His creation. VERY COOL! I am in Revelation now in my study and looking forward to starting the Bible over again in Genesis. I wasn't always a "systematic" Bible reader but I think it's the only way to go. Start in Genesis and read through. Couple of reasons why.

1. You cant skip anything. We tend to read books that WE like and we miss the whole of Scripture. God has something for us in EVERY book. Yes, even Leviticus.

2. Familiarity. You get more familiar with the flow of the text. More familiar with the books, where they are, etc. when you read systematically.

3. You begin to see JESUS in all of Scripture. Some people don't read the OT, BUT the OT is ALL about Jesus. Read the prophets sometime and the Gospels together. WOW, it will give you a whole new perspective on the OT.

4. Pastor Dan says so. HA, just kidding. Although I started reading that way because of Pastor Dan's leadership. So now as a lead pastor...

5. Pastor Jeff says so.

One quick thing from Revelation 12 today. John says of the devil that he stands before our God day and night accusing those who are God's children. WOW. Read Revelation 12:10-11. PEACE

Roughin' it for Christ,

Jeff

My team!

Wow, how nice it is to leave for a week and no things are in good hands. Check out Grant and Adams blogs about this last weekend. I love working with our entire team.

I AM CAMPING!

HA, our family camping has got to be the craziest thing this mountain has ever seen. All six of us our living our kids' dreams and staying in a 5th wheel trailer for the week. If you know me at all you know I am NOT a camper. Never will be! My idea of camping is a room with 2 Queen beds, cable tv, a pool and a hot tub. Roughing it is not in my vocabulary. I don't think our kids realized what "camping" was either. We walked in our trailer and the first thing Jonah said was not "Cool, look at the trailer!" or "Wow, a bunk bed!" or "fill in the blank" it was the following..."WHAT, NO TV!" LOL it was great! We have to walk to a bathroom and Makalah is scared that someone will take her. Mariah can't get the concept that there are trailers right next to us and her decibel level of talking is about as high as a normal rock concert. It's been crazy to say the least. 10 PM tonight we finally got them in bed and quited down. I'm up on a park bench next to the camp office getting a partial signal on their wireless internet. All that craziness and I will say this. GOD'S CREATION IS AMAZING! I'll walk out of our trailer tomorrow and see mountains on either side. It is beautiful. This morning we went to Harvest Church in Billings and worshipped during an AWESOME service. I love going to other churches. I love listening to other sermons. I always get inspired. It seems every time I leave a church service not our own I get a new sermon or series. Same today. I walked away with the series we'll do for Christmas and a message I'll do for Thanksgiving (our first communion Sunday at Element). Anyway, I'll be able to blog each night it looks like so please stay tuned for what's going on! Can't wait to preach EVERY NIGHT! That's like my dream. lol PEACE

Roughin' it for Christ,

Jeff

Thoughts from the balcony

Sitting here on the balcony of our room at the C'Mon Inn in Billings, MT. I know, it sounds like a dive but it is a SWEET family hotel. I'm getting ready to speak at Super Summer Jr. High Camp for the Western Conference of our Denomination. Sab and I thought we'd take a day before and after camp to take the kids on a "mini" vacation. We've already hit the pool, hot tubs and eaten out, now we are on the balcony in the hopes that the 3 oldest kids will go to sleep in the room. Thought I'd share a few thoughts from the balcony.

--- I love speaking to teens. Never done just jr. high so a little nervous about that.

--- I feel good about the messages for next week. I have a couple of "camp" messages that I feel are some of my best stuff that work for camps. Tweak them to be original at a different camp but the same message really.

--- Monday night: Where do I fit in? Taking a different twist on the parable of the sower. Four types of people. The only one that produced was the person who was "all or nothing" for God.

--- Tuesday night: The Slippery Slope of Sin. The ONE THING that steals the power in the life of a believer is sin. And it is a dangerous and slippery slope. I get to share a story from my life that at the time was horrible, now it is funny. The time I got arrested for stealing Clinton and Perot political signs during the 1992 election. Compare that story to how sin works. It's funny but a very POWERFUL illustration of sin.

