Inside Element Church

New Blog Address

2009-06-09T15:25:00.001-06:00

OK Element Church, you can now find me at www.elementinsider.com Please make sure and change it in your favorites. This post will stay at the top here so you have the link. Thanks for following along.

New Blog Address

2008-06-02T15:25:00.003-06:00

Sermon Bumper

2008-06-02T14:27:00.002-06:00

Hey Element Church! Here is the sermon bumper we used this week for our sermon. Enjoy.

WE'RE MOVING!

2008-06-02T13:26:00.001-06:00

Not what you think though. TRICKED YA! We aren't REALLY moving to the new location YET. However, Adam and I did take the first load of Element stuff over there today. Here a couple of pics. The move has begun!

Building Prayer

2008-06-02T09:05:00.002-06:00

Hey Element Church! Our contractor is REALLY hoping/expecting a demo permit today. Also, he and one of the building owners are meeting with a city official about a site plan/building permit so PLEASE PRAY! If you are getting this later in the day then pray retro-actively, lol.

Praying,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (6-01-08)

2008-06-01T16:37:00.002-06:00

Hey Element Church! WOW! June. Today was a great day. Had a few bumps in the road but all in all was another awesome day at church. Here is my ruminations from the day.

--- 498 this morning. 2nd service was PACKED. 10 people on the front row. I am STOKED we had so many but HATE it when people have to sit in the front. Both services are filling up. If we have any seats it's in first service. (I wish e:coustic would have worked. We need the "ability" to grow)

--- We took aim at abortion today. I was VERY excited about the message. Mostly because I really felt like God helped me learn some stuff that I got to share. People seemed to respond well. Abortion isn't an issue that hits a lot of families. We'll see how people respond to issues that hit a little closer. lol

--- I hadn't planned on this at all but I REALLY felt led at the end of first service to ask for any women who had been through an abortion and wanted prayer to raise their hands. 4 women in first service and 6 or 7 men and women did in 2nd service. We had a good moment of prayer for all of them.

--- "God loves the women who aborted her child just as much as he loved the child she aborted." I said that today. I REALLY feel like we need to say that more as Christians. People need to know that we don't just stand up for the unborn, we will stand WITH the women who aborted their babies with the love of Jesus. There IS healing. There IS forgiveness. There IS hope. There IS restoration. Do I believe it's wrong? YES! Do I believe Jesus can forgive? ABSOLUTELY!

--- The band stinkin' KILLED it today! (And by killed I mean good...REALLY GOOD)

--- We have unbelievable volunteers. CRAZY what gets done from 6 AM to 12:30 PM.

--- Continue to pray with us for God's timing in our building. Just waiting still!

--- Next week will be interesting. Alcohol. I heard one pastor preach a message last year and his title "Can a Christian drink a cold beer? (because we all know it's a sin to drink a warm one)" Thought that was funny. Not sure what my title will be. Here are some I'm working on...

- "How can it get better than this?"
- "WASSSSSUP and other silly things you might say when drinking!"
- "Tastes great...less thrilling"
- "The Kings name isn't Bud"
- "Pure Rocky Mountain stream water...Not sure Coors is what God had in mind."

LOL totally don't know where that came from. That's a random Sunday afternoon from Jeff for ya.

--- Getting ready to go hang out with friends tonight. I look forward to Sunday nights every week. That's about it.

--- Four blogs I am really looking forward to doing this week that I'll bust out starting tomorrow hopefully. Have an awesome week!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Untouchables

2008-05-30T17:11:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Don't forget that we start our new series this week. I am STOKED for these sermons. (SCARED OUT OF MY MIND TOO) But stoked!

Here is a post from a pastor that I feel VERY similar too when it comes to preaching.

I am JUST as nervous each week when I preach. Whether it's for 50 people or 500. I used to not be able to eat anything before I preached. Now I have ONE donut and that's about too much. But if I don't eat I get a horrible headache before church is over. Anyway, random glimpse into me right there. Pastor Furticks blog cracked me up cause it's exactly how I feel. If you see me on Sundays after set up, you see me wandering around aimlessly a lot, or sitting by myself. We are a weird bunch, us pastors!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Building Update

2008-05-30T16:51:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Well, to say I am frustrated would be the understatement of the year. To say I've been worried about the progress of the building would be just short of where my frustration is at. We signed the lease on May 1st and were given two months of free use to begin the remodel of the space. As of today, we still have no permit to demo or build. Things were going SO smooth and God was opening EVERY door and then BAM...we hit a snag. I've had some heart to hearts with God about this in my prayer life recently and then He did what He should have done and SLAPPED me upside the head with a reminder. I need to beware what I preach on cause then I'm held accountable to it. lol

Philippians 4:6 says "Don't worry about anything, instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and THANK HIM for everything He has done." Don't we typically forget the thanking part? I know I do sometimes. The reason we worry is that we DON'T remember OR thank God like we should. When we thank Him we are forced to remember all the things He has done. Yesterday I was REALLY challenged with this. Here is what I wrote in my journal.

"Lord, I don't know what's going on with the building but I trust You. If this is Your timing, we will wait patiently. If this is a hindrance, Lord I ask that you move it on our behalf. Your will be done. I'm frustrated but I don't want to worry. I need to follow Philippians 4:6."

So I did. I followed Philippians 4:6. Here is what I realized. At this point, I'm worrying and frustrated over ONE need. "Get the permit and start working on the building" So I wrote that need down: "Get in the building" Then I wrote down all the things God has done JUST with this building. 1. A GREAT Christian realtor who helped us through the process. 2. Our GREAT Christian contractor donating his time and doing ALL he can to get us in. 3. The book that God put on my desk that helped prepare me for the decisions that would have to be made concerning the building. 4. The support of the people of Element Church. AMAZING! 5. ONE CHECK for $20,000 6. Two free months of use. (They could have gave us NONE...HELLO!) 7. 450 people coming to church so we NEED a new facility. 8. Consistent giving that enables us to GET a building. 9. The timing of the owners calling me and OFFERING us the building. 10. A staff that didn't waiver to follow me in this decision. I stopped there but there is more. I realized, that God has ALREADY done so much WHY SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT ONE MORE THING? Anyway, God's been teaching me through this.

Element Church...the timing of things with this facility may not be ours, BUT I will trust God that it's His. He is not caught off guard. He is not waiting by the phone hoping the city calls. He is not wondering what will happen. HE KNOWS...HE CARES...and HE WILL GET US IN! Amen?

Learning,

Jeff

WiBo Speaker #3

2008-05-29T09:52:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Installment #3 of the Whiteboard sessions overview.

Tim Stevens: Tim is the executive pastor at Granger Community Church. He just recently released a book called Pop Goes the Church, that is receiving quite a bit of buzz around the church world from those who agree AND disagree. Here are some thoughts I took away from what Tim shared. (The non quotes are my spin)

"Most churches aren't impacting their communities."

"Many churches are getting in the way of the Gospel..." instead of advancing it. WOW!

"Spiritual interest is rapidly growing in our culture..." yet we are doing a great job of continuing to reach the "churched" and not the "un-churched" or "de-churched".

"As a church, we're answering questions no one is asking!" He talked greatly about how we do not allow a culture of questions in our churches AND how we are giving answers to questions no one is asking. People come questioning real life issues and many times we skirt them for our "greater" answers on theology.

He shared John 1:14 from The Message Bible. Cool way to word what Jesus did. It's what our churches should be doing. "14 The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood." Moving into the neighborhood. IMPACT!

"We need to be using culture to raise the questions and use the Bible to answer them." If we watch culture (what movies, music, media) is saying, we will find the questions people are asking. We can then address them through Scripture.

He talked A LOT about using media (movie clips, music, tv) etc. in our services to raise the questions. I appreciated his honesty on being careful to find the line of what is "just using a clip" and "what legitimately raises a question" that we can answer through Scripture. Using things that people are familiar with (ie. movies, tv, music). This is NOT a new idea by the way. What IS new I believe is the intentionality of using pop culture to help us find the questions that need to be answered. The cry of the culture. Thought it was good stuff.

Spoke on Acts 17 where Paul used popular lyrics from a poet and philosopher of his time, as well as the statue of "the unknown" god to answer his cultures questions. Leveraging culture, increasing impact.

"We need to leverage the culture (to our benefit) or risk losing your impact."

"What do people think about our churches. Can they ask questions or do they just get answers?"

