Sunday Reflection 9-30-07

MAN today was quite a day. I picked up Adam 1t 6:15 this morning to go get the trailer hooked up to my Suburban. We worked for 20 minutes to get the hitch lock off and the screwdrivers we had didn't work. That was the start to the morning. We then got it hooked up and had to still load some things from the office. Adam tried pushing the Hospitality cart loaded with supplies up the trailer ramp and it completely tipped over off the ramp and onto it's back. THEN we didn't strap the carts down inside the trailer and the carts rolled around and smashed one of our trailers. The theater employee showed up at 6 AM (was misinformed) and started to worry when by 7 no one was there. Adam and I finally got there at 7 :15. We usually get to the theater by 6:45. Other than that, today was AWESOME!

--- First of all, I'll talk more on this in the weekend wrapup, but the Gas Buydown was great. We had a steady flow of cars for four hours. We'll find out how many gallons we pumped later this week. 33 volunteers for the buydown, only 3 were not from Element. That is unbelievable to me. I think one of the new families who came today was from the buydown.

--- Adam unleashed an original song today. He wrote it a couple of weeks ago. It's an awesome song. How cool is it that we can have original worship. It's called "Come and Rescue" and it fit perfectly in the theme of the service.

--- We had 78 today. New record for Element Church. Our previous high was 75. We had several new families today. 2 connection cards filled out.

--- One connection card the family wrote "We moved from (another town) to here almost a year ago. Have yet to find a church home. We have NOW!" That blows me away.

--- We ended the service with the most memorable sermon illustration I've ever done. You'll have to watch it online to catch it all. My sermon was on the 4 men who brought their friend to Jesus and dug a hole in the roof to lower him before Jesus. Let's just say we ended the service with our own "Bring your friend to Jesus, service interrupting" ending. It was GREAT!

--- Had our second family attend the service today who found out about us in the magazine article that was done. Thought it was pretty cool that two families came from that.

That's it for now. I'll post a weekend wrapup tomorrow morning with more details.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Thursday Thunder!

WOW are we doing WAY more than we should. HA! It has and is going to be a wild two weeks for us at Element Church. I'm telling you, this Sunday's service is going to be amazing and then we move into launch. I cannot wait for all the creative elements to be pulled off. We have a rockin' set of worship (even an original song by Adam), the Search video is incredible and the message is going to tie it all together as we end previews and head into launch. We're adding some stuff to the set this week. We aren't taking tomorrow off due to our over achieving minds. It's kinda like when you go to a buffet and fill your plate with WAY more than you could ever eat.

We got the mailer out, although we are eating some cost by doing it through Kinkos here in town. No complaints though. It's going out and getting done. Will hit mailboxes by Wednesday of launch week. See the post below to view the cards.

OH DUDES! We got permission today to leave our stage pieces in the theater by Nicole, the new manager. That is going to be HUGE for us. Nicole has been incredible in the two weeks she's run the theater. Amazing.

We were in the paper today for the gas buydown. On page 3 each day they have a thing called "News Briefs". They put local news, state, national, and world briefs from AP and local places. We were the first brief and it listed all our info and web-site. Brandon, who is doing the feature on us for the paper, got the brief in for us.

At 11 AM tomorrow I am meeting with the mayor and another church planter in town. The mayor is going to pray with us and release us out over the city. He is a strong believer and supports what we do. How cool is that?

At 3 PM tomorrow I'll be interviewed by the news station which then will be played on the 10 PM news. We've been blessed to get such great news coverage for our events.

We are expecting an article to hit the news stands next week about our launch.

A local pastor stopped by the office to visit today. He is an awesome dude. He's the second pastor I met with when we moved here. He prayed for us before he left which was way cool. In our discussion he asked what our emergency back up is if we would happen to lose the theater. I told him we're still seeking emergency options. He then said something to the effect of "I can't guarantee anything but I can get the ball rolling on making our gymnasium available in an emergency situation." How cool is that? He is very kingdom minded. Cool dude!