--- Wednesday night: Have some GUTS get off your buts. Taking about the excuses we'll give God when He's wanting to flip our world upside down with a world changing love.

--- Thursday night: What will your story be? God said of Job "He's upright and blameless. A man who fears God and shuns evil." Those words should hit us square in the mouth. (LOL, my new phrase) GOD said that about a man. WOW! I want that to be my story. Whether anyone ever knows who I am. Whether I'm a cool sermon illustration someday, a spiritual hero, a life someone would talk about...I want God to be able to say those words about me. "Upright and blameless. A man who fears God and shuns evil." And who did He say that to? The stinkin' devil himself. DUDE that fires me up.

I'll try to blog updates each day if there is Internet. Please be praying for us.

Following Christ,

Jeff

What does the Truth say about me?

Did some reading in my Bible this morning. Came across a verse I've probably read through on numerous occasions and today is the day it jumps out. Ever have that? I love that! Love how the Bible, even though read over dozens of times, can be BRAND NEW today! Check this verse out. It's the kind of verse that I think we can so often think doesn't apply to us. We almost skip it. It's easy to miss it.

3rd John verse 12: "Everyone speaks highly of Demetrius, as does the truth itself."

WOW! Did you catch it? I read that and got hit square in the mouth. John said at first what everyone already knew..."Everyone speaks highly of Demetrius...". They already knew that. If everyone is speaking highly of him, then his readers have heard him spoken highly of. Isn't this where we usually stop? "Man, everyone speaks highly of Bill Hybels." "Everyone speaks highly of Billy Graham." "Everyone speaks highly of Rick Warren." "Everyone speaks highly of (insert name)." John added what REALLY matters.

He may have well said "Even though everyone speaks highly of Demetrius, THAT'S NOT WHAT REALLY MATTERS, the TRUTH itself speaks highly of him."

What does the truth speak about me? We often chase the "Well spoken words of men" when we should be concerned with what the truth itself would speak.

Following Christ,

Jeff

A Day Off

Today I am taking a FULL day off. On my docket for Element Church is NOTHING. I know many people question why pastors need a day off cause they don't do anything anyway. I also know many people, even pastors, who think church planters don't do anything cause they don't have a "real" church. WOW! That can't be further from the truth. I can't tell you how many times someone, usually jokingly (riddled with belief) say something like "Why do you need Monday off you have all day Sunday?" Or something to that effect. I haven't been good at taking a day off. In fact, this is my first full day off in a couple months (disregarding holidays). If I am in town and it's not a holiday I've been doing something with Element. Do I say that to brag? NO! I say it shamefully. I need...My family needs... God REQUIRES me/US to take a sabbath. To rest. Today I slept in longer than I have in a LONG time. I am just sitting, watching my kids run around. Sabrina is making some eggs and we will all eat breakfast together. THAT is what I need. Have you taken a Sabbath lately? Set aside a day of NOTHING? Of family? Of some good reading in the Word and prayer. As I was feeling this way this morning I came across a GREAT blog from another church planter on the same issue. Anyway, I need to get better at making myself take days off. Friday is supposed to be our day off. All of us need to be good at that. God designed us that way. It's for the good of our souls.

Resting,

Jeff

Up and Coming

I can't believe it's been since Monday when I posted last. If you follow the blog, sorry! Been very busy this week. I'll try to do better. God lots of GREAT stuff coming up that I'm very excited about.

--- On Sunday my whole family gets to go with me to a jr. high youth camp in Montana as I get to speak for the week. I'm pumped about that. I love preaching and love preaching to teens. My coach prayed a cool prayer for me today during our coaching call. He said "Please show Jeff that he COULD still work with teens and be highly successful but confirm even more in him that Element Church is where he is SUPPOSED to be." That was a very cool prayer. We are going to Thermopolis, WY and the Hot Springs park for a day after camp. The kids will love that.

--- Missing Unplugged this week for me STINKS. I hate missing. I already can't wait to get back and preach to our people next week. Be praying for Grant as he shares on Sunday.