This session REALLY challenged me to know more about what the culture is asking. What are the heartbeats of our culture. What are people struggling with? Wrestling with? How can we leverage our culture to maximize our impact? Are people allowed to question? Without questions there are no answers.

Questioning,

Jeff

Untouchables Sermons

2008-05-27T14:00:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! A couple things about Untouchables. First off, please pray. We are tackling 4 VERY tough subjects. I want the Bible to drive our discussion and not JUST opinion. The WORD is where we find our source of Truth. I have some strong opinions on each of these subjects, as I know all of you do as well. My goal for this series is that we could all walk away closer to Jesus and with a deeper understanding and conviction of what we believe and where we stand with these subjects.

Second, I wanted to share the order in which we are taking on these topics. I know some of you have specific subjects you want to invite people to hear. So here they are.

June 1st: Abortion
June 8th: Drinking
June 15th: Homosexuality
June 22nd: Divorce
June 29th: Q&A (we'll be setting up an email address for you to send in questions to) That will be a fun Sunday.

There ya go. Have an AWESOME day. Working on my messages right now. I'm getting pumped.

Jeff

WiBo Speaker #2

2008-05-27T09:17:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Again, Adam and I went to a pastors conference in Washington, D.C. called Whiteboard. It was the perfect format. One day, eight speakers with 30 minutes a piece. Each were asked to share one compelling thought, idea, philosophy to the pastors.

Vince Antonucci: Vince pastors Forefront Church in Virginia Beach, VA. He has an INCREDIBLE passion for reaching lost people. He has an evangelists heart and the majority of Forefront Church (around 70%) came from an un-churched and un-christian background. Here are some things I took from Vince's talk.

Vince received Christ as his Savior when he was 20 years old. He said that until he was 20 he had never heard about the Jesus of the Bible or the Gospel message about him. As far as he knew he had NEVER met a Christian, and if he had they never said they were or said anything about Jesus. He made this quote "How is it that in America for 20 years I had never heard about Jesus?"

"The total number of people going to church today is 8 million less than what it was 20 years ago." (Not per capita, TOTAL)

Speaking of church growth: "We're reaching people, we're just not reaching lost people."

"We get the honor of being the answer to Jesus' mission and prayer: 'To seek and to save that which was lost.'"

"The church is too content with seeking and saving those who are already saved." WOW!

"Reaching the lost made Jesus' heart beat fast. It made Paul's heart beat fast. Does it make yours? What makes your heart beat fast?"

"If you're not close to people who are far from God, you're not as close to God as you think you are." That my friends, is a POWERFUL statement.

Learning,

Jeff

The Untouchables promo

2008-05-26T15:28:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Here is the Untouchables promo video. It's not in full quality because of the upload to Google Video, but you get the idea. We're themeing the series around the gangsters of old who were "untouchable". Thought we pulled off the idea with this video. I think the production by Adam was GREAT! Here it is.

Missions Video

2008-05-26T12:36:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! This is the missions video from Aaron Brakefield that we couldn't show Sunday. If you want to see more from their mission field you can watch it.

Sunday Rumination (5-25-08)

2008-05-26T09:38:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! First off, let me say "THANK YOU!" to our veterans and those who are currently serving in the military. Also, a thank you to our fallen soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We were able to worship God yesterday because of the lives of soldiers who fought on our behalf. From the Revolutionary War to the current war in Iraq men and women have fought and died for us. Regardless of where you stand on war in general or the current war, you are able to have AND share your opinion because of the men and women who fought for you!! Their sacrifice and commitment blows me away!

--- I took the afternoon off yesterday and didn't blog. I actually played Xbox instead. lol

--- 463 in church yesterday. 2nd service was VERY full. I was pleasantly surprised with the Memorial weekend #'s.

--- We had several first time guests today. One thing we have asked for since we started Unplugged almost one year ago was that God would bring us someone new every week. We have yet to have ONE Sunday where we didn't have one at least one first time guest. PTL

--- We finished off our Little Rascals series yesterday. I can honestly say that this was one of the MOST challenging sermon series' I've ever done. It was so close to home and God challenged Sabrina and I GREATLY through this series. I want to be the BEST parent I possibly can.

--- We had Aaron Brakefield and his wife Christina with us yesterday. Aaron has a wonderful ministry to teenagers in Brazil. I HIGHLY believe in what they are doing on the mission field. I believe we had some new people step up to support them financially. Element is also going to support the Brakefields through our general fund.

--- Our missions philosophy is and always will be Cheyenne first and foreign second. The Brakefields and their youth center WILL be a foreign mission Element takes on. I'll get a video we didn't have time to show yesterday at church up later. Aaron put it together as a highlight of their youth center. Take some time to watch it if you'd like when it's up.

--- No e:coustic was...a relief. I actually got to greet people after the 9 AM service. There was one couple who had been coming for 2 months that I had never met. That's crazy!

--- If there is one phrase that can sum up our time recently at Element it is "Technical difficulties". I swear if we solve one problem 5 more are created. We FINALLY defeated the buzz demon in our sound system yesterday by using the projector we bought for e:coustic instead of the theater projector. It was AMAZING! BUT, we created several other sound problems in the process. Now we have a microphone demon. My wireless mic was wiggin' out BIG TIME!

--- Untouchables is next. This is going to be a challenging series too! Taking on some VERY difficult subjects. I'll get the video promo up later that Adam made. I think production wise it is his BEST! We're themeing the series around the old gangster stuff. Guys who were "untouchable". I think we captured that through the video.

Alright, got stuff to do. I need to do this on Sunday afternoon like I normally do. Much easier than when the fam is all awake.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Quick Saturday Reminders!

2008-05-24T18:41:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! If you can come early to help set up that would be AWESOME! The few new ones who helped last week ROCKED! Each volunteer adds so much to getting the morning done.

NO ECOUSTIC tomorrow! Don't forget that. Just back to 9 am and 10:30 am.

If you can come to 9 AM please do that. That is the area with the most available seats. That's it. I'm excited for tomorrow!

Following Christ,

Jeff

We should go to the Pentagon!

2008-05-23T18:49:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Those are famous last words. Almost DEADLY last words. I'll get to that in a second.

We spent the ENTIRE day in Washington D. C. today. I think Adam and I could start a Speed Tour business here and make a KILLING. We got into D.C. about 10:30 and went to the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Wall, lunch with one of Adam's friends, White House, National Air and Space Museum, Union Station, Ebeneezer's Coffee shop and the Pentagon. Below is a slide show of pics I took on my phone today. Here are a few thoughts on the day.

I am BLOWN AWAY at the sacrifice men and women have made to defend our country and provide us with what we know today as FREEDOM. It STINKIN' TICKS ME OFF (LOL) that some people today are trying to change what men and women died for to satisfy their lusts and desires. What our country was established to be is so far from what it is. In my LOUD yet humble opinion. The WWII Memorial and Vietnam Memorial was VERY cool.

It was weird being in D.C. To know that people who started our country were there. Amazing. Didn't seem real all day.

D.C. is the stupidest city I've ever walked or driven in. ABSOLUTELY and THOROUGHLY confusing! I can't tell you how many times we were lost. It is THE CRAZIEST place to get around in. Adam and I wasted at LEAST 1 - 2 hours trying to figure out where we were at and how we get to the next place.

We had visited everything we wanted to and Adam was like "We should go to the Pentagon!" We bought a one day pass on the Metro and it went right to the Pentagon so as our last site to see we headed there. We got off the Metro and went up the escalator. Little did we know that we actually came out of the ground and we were standing NEXT TO the Pentagon. Security everywhere. A guy about 10 feet away was a big ole' security guard standing with an AK47. We started walking to where we could take a picture. Adam pulled out the camera, we thought we could see where one of the jets hit the building. The following conversation happened:

Adam: I'm gonna get a picture of that right there. (pulls out camera)
Mr. AK47: (steps out from behind a bullet proof security thingy. Yes that's the official name 'security thingy'. With AK47 CLEARLY showing) HEY YOU CAN'T TAKE ANY PICTURES!
Jeff and Adam: (Now need a new pair of shorts)
Mr. AK47: DID YOU GET ANY PICTURES BACK THERE?
Adam: Umm, no.
Mr. AK47: PUT THE LENS CAP BACK ON THAT CAMERA NOW! YOU CAN'T TAKE ANY PICTURES.
Jeff: (What I wanted to say was "Yeah, we heard you the first time when I messed my shorts!") But what I really said was "We didn't know you couldn't take pictures."
Mr. AK47: (With gun still CLEARLY showing in front of him) "Yeah, that's why I warned you."