What an incredible thing we get to do. Church! There literally is nothing like it. I hope that the 1 hr and 15 min. people get to spend with Element Church is the best time of their week. I hope they have fun, laugh, cry and CONNECT WITH CHRIST! I cannot imagine doing anything else. No amount of money. No fame. No power can ever compare to what God has called us to.

That's about it. Can't wait for Saturday and the buydown. Sunday and church. Next week is launch week. Unbelievable.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Few things...

3:00 PM on Friday I am being interviewed by the news station for the buydown to show on the ten o'clock news. They don't have any camera crews that night or they would do it live again. The news will also be out Saturday to cover the buydown.

We had purchased and planned an 8,000 piece mailer to go out to everyone 18 - 45 years of age in Cheyenne inviting them to our launch. Well, the mailing house dropped the ball big time and didn't get it done. This throws a HUGE wrench in our plans. We HAVE to get this thing out. It is a MAJOR part of our promotion for launch and the only promo (besides buydown) that we are doing with our church name on it. We are finding out tomorrow if we can fix the problem through another company. Please pray that God gives us direction on what to do. You can view the postcards below.

Can't wait for this Sunday. The Search video is absolutely off the HOOK (really cool for you older folks) this week. It is unbelievably moving, powerful, and heavy stuff. If you're an Element goer, you won't want to miss this Sunday. I'll have to share about the service when it's done. If you can watch the service online next week, you'll want to.

Sunday Gameplan - Sept. 23

You can watch our services online by going clicking here then on the "watch and listen" button.

Everyday - Lincoln Brewster

e:nnounce video (video announcements)

Welcome - Grant

Meet With Me - Ten Shekel Shirt
Hungry - Hillsong
Friend - ?
I Have Decided To Follow Jesus (Unbelievable version Adam worked up)

Search: Episode 3 (video)

Sermon

I Have Decided To Follow Jesus

Devotional thoughts...

Over this past year, fter my Bible reading each day, I read the days devotion from Ozwald Chambers "My Utmost For His Highest" teen edition. Here are two recent excerpts I thought were awesome.

1. "When once we realize that through the salvation of Jesus Christ we are made perfectly fit for God, we shall understand why Jesus Christ is so ruthless in His demands. He demands absolute rectitude from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God."

2. "Ask missionaries and they'll tell you they had one goal - God. God first. God last. God in all things. Not to go out and feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, make busy with conversion activity, but God first. With God as the goal, the homeless get a roof, the hungry get fed, the cold get warmed, the lonely get a friend, and the wanderer finds a way. Salvation comes."

We need to hear more of that in our churches. Churches need to know be more about God and less about "We're green!" "We are about people!" "We feed the hungry!" If we are about God, we'll naturally be about those things. Ok, I'm done. Better stop while I'm ahead.

Around Cheyenne Magazine

Found out today that we had one family come to church yesterday from reading about us in the article in Around Cheyenne Magazine. They read the article, went to our web-site and came to church. That is very cool. The mag hit the mailboxes on Saturday so maybe we'll see some more interest this coming week. Thought that was cool news.

Weekend Wrapup

Here are some highlights from this past weekend (and earlier).

--- Thursday we (Grant, Adam and I) went to lunch with Brandon from the Wyoming Tribune Eagle newspaper. Brandon is the religion and military reporter for the paper hear in town. He has come to all three of our September previews and will be doing a feature piece on us, our launch, as well as other faith based groups trying to engage the younger generation. Brandon wanted to get with us to ask some in depth questions about our church. Although "I believe" the paper is doing this simply as a news story about this new church, I also believe God is behind the entire thing as a way to help promote what we are doing. Please pray that disconnected people will be drawn to our church because of this article. Brandon is a GREAT guy so I would never expect anything BUT good, but please pray that we will be portrayed positively to the community.

--- Saturday we received our issue of the "Around Cheyenne Magazine". I would say all Cheyenne residents get a copy but for some reason Terri and Adam have never received one. I know most residents get one. They have a feature article each month called "Where to Worship?" We are that featured church this month. We are portrayed in a GREAT way and gives the dates of our remaining previews and launch Sunday. I'll try to scan the article in so you can download it and view it.