--- I am STOKED about Preview coming up. I think we have a cool theme and will be doing some really cool set design stuff, video, and gonna rock out an old hymn.

--- We are putting together a one of a kind campaign to promote the launch of Element Church. I am very excited about IT. IT is going to be a big risk the way we are trying to pull IT off but I think IT is going to work well.

--- Already talking about songs we'll be doing during our launch series. Already have some dramas that we're planning on doing. I love working ahead. It's harder to START doing it but once you are 2,3, 4 weeks ahead it is very cool. We're working on getting better at that.

--- Oklahoma football is just around the corner. Can't wait for Saturday college football.

Once I take off for camp it will probably be a week before I post again. I'll let you know how camp went. If there is internet access I'll definitely blog from camp so keep checking. Thanks for following the blog. Keep praying for Element and for Cheyenne.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Much to do

It's amazing at how much has to be done in a church plant. I think we all felt "As soon as Preview is over we can breathe easy for a week or two." HA! Last week (especially with the 4th off) was packed and we had staff meeting this morning and there are STILL so many things to get done. We are doing a "full" staff meeting tomorrow over lunch with everyone on the team. Looking forward to that. Been reading some good leadership stuff and good blogs by other pastors. I feel my learning curve has skyrocketed over the past several months. There are so many pastors and churches doing some phenomenal things. It's great to have the avenues we have today to learn form successful people.

--- We brainstormed a really non-creative yet CREATIVE launch campaign today. WOW am I excited about that. We're taking a risk in the way we are marketing launch in Cheyenne. More to come on that.

--- We'll be revamping our web-site in a few weeks and do it all in house. We've been blessed to have Church Webworks but now we need to go out on our own. Get more storage space and bandwidth.

--- Grant is preaching this week! Very excited for him. Can't wait to watch him grow in ministry and leadership.

--- We're working on some cool FTG (first time guest) stuff. Want to make a GREAT first impression to our guests.

That's it for now.

Following Christ,

Jeff

CALLING ALL HUSBANDS!

If you are a husband continue reading at your own risk. I am not responsible for what you may read or be convicted about in the next few sentences. I read a VERY powerful verse today that punched me square in the face.

1 Peter 3:7 Treat your wife as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.

WOW! Guys, it is our responsibility to treat our wives as we should. That's a broad statement. What does that mean? Serve her. Pray for her. Protect her. Care for her. Ask her what she needs. Surprise her. Make the bed. Do the laundry. Clean the kitchen.

If we aren't serving our wives we aren't serving God! Yeah, I believe that.

I'm definitely not a pro at this but I'm working at it. I need to get better at it. I know this. I don't want my prayers to be hindered cause I didn't treat my wife as I should.

Learning to be better,

Jeff

Weekend Wrapup

--- 54 at Unplugged today. Folks, we might be looking at a space issue from day one. BRING IT! Already thinking of ways to accommodate our growth at the theater. I love the feel of the theater and can't imagine not being there right now. Although, if it can't contain us I think I'll cope and deal.

--- We had 34 two weeks ago at Unplugged. Today we had 3 families return from Preview and then we had 2 brand new families and one single adult today from Cheyenne that had never been to any of our events before. God is providing some amazing connections for us.

--- I'm speaking at our Conference jr. high camp next week. I'm very excited about that. Get to take the whole family, HOWEVER, I hate missing Unplugged. Grant will do a great job but I want to be there.

--- We need to be very intentional about accommodating this growth. 6 people in March, 54 today.

--- I need to grow as a leader.

--- We need to get very intentional in building volunteer and leadership teams.

--- I need to grow as a leader.

--- I love Element Church. I love our people. I love Cheyenne.

--- Jonah and Mariah went to church early with me this morning. They were a great help carrying stuff in. That was cool for them to come along. Can't do it all the time but thought we'd try it today.

--- Looking forward to getting into the office tomorrow and working on stuff. I'm having a hard time taking days off. I need to be better at that too. I love working on Element stuff right now and seems there is always something to do.