HOLY COW! That dude wasn't messing around. Needless to say, we did NOT get any pictures of the Pentagon. Overall it was a very fun day. Cool to see all the history and sites. The navigating was insane. Don't wish that on anyone. Adam should have some stuff up soon too. I think he's blogging in the other bed. LOL Can't wait for Sunday. I miss my family and I miss Cheyenne! Here are the pics. Click on the slideshow to view them from my online album.

Still Alive With Clean Shorts,

Jeff

WiBo Pics

2008-05-22T21:19:00.001-06:00

Here are some pics of the weekend from my Blackberry.

I knew it was going to be a good hotel when I saw next to the coffee pot that Starbucks was being served.

Here is Adam talking "tech" to one of the computer guys. Little did he know I can answer ALL of his questions. You notice there is NO ONE in the conference hall? Adam and I walked right past two security guards like we owned the place and got our seats. We kept saying "I can't believe no one is in here. What is everyone waiting for?" We were looking at the video cameras, sound stuff, computer stuff and stage set up. Then at about 10 till 9 the lead guy made an announcement "Hey guys we're going to open the doors in about 5 minutes so man your stations." We weren't supposed to even be in there. NO idea how we just walked in. I guess we just look official.

They had a guy there taking notes on a whiteboard for each speaker. Here are a couple of them. It was pretty cool.

That is a picture of my ticket to Indiana Jones. It cost 10 STINKIN' dollars. When the ticket lady said $10 I said "$10? What the world?" She said "The world cost $10 enjoy your show." And handed me this packet of chewy nerds. $10 and STINKIN' CHEWY NERDS? My ticket was about as big as the package. That is supposed to make me feel better about $10. Wasn't even that great of a theater. Not even stadium seating.

WiBo Speaker #1

2008-05-22T20:48:00.000-06:00

Right before the event started today, I wrote in my journal: "Lord, expand our vision!" MAN did he do that. None more than the first speaker.

Mark Batterson was first up this morning. Mark and National Community Church have a VERY cool story. If you get a chance to find out about their history please do. Mark also wrote the book "In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day" which our Lead Team is reading right now. That had to be intimidating setting the stage for the whole day with these phenomenal speakers. He did a great job! Here are some quotes I took from him.

"The longer I'm in ministry and the longer I lead, the more I covet the favor of God."

"Your best thought on your best day is about 13.2 billion light years short of God's" (Isa. 55:8-9) Comparing our thoughts to the expanse of the universe.

"The moment we think we have God all figured out is the moment we lose our spiritual curiosity." May we never be satisfied with just the knowledge we already have about God. NO ONE has Him all figured out. NO ONE!

"Your dreams are too small. We confess our sins to God but when was the last time you confessed your small dreams to Him?"

"At some point we stop doing ministry out of imagination and start doing it out of memory" (When we do it out of memory we end up doing what we've always done. We lose creativity and risk)

"I'd rather have one God idea than 1,000 good ideas and you don't get that one God idea from a speaker."

"If there ever was a dreamer his name was Jesus." (The Great Commission was a dream) Then he said this (great line) "You have been grafted into THE dreamer!"

That's it from speaker #1. Blog more later. (This may be a week long thing)

Still Processing,

Jeff

WOW!

2008-05-22T20:39:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! To say my mind is about to explode would be an understatement. UNBELIEVABLE conference! Talk about expanding your vision. MAN. Both Adam and I are reeling tonight. We haven't even hardly talked about it cause we're still trying to process everything. The format was amazing. Ben Arment did a phenomenal job putting this thing together. It's amazing what the blogworld can do for things. What literally (as far as I understand) was an idea Ben blogged one day, turned into a conference with 800 pastors in attendance and 8 of today's greatest communicators sharing 30 minutes a piece. Each one shared their "one compelling idea". The format is perfect. I hope they do it again next year. I felt it was so beneficial to get 8 guys' 30 minutes of their best stuff in one day rather than a couple guys talking for an hour and a half and you attend 2-3 days. I took MASSIVE notes and will be blogging on what hit me from each speaker. We paid $99 to attend this bad boy. Worth every penny!

Adam and I went and saw Indiana Jones tonight. Definitely not the best of the series but it wasn't horrible. Typical Indiana Jones. I was hoping it would be a bit better but a good flick to go and just relax and not think about anything for a while.

Adam has some new pics up and some thoughts. Amazing day! Can't wait to get back to tornado infested Cheyenne. Looking forward to Sunday.

Processing,

Jeff

"I don't want to have a romantic dinner with you Jeff!"

2008-05-21T19:13:00.001-06:00

LOL That is one quote already from the weekend. Adam said that to me as we were restaurant shopping. We were in Reston Town Center looking for a place to eat and EVERY place looked like it would be a place you'd take your girlfriend to ask you to marry you. Candlelight. Quiet. Intimate. Three words we DID NOT want to define our dinner together. Thankfully we found a Chicago style restaurant called Uno Chicago Grill. It was phenomenal. Right in the heart of Reston Town Center. Nachos were amazing. And no romance at ALL! LOL

"I wish our eyes had zoom!" Another quote from Adam as we were driving to the airport from Denver. He wanted to see a hot air balloon off in the distance.

"That's 'so and so'(fill in the blank)" We are seriously too starstruck. It's sad! We've learned over the past year SO MUCH from some of the guys we're seeing here.

"This is CRAZY!" That's been my continuing line. So weird to me that we are on the East Coast of the USA. I'm sheltered. HA!

Ok, more quotes to come I'm sure.

Quoting,

Jeff

You're not from here are ya?

2008-05-21T18:55:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! We've arrived in Washington D.C. I REALLY wish I could share this with my wife. We love coming to places like this. Went to Pennsylvania together 2 years ago and had had a BLAST! Both Adam and I did much better and enjoyed much better the flight today, compared to our last flight. Although I do miss having Permagrin with us. Adam and I have got to stick out like a sore thumb here. We're walking around with our eyes as big as big as baseballs. The difference in culture from Wyoming to DC amazes me. We're in the same country, yet it's SO different here. Beautiful! (that's not what's different, cause Wyoming is definitely beautiful) To say I am excited for Whiteboard Sessions is an understatement. I am SO pumped to be challenged tomorrow. We are staying in an AWESOME hotel. Terri did a FANTASTIC job setting up all the details for us on this trip. Adam and I drove into Reston Town Center, where the conference is tomorrow, and had dinner. We then went to where the conference was held. I felt like a fish out of water. Saw some of the guys who I follow on a regular basis in the blog world. Some GREAT church leaders. Made me feel pretty small. lol Like a fish out of water. We're chillin' now watching the American Idol finale. Gonna head to the conference early. I think Adam got some pictures up already. Here is a link to his blog. We'll both be blogging our thoughts on the conference tomorrow. There are 8 pastors sharing in this one day conference. Each get 30 minutes a piece. It is going to be info overload and I AM PUMPED! I love learning. Love being challenged. Love being stretched. Alright, be watching for more from D.C.

Prayer

2008-05-19T21:38:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! God really helped me with a verse I read in Philippians a few days ago and I thought I'd share it with you today.

Philippians 4:6-7 says this "6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."

A couple things from these two verses that I felt God really helped me in.

#1 Don't worry about anything. Why? Because you can pray! I don't know why that jumped out at me so much. I think so often we forget who we are praying to. The reason Paul says not to worry is because we can talk to God about our worries. You have a need? Pray. You have a fear? Pray. Have a concern? Pray. A wayward child? Pray. I wonder if we don't stop worrying because we don't trust who we are praying to. I want my trust level to be SO HIGH with God that if a worry creeps in, I can pray and TRUST God has it under control! REGARDLESS of the outcome.

#2 Tell God what you need... We're good at that. We're GREAT at it actually. Most of our prayers revolve around us asking God for something. Asking God to make everything right in our lives. Asking him to weight everything in our advantage. What I think we struggle with sometimes is giving ample time to thank God for what he's done. That in itself can help take worry away. When we thank God for what He's done it helps us get through those worrisome moments because we KNOW what He is capable of. We need to be habitual about asking AND thanking in our prayers.