--- Sunday: 67 people in attendance. We had 49 in the e:worship auditorium. Our e:kidz volunteers and children made up the remainder of that number. Our offering yesterday was $904.80. I think we are seeing the bi-weekly tithe pandemic. LOL Most people get paid every 2 weeks so we see a BIG offering and a smaller offering. BUT let me say this. I AM ECSTATIC THAT WE HAVE ANY OFFERING! We have committed givers and that blows me away. People believe in what we are doing enough to give. WOW!

--- Sunday: I love our church service. I love the way it flows, the way it feels, the way it sets up the Word. Our worship time was phenomenal yesterday. Just totally sets up the Word. We had some fun in the sermon showed some funny videos, I told a few funny stories. Just was an all around GREAT service.

--- Sunday: We had I think 4 new families in the service yesterday. One family seemed VERY excited that we were in town. I'm going to try and connect with them this week. We had one return guest (couple) who came back from one of our September previews. Our prayer every week is that we have new faces. God has yet to say "No!" to that prayer request.

--- Sunday: I gave an invitation at the end of the service yesterday. I asked if anyone knew they weren't following Christ but wanted to to raise their hand. Two people raised their hand and then we turned the lights out so I couldn't see (due to stage lights) anyone to know if they would respond by raising hand again that they prayed to receive Jesus in their hearts. I trust that God's Spirit is speaking to them and working in their hearts today.

That's about it. Thanks for following along. I'll post the Sunday Gameplan later.

Sunday Reflection

--- Awesome service today. The band was seriously KICKIN'! Adam is doing a phenomenal job and the band gets cleaner, better, stronger every week. Having quality worship totally sets the stage up for the message. I can't tell you how nice it is to trust my worship guy and know that he will pour out his heart and soul into our worship time. Good job Adam!

--- We had 3 or 4 new families today. Not sure. Not all of them filled out connection cards. We had a lot of new faces though. Had one return guest this week. That is the first time in a while that a guest had come back. LOTS of people had said they really liked our church but unless they came back to our Unplugged service we hadn't got them back....until now.

--- I feel like we are ready for a new wave. Talked with my church planting coach on Thursday about how people come in waves. We were in a down wave recently, and I told Grant today that I feel like we are just inches away from really taking off.

--- There are still some things I feel we can get better on. We'll talk about those at staff meeting this week.

--- Adam and I got some major planning to do this week for launch. We need to get that squared away.

--- Speaking of launch. TWO WEEKS AWAY! HOLY COW! I can't believe we are two weeks away.

--- 19 months ago this week, I decided to come to Cheyenne. 19 months ago this week I stood in the Sanctuary at High Plains and asked Grant "Have you ever thought about planting a church?" He replied "I think about it every day bro!" That will be a story I will tell to my grave. That day changed our lives forever.

--- I'm pumped about this Sunday. Taking another critical scene to investigate. We'll close out our CSI series and get ready for Launch week. MAN, can't believe it's here.

I'll post a weekend wrapup tomorrow.

Following Christ,

Jeff

The worlds greatest podium

It's not often you get excited over a podium. A "lectern" if you will for those traditional folks. I really wanted a modern/industrial looking podium for my notes. Nick, one of the guys in our church, has a side business of doing iron artwork and such. Anyway, I called him up and asked if he could build us a podium and put our Element cross on the front of it. Anyway, this is what he came up with. Pretty stinkin' sweet if you ask me. He's putting a clear powder coat on it this week. Nick is a biker dude and he and his wife are a GREAT addition to our church. Check out Nick and also our podium.

Sunday Gameplan - Sept. 16

Thought it would be cool to put on here what our service order looked like and what songs we did.

Friend of God - Israel Houghton and Michael Gungor

Search Video - Episode 1

Welcome - Grant (Connections Pastor)

Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
Friend - Hillsong
Amazed - Desperation

Search Video - Episode 2

Message (part 1) - me
Can Anybody Hear Her - Casting Crowns (Adam and the band did this song as a creative element used for illustration to my message. We had the theater blacked out and one light shining on an empty theater chair placed on the platform. Represented the lost, hurting, broken, unclean people of Cheyenne. How will we reach them?)
Message (part 2) - me

Amazed - Desperation

1 hour and 15 minute service on Sunday. That is right where we aim. Anyway, might start putting the gameplan on after each Sunday. You can watch our services online or listen through a podcast as well. www.elementweb.net Click on "watch and listen" and it'll get you to the right place.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Weekend Wrapup

Another good weekend at Element Church. One more preview under our belt. Hard to believe we have 2 more previews left and then it's launch time. Here are bits, pieces, highlights and wrapups of the weekend.

