Sunday Rumination (2-17-08)

Hey Element Church! I was not feeling well AT ALL this morning (nor was Adam) but God saw us through and we had another great Sunday at Element Church. We had one major announcement this morning that I'll share below. Here are my thoughts on the day.

--- 2 people indicated they became followers of Christ today. Again, that is what it is all about. Praise the Lord for these two souls who received Jesus in to their hearts and forgiveness of sins.

--- 319 in church today. People must have listened to my plea last week and on this blog because first service was much larger than second for the first time ever. That's GREAT because it opens up seats in the late service where we see many of our guests.

--- After 378 last week it was funny cause the service felt empty. Especially second. Weird how one week can change your perspective. Two weeks ago and 319 would have been a record at Element. Today, it makes is down in attendance from the previous week. Crazy!

--- I'm not sure if it was because I wasn't feeling well, but I didn't feel great about either service today, especially 2nd. Just being honest. :) (did I just put a smiley face on my blog?) People responded well afterward though so that's a good sign. I've learned that you can't trust your feelings.

--- Had a guest drummer today from my former youth group in Gillette. He's attending Casper College and drove down yesterday to help fill in since neither of our drummers were available this week. Thanks Casey! He did an AWESOME job!

--- 319. That's CRAZY! Four months old.

--- I'm getting excited for our next series, Heroes. It's a perfect series to go through Easter. Our two series following that are going to be GREAT too! Very excited for that.

Ok, big announcement time. We obviously are seeing a space issue. Lots of reasons why we go from 378 to 319 in one week, one very viable reason could be that people were sitting on the stairs last week. lol A church can't stay at 80% capacity too long before seeing a drop in attendance. Now, we haven't seen a drop yet, 319 is still "up" for us, BUT lack of space will soon become an issue, and we really don't have room to grow much more.

We feel as if we've exhausted all options at this point on buildings or lease space so we have to do something. We REALLY prayed for God's direction, had one emergency lead staff meeting and came up with the following option. We are adding a third service to Element Church.

Here's how it will work in a nutshell. We are keeping our 9 AM and 10:30 AM services exactly the same, and we are adding a staggered service in a different auditorium at 9:45. This 9:45 service is called e:coustic and will be an acoustic style service. There will be no childcare or e:kidz programming and it will not be the full production like our other two services. It WILL be the same songs and same message just a different feel. Adam will still lead worship and I'll still preach. As soon as Adam is done with worship in one venue, he'll go start this service in the other and the same for me preaching.

THIS IS TEMPORARY and is meant to get us by until we get another facility. We LOVE the theater but want to be able to grow as much as God sees fit. It requires 15 NEW volunteers that are not currently serving in either of our other two services. We feel this best fits us because it won't take up any more time in the morning, utilizes facilities we already have and doesn't require enormous volunteer changes or expertise changes. We are VERY excited as a staff to try this new adventure and continue to do our best to connect people with the Life in Christ. This will help advance our vision of having a God sized impact in our city as well.

That's it! I'll post some additions I'm sure. Please pray for our family, we are experiencing some BAD sickness. Love all you guys! Thanks for following.

Following Christ,

Jeff