#3 THEN... Then is a keyword in many verses. THEN you will experience peace. When? When we don't worry but pray, and in our prayers tell God what we need AND thank Him for what He's done. THEN we'll have peace. Why? BECAUSE IT'S NOT UP TO ME TO GET IT DONE! My hope is in the LORD the maker of Heaven and earth. Now that can bring peace. And what will that peace do?

#4 HIS peace will guard your hearts and minds... from what? This is good. WORRY! It's a cyclical. Worry should lead us to prayer which leads us to peace which keeps us from worry!

There you go. Don't know if that helps anyone but wanted to share it!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Monday Musings

2008-05-19T21:29:00.000-06:00

I know, I need to quit naming things. Still waiting on the word for the permit. We're trusting we'll get the demo permit this week. With that, we are going ahead and planning on demo Saturday at 9 AM. Terri will be contacting everyone who signed up if we do have it. Adam and I are flying back Saturday and arriving in Denver around 9 AM. So we'll get here ASAP to join the fun! Framers and sheet rockers will soon follow that! Pray that we get that permit!

I'm SUPER excited about my message this week. I usually don't finalize it until Wednesday but with leaving Wednesday for D.C. I tried to get as much of it finalized today. I'll be sharing the top things I want my kids to leave home with. We'll be dissecting a Scripture I feel God gave me in my morning devotions last week. As I began writing down the things I want my kids to have when they leave home, it reminded me of what I had read. I know it's Memorial Day weekend, but if you are going to be in town I encourage you to be there!

Getting everything done for the week in two days is tough! Pray that we get everything ready and have a safe trip!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Building Update

2008-05-19T07:27:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Just talked to our contractor and he is hoping to give me a call today to meet him down at the city to pay for our building permit and HOPEFULLY get the demo permit today!! PRAY PRAY PRAY! If we get the demo permit, we will most likely get in there this weekend to start working. Just wanted to put that out there in the blogosphere so you Elementers and others alike can join us in prayer today. The contractor said the electrician told him his drawings would be done today. Let's approach the throne of grace with confidence together!!! Amen? (And you thought I only said that from the pulpit)

Praying,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (5-18-08)

2008-05-18T14:05:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Got a birthday party to get to with our kids and need to leave at 2:30. Currently 2:06 so this may be a shortened Rumination.

--- I felt GREAT this morning! Got a very good nights rest and woke up ready to rumble. Compared to last week I felt 1000 times better.

--- 452 in church today! We are consistently hitting that mark. I know everyone says when summer hits that church attendance goes down. Why don't we break that norm! I am believing for growth through summer. Who's joining me?

--- We made the announcement today that it was the FINAL service for e:coustic. We've said from day one that if a ministry wasn't bearing fruit we'd prune it (that's politically correct for CUT IT OFF!) LOL We made the decision Monday at our Lead Team meeting. The fruit didn't justify the energy, time and commitment of having it. That's the reason why. We had 23 last week in there, I think 19 this week!?? Adam said he started the service today with the band, sound team and light guy. That's not good! I don't feel like we missed the voice of God. The whole lead team felt God was asking us to do it, and maybe that's all God wanted. To see if we'd obey. I was hoping for a better response but it just didn't happen. I'm not sure anyone new connected through that service, it was all just transfer from e:worship. Anyway, we made the decision and it's done!

--- If you're an Elementer I again encourage you to come to the 9 AM service. It, by far, has the most room to grow. Also, if we start filling up again I encourage Elementers to sit down after worship starts. Leave seats for newcomers before we sit!!

--- I have some MAJOR suggestions for church planters who are considering a staggered service. So many things we learned from doing this. Most of them are things NOT to do! lol

--- ALL HYMNS THIS WEEK! I thought Adam led the band to an absolute home run today. The Elemented up 5 hymns and rocked it out. I had such an awesome time of worship before I preached in the 9 am service. We sang All Hail the Power; Holy, Holy, Holy; Come Thou Fount; Fairest Lord Jesus; and Amazing Grace! There is such GREAT theology and teaching in the old hymns. I think we miss that in the newer songs. I love singing those songs with a new modern feel to them!

--- It was funny cause at least one of our band members didn't know many (if any) of those songs. We get so worked up about "traditional" vs. "modern" and they wouldn't have known which category they were in. If we'd just shut up and worship (I know oxymoron) we'd enjoy church a lot more.

--- I really felt like today's message was very good for ME! It was right where Sabrina and I are at in parenting. Very challenging for us.

--- I haven't felt like I connected like I could yet in this series. Don't know what it is, just haven't felt great about it. I think pastors go through that in spurts. You "feel" on and then you don't. What's great is typically whether I think it was good or not, God still uses it and people tell me they got something out of it. We can't always trust our feelings.

--- We launched the "Untouchables" promo today. It was one of Adam's BEST video productions since we started I thought. I'm PUMPED for that series. Make sure and begin inviting people to it!

--- Took up our Climb pledges today. We'll update you on that later this week! We're trying to raise $100,000. We encourage you to partner with us.

--- Adam and I are going to a Conference in Washington D.C. this Wednesday. We're going to hear from some GREAT pastors and communicators. Check it out here. Can't wait to be stretched!

Alright, that's about it. Gotta wake everyone up from their nap and get ready for the party! Thanks Element Church for letting me lead you! You are a blessing.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Challenged Pt. 2

2008-05-15T19:35:00.001-06:00

I feel a blog streak coming on. Read THIS before continuing. Today, as I was praying about this leadership stuff I REALLY sought God on some help in the area of leadership. As soon as I prayed it I was reminded of a conversation Adam and I had yesterday. Adam had just watched Evan Almighty (great flick) and was commenting on an awesome line from that movie. (I then heard Jen Thomas quote the same thing today) God (played by Morgan Freeman) told Evans wife "Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?" WOW! When I pray for leadership, does God just give it? Or does He give me opportunities to lead as He wants me too. HA! Now that's crazy. I think so often we pray for something thinking He'll just ZAP us with what we ask, when in reality He may just give us the opportunity to do what we prayed for. I tend to think that everything we need is already within us, it just needs to be awakened, or needs the opportunity to rise from within. If you are a believer, the SPIRIT OF THE LIVING GOD lives within you and HE holds ALL that we'll ever need. Sure, there is divine cooperation where we must act, interact, and react with the Spirit. Sure, there are different personalities, different gifts, different purposes for different people. BUT, I KNOW that when God is moving on my heart to ask for something, he might just want me to act when the opportunity arises. Hmmm, a little something to ruminate on. lol

Challenged,

Jeff

Challenged

2008-05-15T19:11:00.001-06:00

Ever go through stretches in life where you REALLY feel challenged? Not challenged like "Man, this is a challenge!" But challenged like "Man, something needs to change". Not anything bad. Not something sinful, just change. For the better. Well, regardless whether you have, I'm going through that right now. I am feeling very, VERY challenged in my leadership skills. I want to be able to lead Element Church to wherever God wants to take it. I know that God is NOT limited in what He can do. However, I do believe that as the leader of one of His churches I can limit where He wants to take Element Church. That is convicting and challenging! I want to be the leader that God wants for this church. I don't want to limit any direction, plan, vision or dream God has. That in mind, sure seems like in my daily prayer and Bible time God has REALLY been leading me this direction. It's making me ask some SERIOUS questions about how I'm leading and how I want our team to lead. We've grown SO rapidly (not complaining) that I feel my leadership hasn't caught up. And that is probably totally my fault. I don't EVER want my pastoring or our ministry to go through the motions. I don't EVER want us to take lightly the way we present the Gospel. The way we worship. The way we serve. I don't EVER want to stop serving in incredibly creative and relevant ways. And I don't EVER EVER EVER want to hold back my WICKED AWESOME team of staff, our volunteers or Element Church. I've been processing some things in my head about how I can make this next level of leadership. Adam and I are headed to a conference in D.C. next week and we've already planned on processing some of these issues. Anyway, that was heavy on my heart and mind and had to get it off. Unfortunately, you caught it! I LOVE Element Church! I LOVE serving in ministry! I LOVE leading my team. I just want to do it in the fullest extent of God's dreaming, not mine. And God can dream big...look at the universe. lol

Challenged,

Jeff

Blog Link

2008-05-15T09:01:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! I am so proud of our student ministry we have at Element Church and the leadership God has placed there. I'm SUPER pumped to see where Fusion goes now that Curtis and Andy can give more focused time to their respective groups (Varsity and JV). Fusion I believe is living out Paul's charge to Timothy of "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set forth an example...!" Every month Varsity Fusion does a RAK with the students. Here is a link to the latest RAK on the Fusion blog. GREAT JOB FUSION! If you have a child in 6th - 12th grade, let me implore you to get them involved in Elements student ministry. I can't wait until my own kids are under the leadership and example of couples like Curtis and Heather and Andy and Aubrey!