--- Got a severe case of the Mondays right now. We only had 44 people yesterday. We did have one new family from Cheyenne. Two of our core families were out sick totaling 12 people just from those two families gone.

--- With those 44 people we did have a GREAT offering. We got $2592 given yesterday. That is awesome. WOW! Way to go Element peeps.

--- I felt yesterday was our best day yet for setting up, tearing down, transitions and overall production. The band sounded great!

--- Dont Miss It is starting off good. We've had 189 unique visits to our site. Please pray, PRAY, PRAY AND PRAY some more that our people will see our billboards, invite cards and/or t-shirts and go to the web-site. We really wanted to keep the church name off this portion of our promotions because many folks will see the word "church" and automatically cancel it out of their mind. If they see "Dont miss it. coming 10-07-07" They might be more intrigued to check it out. We are doing other promotions with our name on it to inform the community that this new church is starting.

--- A reporter from the newspaper has been at our last 2 preview services. He will be featuring us in an article about churches reaching young people in Cheyenne AND (as we understand it) an article specifically about us starting this new church. Please pray that people see this and will come check us out.

--- We've had LOTS of new faces at our previews and people who have been really impressed and drawn to us, HOWEVER, we need them to come back. lol In fact, excluding our launch team, we have had totally different people at all the previews. Please pray that these people who are drawn to what is happening will return and be a part of this new church.

--- Yesterday we had a flag football game. We played another church team. We won by the way. One of the other team members asked who the pastor was and I told him it was me. He knew we were a new church and his first question was "Are you guy's growing fast?" Why is that always peoples first question? When someone asks about your church's numbers do they want to hear you say "YES! We're growing like crazy!" Which we should ALL want for EVERY church. Or are they wanting to hear "No, man we're really not!" Which means you're not "out doing them" I don't know. I try never to ask someone how many they are running. How fast they are growing. I hope to be able to tell that by what they are doing in and around the community. I don't know if we're growing fast. We started in March with 6 of us in a basement. Now we are running over 60. If my math is right that is a 600% growth rate in 6 months. 10 times as many people in 6 months. Now, if we did that the next 6 months we'd be at 600 people. That's pretty fast growth I guess. I didn't say that to that guy. I just said "Well, we're a brand new church but things are going great." Anyway, didn't mean to ramble on like that.

--- Thanks for those of you who are following along. Please keep praying for us. Looking forward to Sunday already.

Following Christ,

Jeff

CSI video

As I've said we've worked TIRELESSLY (especially Adam) on a short film for our CSI series leading into launch. We unvelied 2 episodes today at church. I mistakenly said you could view them on our web-site. You can't now but Adam is getting them up tomorrow. Go to www.elementweb.net and then click "watch and listen" to find them.

Sunday night, tired and RIP ROARIN' READY TO GO!

HA! Good title huh? I'm VERY tired right now so this could get REAL random. I'm already to go this week. Can't wait to get started.

Sunday mornings I get up at 4:30 AM so I can get my devotions in, prep my sermon one more time and then get to the office to pick up our trailer. I didn't use to do devotions on Sunday. Don't know why. Guess I felt church was my devotions. MAN, has it helped me to get up early and do them. Just starts off Sunday with a Word TO me before I go deliver the Word.

I picked up Adam at 6:15 and he said "I love Sundays!" I do too. They are extremely hard but MAN do I love what we do. I know it's early but being portable hasn't bothered me yet. It's definitely hard work but I love our theater. I love the feel in there. I can't wait to continue and add stuff to our set up.

We had one new family today in church. Other than that we were way down. My family was all home sick, another family with 5 kids was all home sick. I am getting impatient with seeing people come. Shouldn't be. We have over 60 giving and serving in Element Church which is AWESOME!

