HAPPY NEW YEAR! And thoughts on the old year.

It is officially 2008. Has been for about 23 hours and 27 minutes now. We had a great holiday with friends on Monday and Tuesday. Monday night we played Nintendo Wii at our New Years party so much that I could barely lift my arm on Tuesday morning. And it's still sore today. Keenan and I won about 30 consecutive dodge ball games. Guys like Adam, Ben, Grant, Nate and Jeremiah COULDN'T TOUCH US! There is nothing like hanging out with friends (that are like family) and just having a blast. We had a great time. Below are some thoughts and reflections on 2007.

--- In the final days of 2007 during the New York New Year countdown on ABC they showed a preview of Lost that was AMAZING! I can't wait for that show to start again on January 31st.

--- The last week of last January we moved to Cheyenne from Gillette. Our initial plan was to move to Cheyenne in June of this year. WOW, I'm glad that didn't happen. Through going to the Church Planters Boot Camp, conversations with my coach and other church planters we soon realized we needed to come here sooner. We moved up from June to March. THEN, High Plains found their new youth pastor could (needed to) move to Gillette in January. All the sudden we could move even sooner. God knew all the details that needed to take place and HPCC was very willing to work with us. It's amazing to see the timing of everything that happened. If we had not moved here in January I don't think we would have been ready to launch in October. SO MUCH ground work had to be done.

--- March of 2007 we held our first life group in the basement of our house. Grant and Terri, Keenan and Katrina and my wife and I were there. Our first ever person to attend an Element event besides us came on Sunday, March 25th when another gal came to Life Group. WE GREW FROM 6 to 7 IN ONE WEEK! WOHOOO! We were so thrilled for that one person. And our prayer each week is the same that it was then "Lord, bring us new faces this week!" Our prayer hasn't changed, and God has answered continually.

--- Ran into a lot of this in March and April.

--- We planned to partner with the city Easter Egg Hunt in April as our first big splash of service into the community. Here is a link to our ad we did. Here and here are links to some things I blogged about during the Easter week.

--- We did a LOT of praying and searching for the right meeting location. Here is a blog about our first walk through at the theater. By the way, Shawn (GM of theater at the time) did everything he could to get us into the theater. I believe God placed him there for us.

--- Found our office in April. Here is a link to that.

--- Through April and May we started seeing more and more new faces coming to our Life Group. The final weekend in May we did something that a church that hasn't started "shouldn't" be able to do, but we did. We bought down the price of gas by .50 cents per gallon for 2 hours. God again was on the move for us with some free exposure. Here is a link to the May blogs. The top 4 or 5 on the page are all about the gas buydown, with some videos of the NewsChannel 5 coverage. GREAT memories.

--- By June 10th we had grown to the point where we could not hold Element Church in our basement. We made the tough decision of renting out a room at the Holiday Inn to start a thing called "Element Unplugged". We REALLY struggled doing this because we did NOT want to appear as if we'd launched. We just wanted to have a place where more people could come here about the mission, vision and values of Element Church. We knew Unplugged was NOT ANYTHING close to what we wanted church to look like. We intentionally made it less structured and informal. Here is a link about our first Unplugged. I think we had 34 people there.

--- Here is a link to our second major servant evangelism project when we provided inflatable games for the City SuperDay.

--- June 28th we had a practice set up for our first preview. Here is a link to that. Funny to see how our set up has changed.

--- Here and Here are links to our first preview recaps. My oh my have we come a long way since July. Love looking back at this stuff.

--- Here and Here are links to our second preview recaps.

--- Here and Here are some thoughts on our launch service.

Folks there are TONS more things I'd like to share about this past year but don't have time and you probably don't want to read them. Just thought I'd link some highlights. God has been SO faithful to us and He will continue to do so in 2008. What will be said of Element Church next new year, and the next, and the next? If we follow Christ unashamedly, whatever is said will have eternal significance, and will be GOOD!

Following Christ,

Jeff