Proud Leader,

Jeff

Shorthanded

2008-05-14T15:58:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! MANY of our regular and trusty set up crew is not going to be available on Sunday. If there are any of you Elementers out there who could sacrifice one week of sleeping in a bit to come at 6:30 AM to help set up that would be a HUGE help! We do a LOT of set up and with as many road crew members out that we'll have it is gonna leave a HUGE hole. If you can come and help please email me so we know who to expect. Also, there is a noon movie being shown this Sunday which means we are in for a super fast tear down. Anyone who can come back at 11:45 to help tear down or stay after 3rd service would be greatly appreciated!

YOU'RE HIRED!

2008-05-13T14:59:00.000-06:00

Andy got the job he was looking for today! God is good! The timings of events can only be credited to God. We're excited about Andy being here and God has opened up doors that enable him to give time to Element that he needs without forsaking taking care of his home FIRST! Thanks for your prayers.

Celebrating,

Jeff

Approaching the throne of grace with confidence

2008-05-13T07:52:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Andy joined us for his first staff meeting yesterday and then we met as a Lead Team (Grant, Adam, Curtis, Andy and myself) to discuss and plan some church stuff. It is great having Andy here and on the team. He and Curtis spent many hours prior to Andy moving here talking on the phone, planning, strategizing, etc. I commend Curtis for his hard work in making sure this transition is smooth. Andy will be leading JV Fusion tomorrow night! Anyway, I love the verse in Hebrews 4:16 that says "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." It's amazing to me that we can approach God's throne with confidence and not terror. (A healthy fear of God is needed. We should not be terrified of Him) Why can we approach with confidence? Yesterday I think we as a Lead Team experienced why.

Andy is coming to Element completely volunteer. That means he needs a good full time job with the right hours. Our staff meetings are Mondays, JV Fusion is Wednesday nights and obviously he needs to have weekends off, especially Sundays. Well, he received a job offer yesterday that was the pay he needed and the hours he needed, but he would most likely work EVERY Monday. Another job he applied for would give him Saturday - Monday off, still with the hours he needs and pay he needs but he hadn't heard back for his second interview yet. The first job offer HAD to know by today if Andy wanted the job. It was a tough decision time for Andy. He was leaning toward the Saturday - Monday off job but just didn't know if he could wait when this other was on the table. Before we broke the Lead Team meeting we prayed for Andy. Andy said his prayer was that if God didn't want him to say yes to the offer on the table for the other opportunity to call him back that day.

So, we approached the throne of grace with confidence. We prayed "Lord, if Andy is supposed to wait on taking this job offer we ask that TODAY the other place would call". During our prayer Andy received a phone call. We ended, he looked at his phone and said "That was them!" LOL "NO WAY!" I said. They called, WHILE WE WERE PRAYING FOR THEM TO CALL, and set up an interview this morning at 6:30 AM for Andy. SO, Andy could go to the interview and still have time to way the two options before making a decision.

Why can approach the throne of grace with confidence? I think it's found in the last part of the verse. Because we can find grace to help us in our time of need. It's the times we pray and receive answers like that, which allow us to approach God's throne with confidence. He hears us! He answers us! He takes care of us! Because of moments like those, it enables us to trust in Him when the answer may not come as quickly. Or the need is not filled right away. We will always remember the time God answered our prayer WHILE we were praying. Next time? We'll approach the throne of grace with confidence again! Praise the Lord.

Confidently Approaching,

Jeff

Weekend Wrap Up AKA Sunday Rumination (5-11-08)

2008-05-11T20:51:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! I got the best nap in I've had in MONTHS today. MAN I needed that. I slept with Jonah in his room. He is in the basement so it was nice and cool, had the fan on high, loved it. lol Here are some thoughts on my weekend and ruminations on today.

Weekend Wrap up:
--- Jonah turned 7 Friday. Doesn't seem real. He's growing into a young man. That responsibility to me is HUGE.
--- We took him and some friends roller skating. He had a blast. I love the analogy of "giving good gifts" to your children and how God delights to give "good gifts" to His. By the way, God's good gifts are not worldly possessions, they are His Holy Spirit. That's all we need.
--- Jonah is a wild man. I'm amazed with all of his skating, skiing, snowboarding and general wackiness we've had NO broken bones.
--- I planned a surprise date for my wife and I on Friday afternoon. Scheduled babysitting and set up lunch and then we were going to take the Trolley Tour around Cheyenne. We got to the depot and it was SOLD OUT! That was a bummer. But we had a great time touring the Governor's Mansion and Wyoming State Museum. Something different for us to do.
--- Saturday we got to take the trolley tour. It was REALLY cool actually. Then we went to Olive Garden. Two days and two dates HOLY COW!
--- Guys, you planned and done your date yet? YOU NEED TO!

Ruminations:
--- 449 today. Good numbers. Didn't know what to expect on our first Mothers Day!
--- HAPPY MOTHERS DAY by the way. Two ladies in my life and the two best moms in the world. My WONDERFUL wife Sabrina and my AMAZING mom Becky! I can't imagine life without either of them. Sabrina, you are the love of my life. Thank you for marrying me. Mom, what can I say, you were/are an incredible mother and now you've carried that into being an awesome grandmother. Thank you!
--- I felt horrible today. Just heaviness in my spirit all morning. I was struggling. Didn't feel like I really connected until 3rd service. I just didn't feel right for some reason. It was a tough morning.
--- Three services is getting hard. Just being honest. The early set up THEN preaching three times is what is tough. If it weren't for the set up I don't think three would be as heavy. Crazy.
--- ANDY IS HERE! (new youth pastor) So cool to have him here. Can't wait to see what Fusion does and how Andy and Curtis will flourish in their roles.
--- Be praying for our permits to come in. I REALLY want to start working in our building. Right no we are literally just waiting for permits.
--- The Climb commitments and offering is this Sunday. Be praying about what God can do through you.
--- The guys put together dinner and grilled out tonight for the ladies. We had a fun time hanging out.
--- This series is REALLY stretching me. Very challenging. Lots of views on parenting. I know that my opinion is not the only one.
--- Chillin' with my wife watching the Survivor finale. Blog more through the week!

Following Christ,

Jeff

"As late as you want..."

2008-05-09T21:56:00.000-06:00

Today is Jonah's birthday. He's 7. WOW! Time flies. We had a party for him tonight at the skate rink with him and some of his friends. He had a BLAST! He's a stinkin' daredevil man. No fear of the wall, the floor or anything. Anyway, he asked how late he got to stay up on his birthday and I said "As late as you want!" I think he's most excited about that than anything. He normally goes to bed at 7 - 7:30 PM typically, it is 9:59 PM right now and he's watching a movie. Sabrina went to a girlfriends house to watch some movies. Jonah may outlast me. That will be funny. His goal is 1 AM. I'm pretty sure I can't last that long. We've always wanted to just let him go and see where and when he crashes. His energy level seems to NEVER run out. So, the wait is on. How late can he go?

Staying up,

Jeff

IFT

2008-05-09T10:24:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! What is IFT? Well, it's a new practice I hope to incorporate into office life and the life of our pastors. IFT stands for Impromptu Fun Time. Church life and office life has been CRAZY lately. I need to model for our team better the ability to just get away from work and have fun. THAT'S OK! We are not going to be a church staff or office that is ALWAYS just WORKING WORKING WORKING! There are seasons we go through that is CRAZY intense. For us, that season has been since October 7th, 2007. Seems like EVERY week is another major decision that could change Element forever. SO, yesterday I took Adam and Andy (new youth pastor) out for a movie. We went and saw Iron Man. By the way STINKIN' AWESOME movie! It was very cool just to get out of the regular grind of things and hang with the boys. Anyway, every so often we'll need an IFT. You need an IFT too! Don't be afraid in your family. Your life. Your day, just to get an IFT. It may not be a movie out but it can be 5 minutes of calling a friend. Calling your wife. Looking at pictures of your fam on the computer or in your wallet. Just a break from your day. It works! IFT, new vocabulary for Element Church.