Our volunteers are off the hook! (Really good if you don't know what that means) We have our group that shows up at 7 AM each Sunday to do our set up. We have awesome greeters, e:kidz volunteers, band. The band was great today. Adam played the piano for the first time ever in front of people. They played "Can Anybody Hear Her" by Casting Crowns in the middle of my sermon as an illustration.

Nick (dude in our church) made me an absolutely KICKIN' podium. He has his own iron/art business. He's a biker not sure he'd want me to call it art. It is sweet! Gotta be the coolest podium ever. Has our element cross on it. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

WE UNVEILED OUR VIDEOS TODAY! We finally were able to show our video we produced. (first two episodes) You can watch them online if you go to www.elementweb.net Adam, Keenan, and Curtis did incredible jobs with this thing.

Keenan stepped up and ran sound and lights today. Ben ran the computer. I felt our transitions were light years ahead of where we've been. Videos, lights, sound just flowed really well.

Ok, enough randomness for one night. I'll post a weekend wrapup tomorrow when I get the stats from Terri. Oh yeah, she had donuts and coffee there for us at 7 AM this morning. WAY TO GO TERRI!

It's Thursday...But Sunday's a comin'!

MAN am I glad we did 2 other previews before this last weekend. This is the first week that we had to turn around on Monday and start getting ready for a "full" church service again. As of today, we are farther along in preparation than we have been on any other preview. Obviously, getting ready for our fourth preview things are getting smoother. With my personality though, once things get smooth we're gonna have to shake em' up a bit. When things get smooth it means it's time to add something. Go bigger. Get more creative. We're already talking about what we're going to add to our set up, stage, kids area, lighting, etc. I don't ever want to get to the point where we've "made it" and get complacent. If we feel like we've made it that's a SURE sign that something needs to change. There are always more people to reach, better ideas to think of, new messages to preach, new songs to sing, new methods to use and new stress to take on. HA To me the tension and stress of doing church keeps me motivated. I know this sounds weird but I don't want to feel calm about church. I get nervous EVERY TIME. Why? Because the Almighty God has asked US to carry HIS message of Life. That makes me nervous. It makes me want Sunday morning to be done with such excellence and relevance so we don't hinder what God wants them to hear. It makes me want to go ALL OUT with a great presentation of the Gospel because the Gospel has gone ALL OUT for us. Ok, what started as a "We're doing good on getting Sunday stuff done" post turned into "How can we do more" post. How does that happen?

Following Christ,

Jeff

Billboards

Here is a picture of our first billboard to go up on Lincolnway. We have four of them, all on MAJOR roads (South Greeley HWY, Dell Range, Pershing and Lincolnway) We're taking a big risk in doing these billboards in that we're not putting our church name on the sign at all. We want people to get to the web-site out of curiosity and see what we're doing. Just a simple yet creative way to direct people to our web.

(click on the pictures to see a much larger view)

Email

Got this email from someone who attended Element this past weekend. Always encouraging to hear good reports. (Names have not been included to protect the innocent)

Hey Jeff,

Just wanted to drop a quick note to say how impressed we were with Element on Sunday. It looks like you've got a great crew to support you. We were also happy to see a few familiar faces there!

It's apparent that you're busy, but would love to get together with you sometime for coffee or something?

Weekend Wrapup (WE HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN?)

HA, Can't believe we have church again in 6 days. It's been 7 months since I had to get ready for a full church service in consecutive weeks. I'm glad we have church again. I love what we're doing. I love Cheyenne. I love Element Church. Can't imagine doing anything else. Here are some highlights of this last weekend. Lot's of stuff in this post. Hang on!