--- Ok, that's about it. We'll do a weekend wrapup every week. Grant says I "stole" random thoughts. Whatever!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Unplugged Update

MAN, God again brought us new faces. We had 54 at Unplugged this morning. That is 20 more than our last Unplugged. We had 3 families come back from Preview and then a brand new family that had never been there before today. The new family is in the Air Force, brand new to town and found out about us from another church. Googled us online and came across my blog. From my blog they linked to elementweb.net and found us. They were very nice and sounds like they are looking for a church like ours. Really felt God's presence in worship this morning leading us into the Word. I spoke on our core value of "Life: We are not made to live in apathy so we will be a church that is vibrantly alive in all our activities breathing life into our community." My prayer each week is that God would bring us new faces. That prayer has been answered positively every week. We have 3 more Unplugged services before our next Preview and 4 more Previews before launch. We may seriously be in need of a larger facility early on in the life of Element Church. MAN, I love this!

Following Christ,

Jeff

How must God feel when...?

Ever get one of those moments where you say "How must God feel when..."? Ya know, God is smart! I know, I know what you're saying: "That's what you're blogging about Jeff?" NO! Well, yes, but NO! Everything in this life...EVERYTHING, is meant to point us to God. One of the greatest things in life that is meant to be a picture of God is the parent/child relationship. I got a taste AGAIN of that today. It was a beautiful morning so I decided to do my devos out on our back porch swing. I'm up before everyone else and was reading my Bible, praying, when out walks Makalah to the swing. She climbed up and cuddled up next to me as only a tired little child can. I immediately said "Do you want me to go turn Little Bear on for you?" (Little Bear is her favorite morning cartoon right now) She didn't even look up, just kept her head rested on my arm and said "No, I just want to be with you." WOW! Immediately God spoke to my heart. I wrote in my journal "Imagine how God must feel when we come to Him without requests, burdens or needs, but just to be with Him." You see it's really when we just want to be with Him that our burdens, needs and requests are FULLY met! They are met IN Him not just BY Him. I need to learn that truth more.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Video of Preview

Well, here is a video of our entire service. HA, horrible quality but you can get the idea of what it was like. The audio is straight from my cheap video camera. Adam put it all together and we had to compress it way down in order to get it on there. We'll get better at this.

Five Things From Today

Grant said I stole his "Random Thoughts" title for a post. So since apparently who owns the rights to that name now, I'll call this "Five Things From Today".

1. After my devos this morning I received an email from a guy who attended preview service yesterday. Great guy, enjoyed the service, gave some great compliments following the service. His email though was weird, hard to read. It was suggestions on what we could do better and what kind of church Cheyenne needs. I know his intentions were well meaning but MAN it was our first EVER service. Some of the things mentioned are things we're doing but he hasn't been to them or been to Unplugged to know who we are or what we're about. I hope he comes to Unplugged to find out what Element is.

2. This morning another guy walked into the office from Preview and his take was 180 degrees different. He was lit up about Element. He's a former staff pastor at a church who has been looking for a place to belong. He's probably 40, retired military, and LOVED Element. He gave me a hug following church and said "God used you today brother". Him and his wife are very excited. He emailed 25 people yesterday and invited them to Element. Really cool guy. Said "you wouldn't believe how many good Christians can't find anything here in Cheyenne." Those of us who were in the office talked with him for over an hour. It was awesome. They are coming to Unplugged this week.

3. Two teams from OWU stopped by the office today for a while. The one team who helped us yesterday was here and then another team that is working at my sis's church in Greeley, CO this week were here. It was cool seeing there genuine excitement for what we're doing and being servants to us and encouragements to us. The team that helped yesterday SAVED us. They really were HUGE in the service.

4. We received this email today from a young man that came yesterday. I emailed everyone who filled out a connection card a thank you for attending preview. This was his response.