Having Fun,

Jeff

Prayer Request

2008-05-08T16:05:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Just wanted to post this so you could join us in prayer. Andy, our new Fusion youth pastor, is applying for jobs around town. With needing certain church days and evenings off he is limited in what he can do and where he can apply. Also, finding a good paying job is key for the move of he and his wife to volunteer here at Element. Tomorrow morning he has an interview with the Wal-Mart Distribution Center, which has a certain shift that is perfect hours and pays a good wage too. Anyway, please pray that for Andy, that if it's the Lords will this would work out. Pray for provision for them in finding an apartment/home and jobs as well. You guys ROCK!

Praying,

Jeff

$27,000

2008-05-07T21:08:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Just wanted to update you on The Climb totals. May 18th is the day we will be taking a special offering at Element for the Climb commitment cards and donations. However, we have already received over $27,000 from Elementers in actual donations and over $10,000 in pledges. PRAISE THE LORD! That $27,ooo was given through a few MAJOR donations. Amazing the generosity of God's people. You too can join The Climb as we take this mountain in the life of Element Church. Go to The Climb link on our web-site www.elementweb.net or get your commitment card at Element on Sunday. All we ask is that you pray and seek God in what He can do through you. Thanks Element for listening to the Lord.

Listening with you,

Jeff

The Climb (Building Update)

2008-05-07T13:12:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! I know many of you are wondering on when work will begin on remodel. Many of you outside of Element I know would like to see the facility as well. Below I've put the video tour we showed this past Sunday. Then I'd like to offer people the chance to join The Climb as well. So three things to talk about here.

#1 Facility update. We are waiting on permits at this point. We can't demo or build without the proper permission from the city. We'd love to do the demo this Saturday. If we do, we'll let you know through the blog, and if you signed up we'll call you. I am VERY anxious to get this thing rollin' as I know you are too. We want to do things right, so patience is a priority right now.

#2 Video Tour: Check it out below.

#3 The Climb: The Climb is our four month drive to raise money to rennovate our new facility into our worship center. Our goal is to raise $100,000. It is your opportunity to partner financially with Element Church and the Kingdom to help impact our city. We do not own the building, AND we don't plan on being there forever. This is not our final destination. Therefore, we are not going to make this building OUR building. It will be presentable, usable and inviting but it will NOT become our idol. We need to pour money into people and not facilities so we are going to do things in a way that reflects that as best possible. It may mean we don't do certain things, or upgrade certain items. We MUST remember it is NOT about the building. There will probably be a day when God calls us to buy land and build, but that time is not yet. So, you can click on the logo to the right if you'd like to give financially to The Climb. (Follow The Climb links on our web-site) Please pray about what God can do through you over the next four months. Don't look at your budget but ask God "What do you want to do through me?" and then trust him for it. If you're an Elementer you can fill out a pledge card at church and turn it in on May 18th.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Andy is here!

2008-05-05T21:34:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Our new Fusion JV youth pastor rolled into town today. Andy Hazelet makes his way here from Oklahoma after just graduating from Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Andy is an AWESOME guy, one of my closest friends and a VERY gifted pastor. He's been helping lead a youth ministry in OK while going to school. We're glad he arrived safely. Please be praying for him as he tries to nail down a good job and find an apartment for he and his wife Aubrey. Aubrey is finishing out her job in OK this month and will join Andy and Element Church in June. We'll introduce Andy on Sunday.

RAK for May

2008-05-05T20:12:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Here is our RAK (Random Act of Kindness) challenge for the month of May. One of our core values and part of our DNA at Element Church is to serve our city. Because we can't always do big church wide service projects or events we try and give practical ideas each month to you to do. This month is to do something kind for the people that serve us every day. Whether it's having your kids take cookies to their school's teachers lounge with a thank you, getting pizza, cookies, or brownies for the fire department in your neighborhood, or buying donuts (LOL) for the police department (I couldn't resist), whatever it is and whoever it is that you can think of that serves our city, let's serve them. Here was our promo video for our RAK.

If you want, shoot us an email at info@elementweb.net to let us know what you did. Get your kids involved. Our kids are already excited about taking something to the Fire Station.

Serving,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (5-4-08)

2008-05-04T14:32:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! I tried laying down for a nap as soon as I got home from church today but my brain wouldn't shut off. It takes me a while to unwind from Sunday morning. I wanted to rest before Partnership but just couldn't do it. I'm relaxing watching some NBA Playoffs. Got the FTG (First Time Guest) emails sent out and now I'm gonna blog. Gonna head out to Partnership here in about an hour. Here are my ruminations on the day.

--- This series is really stretching and challenging me. As soon as I started prep for this series, my parenting skills were put to the test. Jonah tried stealing something from a store. We got our first phone call from school for Jonah acting up. Jonah was thrown out of e:kidz one morning at church and the girls seem more clingy and whiny than ever.

--- I am VERY honest in saying that I have a TON to learn as a parent. I need to grow yet in so many areas. I make mistakes and am not perfect as a parent. This series is helping me as much as it will anyone.

--- Husbands when is the next date you're planning for your spouse?

--- 473 in church today.

--- Over $10,000 already pledged for The Climb today. $5000 already giving in cash. Please pray about what God can do through you. Our goal is $100,000! Let's pray for God to provide EVERYTHING we need. We'll be taking our official pledge offering on May 18th.

--- We're hoping to get in for demo this week! We announced in first service but I don't think we did in 2nd and 3rd to sign up if you can volunteer. If you are a willing and able volunteer and did NOT sign up at the e:connect table, please email us at info@elementweb.net

--- We're putting in for the building permit tomorrow.

--- We played an old school Will Smith music video today. "Parents Just Don't Understand" Brought back memories.

--- I am very opinionated on some parenting things, and there were a couple of silent moments today that made me wonder if anyone agreed with me. lol I fully know that not everything I believe in as a parent do others believe. And that's ok.

--- We got in on time today and had a GREAT set up! Setting up two worship centers and preaching three times is VERY tiring! We were done with 36 minutes to spare today, AND I ABOUT WENT CRAZY! I sat down and couldn't stop thinking about the service. I almost rather be working right up to start time. I'm a pacer, fidgiter and nervous wreck on Sundays. You may see me on Sundays wandering around the halls. In and out of the worship center. Up and down from my seat. That's the way I roll. I can't stay still on Sundays. AT ALL! I've been preaching for 8 years almost and am just as nervous each week as I was 8 years ago. CRAZY!

--- Got rid of the HORRID buzz today, only to deal with an annoying crackling. Once we figure one thing out, something else starts.

--- I preach WAY to stinkin' long in third service. I have MUCH more freedom so they get the extra goods. That middle service makes me feel so rushed. If I don't get out of there I won't make it in e:coustic. At the end of the service is when I really feel it. I just don't feel the freedom to slow down and let people meditate and ponder the Word. Gotta do what you gotta do.

--- I was doing GREAT on time until last week. Gotta get back on track.

--- Only seeing people after one service is still weird to me. Feel disconnected.

--- Day of Giving is Friday. Please stop by Lions Park this Friday and support the Day of Giving. Non perishable food. Leftover prescription drugs. Giving blood and marrow. Plus other stuff. Great way to serve the city.

--- Our new Random Act of Kindness was revealed today for the month. We are challenging you to do something for the service agencies of the community. The video showed me taking pizza to a local fire station. Do something for the firemen, policeman, teachers lounge, nurses/doctors, politicians, etc. Let's serve those who serve us everyday.

--- Alright, I'm getting ready to head out to Partnership Class. Hopefully we'll be bringing in our first ever Partners. We'll be offering a class each quarter for the first few years.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Partnership Class

2008-05-02T22:05:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Our first ever partnership class is this Sunday from 4-6 PM. For a read on what a partner is read this post. Basically it's what we've traditionally known as members. We love the action implied in the word partner. A partner is involved in the ministry. Is invested into it. Is a shareholder into what goes on. While a member can be all that too, a member can also just be someone who belongs to a group and doesn't invest in it at all with time, talents or treasures. Anyway, if you're an Elementer I encourage you to attend and learn about how you can make the next step in Element as a partner. We ARE providing FREE childcare and we failed to announce or promote that very well. You can still attend, just email info@elementweb.net. We'd love for you to be a partner at Element Church! By attending you don't automatically become a partner, you will have the choice to do that. We will be discussing such things as: Our denomination, where we came from, what we believe, our organizational structure, what it means to be a partner and the requirements to be a partner.

Following Christ,

Jeff

The Lease Is On!