--- OU won 51 - 13 over Miami! Look out for my Sooners!
--- Jonah had his first flag football game Saturday. That was hilarious. Kids pulling off flags of random players who don't even have the ball. They don't quite get it at 6 years old. Running the wrong direction simply to avoid the other team.
--- We had 63 on Sunday. Three new families were there. Our offering was $1699.71. I really hope having successive previews will help us gain some momentum and keep people coming back.
--- We worked (especially Adam) SO STINKIN' HARD on getting our CSI video done for this week. We entitled it "Search". It is VERY good. Adam rocked da hizzy on getting it edited. The service went great, worship ended, we fired the video before my sermon, and 15 seconds in the whole thing FROZE! I walked on stage and said "SURPRISE!" Got a few awkward laughs. It STUNK. So now we're gonna show two videos this week. It better work. Keenan, Grant, Adam and I put WAY too much time into this thing.
--- We're still working on some tweaks in transitions in the service. Feel I need to do better in preparing people for transitions. We're getting better. That's on me.
--- I'm VERY excited about the sermons for the next few weeks. Can't wait to get into church again.
--- With Nicole as the manager at Carmike now it is even better. We were into the theater before 7 AM and done setting up by 8 AM. Had a couple MAJOR tech issues but had time to figure them out.
--- We started our launch day promotions today and have four billboards going up. Check below for what the billboards will look like. Or go here www.dontmissit.cc

--- We have t-shirts made and invite cards that look like that, along with the four billboards.
--- Our new web-site is up. www.elementweb.net
--- Our new podcast is up. You can link to all of our videos through the web and go to our podcast on the web too.
--- WE'RE DOING ANOTHER GAS BUYDOWN!! We wanted to serve the community again in that way and thought we'd do one the week before launch. Again I'll say, if we're gonna spend money on promoting the church, let's serve people in the process. THIS IS PART OF OUR DNA! Saturday, Sept. 29th we will be doing a four hour gas buydown. We want to accommodate more people so we're going bigger!
--- Trying to think what else happened. It's been a whirlwind 2 weeks since our last Unplugged. I told you there would be a lot in here.
--- Well, think that's about it. Thanks for following along. We'll keep you updated through the week as we approach launch. October 7th is 4 weeks away. CRAZY!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Friday Night Lights

No not high school football but watching the stars on the trampoline. I mowed the lawn tonight and kept an eye on the kids as they played on the tramp while Sabrina worked in her office. As I was finishing up around 7:30 PM I thought how cool it would be to get on the tramp and see if they would watch the sky turn dark and stars show up with me. THEY DID! It was a blast. We spotted the first star at about 7:40 PM at about dusk. As it grew darker the kids were amazed at the stars popping up. Makalah laid on my chest nearly the entire time (how can you go wrong with that? My little care bear cuddling on a cool night). Mariah couldn't stop asking if "bad guy's" could get us in the back yard. And Jonah couldn't stop asking if he could sleep out there. To be honest I didn't think he would do it. The pictures below show otherwise. He got all bundled up (getting down in 40's here now overnight) and got the sleeping bag and a flashlight and hit the tramp. He fell asleep in about 20 minutes. These pictures are great. It was just a cool time with the fam tonight. Mariah was freakin' when she went to bed. Still thinking bad guys were gonna get her brother. I should hide Jonah and tell her in the morning that they did. HA! Now that would be funny.

Really Cool!

Over a month ago I sent a press release to the local newspaper about this "new church" starting and the preview service we were getting ready to do...Nothing happened. A week ago I had Terri send another one I had written about this "new church" starting and the upcoming four preview services we were doing. And again...nothing! UNTIL today.

Adam and I were sitting in his office working over lunch on the video for preview service. (Adam was working...I was looking over his shoulder making him change things, HA) The phone rang and it was Brandon from the newspaper. Brandon in the lead reporter for the religion department at the paper. He asked if he could come and hang out with us during our previews, take some pictures and interview us. They want to do a FEATURE article on us and our new beginning for the paper. HOW COOL IS THAT? I'm not sure if it will be a feature for the "whole paper" or one for their religion section that runs on Saturdays, but either way it's free pub and an answer to prayer! God could not have treated us any better in this whole process. I shouldn't be, but I'm amazed at all he's given us. Wow!

Following Christ

Jeff

Almost there...

Wow, I am getting excited. Adam has done just a FANTASTIC job on getting this video done. He's been putting in WAY over what is expected. Just a couple things I thought I'd put on here that we're doing.