"Thanks for the email! I really enjoyed your service and so did the friends I brought along with me. I also thought your preaching style was a nice break from the norm. I was glad to go! I also enjoyed helping your crew take down the musical equipment, because it gave me a chance to get to know everyone better. I'll see if I can make it to the service you are having over at the Holiday Inn this Sunday. No promises though, as I also help out here at the base chapel with worship. I also help teach the youth, but they are currently on vacation for the summer. But I would definitely like to get involved with what your church is doing here. Cheyenne has needed a church like yours for quite sometime, so it's nice to finally see it happening. I'm sure I'll be seeing you guys soon!"

That is what it's all about!

5. This one just capped off the day. We took our kids to the spray park tonight to have some fun and relax. I thought Sab and I would get some time to talk and we both took a book to read. I opened up my "Courageous Leadership" by Bill Hybels and the story begins. The guy next to me asked what the book was about. I said it was written by a pastor so it's more of a church leadership book. He asked what church I was with. Told him Element Church. He remembered us doing the gas buydown. Anyway, we spend 30 minutes in a heart to heart where he opened up and shared about difficulties in his marriage he's having. He wants to get back into church and took one of our cards. It was AWESOME how God put us next to him at the park and he opened up and "happened" to be looking for a church. He grew up in church and had attended another church here in town until their pastor had a moral failure.

Anyway, there are five cool things that happened today! I love this stuff.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Preview Pics

We were able to get several good pictures of preview. Our set up, banners, stage, volunteers. Because ALL of us were doing something in the service we didn't get many action shots. That's on our list for next preview. Our VERY long list of things to do.

click here to view all the pictures from preview (ones that came out good anyway).

Adam worked a ton today on getting the video done for all to see. We should have on our website tomorrow the video of the entire service. Had a couple of really cool things happen today that I'll blog about later tonight or tomorrow. Getting ready to enjoy a piece of cheesecake. mmmmm

Following Christ

Jeff

Post #70 (Pictures from Preview)

Most of these are in no particular order. I wish there was an easier way to put a bunch of pictures on here. I haven't figured it out yet. ENJOY! Man it was a good day!

















I can't get this to flip. This is our welcome banner hanging from the ceiling in front of the theater. Kinda turned out blurry.

Preview Recap

WOW! Can't think of a better word. We had 75 people today at Preview. Other than our gas buydown and Superday servant evangelism projects we had done NOTHING, ZERO promotion for preview and we had 75 people. Had a couple families from HPCC in Gillette and we appreciate them being there to support us and help fill the place up. So I say 75 but not everyone are possible return people. HOWEVER, we made some awesome Cheyenne connections, and the majority of the people there were part of our team or Cheyenne folk. The service really went off with no major problems. We had a couple sound issues before church started but figured it out and our computer presentation software was REALLY dragging creating weird transitions during worship. About a 3-5 second delay on slide progression for some reason. We'll have to figure that out. The band stinkin' ROCKED today. MAN, what a blessing to have a solid worship leader. Grant did a great job connecting with people which is what he does best. He did a welcome, did greeting, was the point person for any problems with the theatre and was awesome with set up/tear down. Keenan also did a great job being the front man at the mall doors, helping set up all the e:kidz sound systems, connecting with people and helping with sermon props. Katrina and the e:kidz volunteers did a great job. We had 10 kids JUST in Itty Bitty Explorers (infant - 3 years). Had 3 kids in Elevate (1st - 5th grade). I haven't seen the count from Explorers (4 yrs - Kindergarten). We got to the theatre and found out that we had to have all our stuff out of the hallway by 11:15 AM. Didn't plan on that but it worked out ok. Keenan and Kyle (Kyle was HUGE for us as an intern, WOW) left 15 minutes before church got out to start clearing out crates and e:kidz stuff from the hallway. Terri did a PHENOMONAL job with our e:connect table. Man did that look sweet. I know I'm missing stuff but had to get off my brain some things I was thinking about. Our volunteers were AMAZING. God was worshipped, the Word was preached and we made some new connections. It was a good day. Thanks for those of you who were praying, I got some more stuff to add here later tonight. We'll get some pictures and hopefully video!

Following Christ,

Jeff