2008-05-02T21:56:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! WE SIGNED THE LEASE TODAY! Praise the Lord! Our contractor is putting in for the building permit and hopefully we'll be in there next week working. Amazing! We actually took the group that showed up for First Friday over to the building for a Tour and had an AWESOME time of praise and prayer over the building. Here are a couple of pictures. We have a video tour on Sunday for you to see and some information on joining The Climb. It was cool to worship and pray for the first time in this building. Can't wait to get to work!

First Friday

2008-05-01T22:31:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow night is First Friday! If you're an Elementer we encourage you to come out for this great time of praise and prayer. We dedicate the month to the Lord and ask for his blessing. We meet at our office (1011 E. Lincolnway) from 7 - 8 PM. You can park in the back parking lot and come in the back door.

Three for Thursday

2008-05-01T20:21:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! This was my three for Tuesday, here is an update on those three things.

#1 No nightmares but it was a nightmare drive back from Gillette last night. The snow was so bad we almost turned around about 38 miles outside of Gillette. The event was great and the band STINKIN' ROCKED last night. I hope you realize how blessed you are to have Adam lead in worship and the band mates that serve each week. We were following the white line directly in front of our car for a couple hours it seemed. Just crazy swirling snow. It was weird to be back in Gillette at the student ministry I lead for so long. Travis is doing an AWESOME job leading Inside Out Student Ministries up there.

#2 WE GOT THE LEASE TODAY! WOHOOOO! They agreed to all of our requests. I need to read over the fine print tonight but our realtor says everything looks good. We should be signing tomorrow and the place is hours. We don't pay rent until July 1st so we have 2 months to begin work on it. Our contractor came by and he will be putting in for a building permit on Monday and we can begin demo next week on some walls. I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE DOING THIS! Is what keeps going through my mind. We'll be presenting "The Climb" finance challenge on Sunday. We have some video to show you of inside the building and more details as well. There will be an opportunity for you to sign up to help volunteer as well. MAN, this is huge for us. God has provided in such wonderful ways, let's continue to serve and follow Him and seek Him with me on continuing to work miracles.

#3 First off, let me say I am SO thankful for Amber and her VERY hard work for setting up our prayer flight today! I'd do it again tomorrow if it were set up. I hope we're able to do it again next year. So THANK YOU AMBER! HOWEVER, If you're looking for an exhilarating way to lose your life, try flying on a day like today! Holy mackerel. We were able to fly over the city today and pray over it for the National Day of Prayer. If you live in Cheyenne, you know what it was like today. And we flew in a five seat plane around the city. Who needs six flags when you can do that. WOW! I LOVE flying but get nervous every time. It really made me nervous when the pilot referred to "It's gonna be a rodeo up there" We were the three amigos up there man. Grant sat shotgun up front, I was directly behind him facing backwards looking at Adam facing me in the backseat. The whole flight Grant had perma-grin. He's the ultimate optimist. I think Grant soaks up every moment of life and it's awesome. I'm convinced Grant could find happiness in a pile of poop...LITERALLY. If he could have, he would have asked the pilot to do loops. Which it felt like we almost did a couple of times. With perma-grin behind me I had vomitron in front of me. Adam admitted before take off that he gets motion sickness. Hmmm...Me thinks we have a problem. The first thirty seconds of the flight were bliss. The rest I was waiting to receive chunks in my lap. Adam was not feeling well. His face eventually turned white. His lips were white. He did not look good. I tapped perma-grin on the shoulder, pointed to vomitron and said "We need to set her down." For me, I prayed over the city in between my "PLEASE SAVE US LORD" prayers! Every dip that plane took my prayers changed to "HELP US LORD!"

Ok, enough drama. I really was blown away up there as we bounced around the air above Cheyenne. I seriously prayed this prayer for the whole flight (in between laughing at Grant, Adam and me) "Lord take this city. Lord take this city. Lord take this city" I thought how many of those houses, cars, business contained people who ABSOLUTELY needed Life in Jesus? We circled the Capitol at a steep banked turn. That was beautiful. Again I prayed "Lord take this city!" We flew over our new building "Lord take this city!" We flew over our house "Lord take this city!" You know what God wants? To take the city.

It took a while for Adam to recover and I think it took a while for Grant to get rid of his grin. It took me a while for my heart to stop racing. Again, thank you Amber for setting that all up. I tease about the flight, but we are BLOWN AWAY that you would set it up and think of us.

That's it! Three for Tuesday.

Still laughing,

Jeff

Three for Tuesday

2008-04-29T22:36:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! Three things I'll blog about in this post.

#1 I literally nightmared about Element THE ENTIRE NIGHT! It was horrible. Sweating, waking, getting up wondering if it was real. I had a dream that Adam intentionally sabotaged Sunday morning cause he was mad at me. We were yelling at each other in the worship center with people coming in for church. Worship was HORRIBLE, I didn't have my sermon prepared and people left in droves during my message. IT WAS SCARY! It seemed so real. I dream A LOT and I tend to dream more when BIG decisions come in ministry. I was that way in every other pastorate I've been in. I then woke up at 5:50 AM jumped out of bed and yelled "OH CRAP I'M LATE!" I TOTALLY thought it was Sunday morning and I'm supposed to meet the boys at the office for the trailer at 5:45 AM. I started to grab clothes and I said "WHAT DAY IS IT?" I could not remember what day it was. Thankfully my wife told me it was Tuesday or I may have driven all the way to the office. LOL CRAZY!

#2 We're praying and waiting for final word on the lease. Keep praying and we'll post as soon as we know. We have received $5,000 so far from two people that we're putting toward The Climb! I had a WONDERFUL conversation with an Elementer today who came into our office and handed me a check for $2000. They are SUCH a blessing as a part of our church, whether they gave ANY money they are worth a TON to us! You know who you are and I want you to know how much you are appreciated. Thank you for letting God work in and through you!

#3 Thursday the staff of Element has an AWESOME opportunity. An Elementer who works in the aeronautics division for the state has set up an opportunity for us to fly over Cheyenne on Thursday for the National Day Of Prayer and pray over the city. Each Capitol city of each state in the America is trying to have a fly over prayer. We get to participate in Cheyennes. How cool is that? This Elementer contacted a company to set all this up. The president of the company asked what pastor was flying. They said "The pastor of my church." "What church?" was the response. "Element" The president replied "Oh, you mean Jeff?" The Elementer asked how they knew me and this past Sunday was the president's first Sunday attending Element. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That just doesn't happen. Grant, Adam and I are planning on going up at this point. Curtis couldn't make it. He can pray as he flies his fancy helicopter all over the city. LOL I'm jealous and bitter if you didn't notice! Element needs a helicopter. HA!

I'm headed to Gillette with the band tomorrow to go up and serve our mother church! High Plains Community is a HUGE part in who we are. Element wouldn't exist without them. I'll blog on Thursday and post some pictures and/or vid of the event.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Blog Link

2008-04-29T20:45:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church!

Adam has a new post up!

Curtis has several new on his blog!

Check em' out!

Life Groups Serving

2008-04-28T21:33:00.000-06:00

We had some Life Groups who served in some cool ways recently and though I'd share those quickly.

Some of Matt and Reagan Kauffman's Life Group served as Chaperone's at Prom this past Saturday night. I would never have thought of doing that and thought it was VERY cool. Way to go Matt and Reagan! I think they're just trying to re-live high school.

Adam leads the worship team each Thursday as a Life Group. Two Saturday's ago they played a gig for LifeChoice just before their Life Walk to raise money for the ministry. The band took out the whole set up and led worship for the walkers before the event. Life Choice is an incredible ministry serving women who are dealing with unplanned pregnancies. We try and support them as much as we can. Then this Wednesday the whole band is driving up to Gillette to play for a youth outreach night at our "mother" church High Plains Community Church. Good job Adam!

Element Knitters. This is a ladies Life Group and they knit TONS of stuff and give it to the Safe House here in Cheyenne. They are continually serving by making and giving these items away. They make washcloths and put them in baggies with essential toiletries for the people at the Safe House. Great work ladies!

I know Grants group has served at the Comea House a couple times serving meals.

The staff really isn't a Life Group but we take turns each Friday serving lunch at the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen. My Friday is this Friday. I enjoy it every time I go! Good job staff! (Can I tell myself good job?)

Thought I'd update on that. Please try and get involved in the community Day of Giving May 9th here in Cheyenne. It's a great way to serve lots of different people!