For our FTG's we wanted to welcome them with a great gift, something maybe out of the ordinary that other churches don't do. So we are getting Nalgene water bottles made with our logo on them. They'll look like this.

Inside the bottle will be two movie passes to the Carmike Theater, a flyer about Life Groups, 3 invite cards, a pen with our info and a postcard. The postcard is cool. We wanted a written note from me to go to the guests but I can't write that many notes, so I wrote a note, we scanned it as a picture and got them printed onto postcards from www.overnightprints.com. We then put on the back a "to do list" that is kinda cool. Anyway, posted those below.

Just a few random things for ya. I can't wait to preach this week. REALLY excited about what we're looking at. Please pray that all our loose ends get tied up. We've got a lot accomplished but also a lot left to do.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Preview Invite Cards

Our series for these September previews is called CSI: Critical Scenes Investigated. We will be looking at some critical scenes from the Gospels and answering the question "Who is this Jesus we say we're all about?" Nothing we are doing in the series really has anything to do with CSI the tv show. Just liked the title. HA Anyway, here are some invite cards that we got made up. Adam did a great job with them.

(Front)

(Back)

Theater Update

I put in the weekend wrapup that the theater we meet in was getting a new manager. Nicole, who is the current Assistant Manager, had put in to be the GM. We REALLY wanted that because someone coming in that had no vested interest in us could just shut the door on us. I called Nicole today to make sure we were still on for this Sunday and found out that she had just been named the manager. SO, for the time being everything is still the same. She now has say in what happens but has been GREAT to work with so far as an assistant. We assume everything will carry on as it was but your prayers are still appreciated. This is a HUGE praise the Lord and answer to prayer.

Following Christ

Jeff

Weekend Wrapup

This weekend couldn't have come at a better time. We strategically took this Sunday off. We've been doing Element Unplugged since June 10th, and REALLY pounding, maybe instilling is a better word, the vision of Element Church into our people. With 4 consecutive previews coming up and launch around the corner, a weekend for everyone to just "chill" was needed. I needed it. This past week I was exhausted. I think I put in more hours last week than I ever have in the ministry. Keenan put in hours above and beyond his job... Grant put in extra time... Terri (does this every week, she is doing AWESOME)...and Adam put in a lot of extra as well. He's been working at home on web-design and videos. I am SO excited about who God has brought us. I can't imagine doing this with anyone else. Here are some thoughts on the weekend and upcoming events.

--- We went to a church in Laramie today. My heart kind of hurt today. This 5 year old church plant is going through some VERY difficult times. It was a good warning to me as lead pastor about what can happen. To be on our guard. No moral failures or anything, but it seems just some MAJORLY burnt out leaders.

--- We had an all church BBQ today at on of our families houses. Had a GREAT turnout. Cooked burgers and dogs, played volleyball and badminton and had great conversations. It was the first extended time of getting to know people that a lot of Element people had. Usually it's 5 minutes before and after Unplugged. Tonight was good!

--- Labor Day tomorrow and then IT'S ON getting ready for previews. It will be weird cause we're doing church every week now in the theater. No more one month planning. I CAN'T WAIT!

--- I keep saying we have some big announcements to make. I'll be posting those here this week.

--- Got word yesterday that the General Manager of our theater where we meet was fired. They will either hire the current assistant manager or bring someone from Fort Collins. PRAY PRAY PRAY That Nicole (Assistant Manager) gets the job. If someone new comes in they would have say on whats done with us and Shawn was giving us a KILLER deal that I'm not sure someone else would continue to do. Nicole would, so pray for her. We are going to work on a plan B this week "just in case".

--- Don't know what to expect for this Sunday. We have an AWESOME core group, God will only build on that.

--- OU won 79-10 yesterday. The best opening game I've seen them play in a LONG time. Can't wait for Saturday again. I love college football. Nothing like it.

Thanks for following. Please pray for us this week. Keep following along.

Following Christ,

Jeff

All is right in the world again

8 AM - College Gameday on ESPN
10 AM - First college football game of the day
5 PM - First OU football game of the season

Got my Jersey on. All my kids have their OU stuff on. Good games already on TV. I love this time of year. My favorite! lol

Jeff