Serving,

Jeff

Building update

2008-04-28T21:17:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! Just wanted to update where we're at with this building. First off, let me say I'm blown away at your support of us as your leaders! You guys are such a blessing to serve. I wouldn't want to take this mountain with anyone else but you guys!

#1 Our realtor stopped by the office today to update the progress. He actually advised me on Friday not to announce this to the church on Sunday. Did I listen? Of course not. lol He said things are looking good. The ownership group is meeting tomorrow to discuss the final details. Pray for God's will and provision please. We should have a final lease to sign by Wednesday or Thursday. I'll definitely let you know.

#2 "The Climb" That is what we will be calling your opportunity in joining us financially in taking this mountain. Our goal is to raise $100,000 to pay for the remodel and building costs as we move in. Maybe you happened upon this blog or you follow Element Church from a distance and would like to help support our move into this building. We'll announce the final details of The Climb on Sunday if, Lord willing, the lease goes through. If you're an Elementer, please be praying about what God would have you do financially to climb with us.

#3 I received a REALLY cool email today with some other confirmation of the opening of this building: "I also wanted to share with you that when you spoke of the new building, we listened intently. Then when you spoke the words "600 Carlson Ave" my mouth dropped. My coworker was in the process of leasing that exact space. She talked adamantly about her plans for her new business. They then realized that this space wasn't going to work for them and are moving on to securing a different location. It was wonderful to see how God had been working to allow that space to remain available for the church. I came to work this morning and told my coworker of your message on Sunday and she's excited. They are now planning to attend the parenting series next month."

This is NOT a done deal yet so PLEASE keep praying. I share these details at church and on this blog so you can join us in praying for God's provision and for His will. We will have an "even if" faith in all of this. "But even if He doesn't..." we will still follow, trust, love and serve our God! AMEN?

Waiting,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (4-27-08)

2008-04-27T14:50:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Man oh man am I wiped today. I think three services affected more today than any other. Much of it had to do with just the heaviness of the message upon me today. The future for Element is SO exciting but the HUGENESS of what God is asking us to do is so far beyond me. We announced today two MAJOR pursuits in Element Church:

#1 August 1st we'll be bringing Pastor Grant on staff full time. Up until now Grant has worked for Frito Lay full time and donating his time to Element. That needs to change for Grant and for our church. We have grown so quickly that Grant can't keep up with the connecting and small groups and we can't go any longer without him being able to. SO, we are stepping out in faith to hire Grant full time. I CAN'T WAIT to have him in the office, ministering to YOU every day.

#2 We are in pursuit of a building to lease for the ongoing ministry of Element Church. WE NEED SPACE if we are to grow any more. God is HUGELY blessing us with people coming to Element and we don't want that to stop. This will be a HUGE step of faith, but one I think we have to take. We are working on a lease for about 16,000 square feet of space on 600 Carlson Ave. The worship center will hold 300 - 400 people. It would house our offices, kids and a MUCH NEEDED youth space. We'd have the ability to expand into existing empty space adjacent to what we'd be getting if needed. We have a local contractor who is donating his time to help lead the project. As a team of 6 last Spring we laid hands and prayed over the building for God to give it to us. Two months ago I received a phone call from an ownership group that heard we were needing space. They said "We have some space with think you'd be interested in." It was the building we prayed for. More details will be coming this Sunday. PRAY PRAY PRAY for God's will to be done in all of this. This is our mountain. I'm advancing onto it and need YOU to go wit me!!

Here is my other rumination on the day.

--- I am more tired today than maybe any other Sunday at Element. I am SPENT! Feel emotionally and physically drained. Wouldn't want it any other way. Typically means it was a good day at church.

--- The theater employee was 30 minutes late in opening the door this morning. That adds some stress.

--- Had MAJOR technical problems again today with audio/visual stuff. It's starting to REALLY bug me. Getting VERY distracting and I don't like it. Not sure what to do.

--- Adam played TWO originals today. He wrote the song Yearn a couple of years ago and is an AWESOME worship song. I think it's good enough to "make it". He then sang a new song he wrote today called "The Heart of a Warrior". It was based on my heart of a warrior sermon I did on March 30th. I LOVE the fact that we can do original music. Adam wrote another one inspired form our Eternity series that we'll bust out real soon. It too is AWESOME!

--- We'd love to do an Element Worship CD some day. Put some of our original stuff on it. That would be cool.

--- PACKED HOUSE TODAY! 505 in attendance. The Sunday I announced we were going to two services we were way down in attendance if I remember correctly. It was confirming to bust 500 again on the day we're announcing that we are pursuing a building.

--- This building scares me for a couple reasons. #1 I don't want to be about a building. We ARE NOT buying but leasing this space. It will be a 3 year lease. I FULLY expect to move in three years to another, larger location. Either that, or plant another church from Element. (Not me personally, but Element daughter a church) Maybe a video campus here in Cheyenne. (That is a whole other blog) #2 The risk! This is by far the BIGGEST decision I've EVER made in ministry. Moving here affected just my family. Moving now to a building affects our entire church. This is a financial risk for us. We have it made at the theater. But I don't want to "have it made". I want to anticipate God will show up when we need him. He won't lead us down a road He can't provide on. Financially this is a faith move for us.

--- 1st and 3rd service were full. In 3rd we had folks on the front row. I hate that. It's so uncomfortable. Heard one of the families on the front were first time guests too.

--- 55 in e:coustic today. That's up from previous weeks. That's good!

--- I preached on mission, vision and where we're going as a church today and how we'll get there. I want to blog a little this week about what I preached on. I think our decision making process is so helpful to what we do. Maybe it can help another pastor who reads this. Maybe not. I'll blog it anyway.

--- Partnership class this Sunday at 4 PM. Don't miss out on that. If you want to take the next step in Element to get more plugged in and be a part of what's going on you need to come to that.

--- Seriously, Elementers, you guys are the GREATEST! I absolutely love, LOVE leading this church! Can't imagine not doing this.

--- That's it for now. Blog more later.

Following Christ,

Jeff

First steps

2008-04-25T13:07:00.001-06:00

While at my grandma's house in St. Louis, our 4th child took her first steps. Jonah took his first steps at her house too many moons ago. Something magic about their house. We didn't have our video camera, but thanks to the beauty of technology I caught it on my Blackberry.

We get SO excited for steps our children take don't we? First smile...first roll over...first crawl...first words...first steps. All those steps of life we celebrate. How much more does God and His angels celebrate when we take steps in Him? Every step you take, every move you make (sounds like a song huh?) in God's direction He celebrates. Anyway, just thought of that. I love what I heard a pastor recently say and I've used it since. "Christianity is a series of steps" It really is. What is your next step in your faith? What is He asking of you?

Stepping toward Him,

Jeff

This is how I feel about Sunday...

2008-04-24T19:58:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! I saw this on a fellow pastors blog. He used it for the same reason. They are announcing some big stuff this Sunday at their church. What God has laid on my heart and what I am sharing at Element on Sunday makes me feel like this little boy. We're talking about what's next at Element, at it scares the living daylights out of me. HA! It scares me in such a way that we MUST rely totally on God. That's a great place to be. Again reminded that if I can accomplish what God asks me to do in my own power, then God didn't do anything. I want to be a part of something that it's obvious, "God has to do this!".

Ready to skate,

Jeff

Back in the saddle

2008-04-24T09:59:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Our family made it back in town and I'm hitting the grindstone hard to catch up. I intended on doing a couple of blogs while I was away from our hotel room but I forgot my laptop charger so that didn't happen. I got some catching up to do. Some blogs rolling around in my head. Thank you for your prayers for us and our family. There were definitely felt and appreciated. We had a wonderful time celebrating the life of my grandpa. Numbers of people came to the family visitation on Monday and told my Grandma "I wouldn't have known the Lord if it weren't for your husband!" WOW! My grandpa had asked my dad to officiate the funeral and he did a fantastic job. I was so proud of my dad. I can't imagine doing my own father's funeral no matter how much he was ready to go. It's still your dad. We had some great laughs, good cries and memory sharing moments with all of our family. My grandparents were married for 65 years. I'm not sure you could remember life without your spouse after that long. Even though my grandma knows it was best for him to go, she was really struggling with the love of her life not around. My grandma had a stroke a few weeks ago and that is adding to her difficulties as well. She is VERY independent and will now rely on family to help her get around, get dressed and take care of her. Thank you for those who offered your kind words of condolences and support. You guy's are the greatest!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Sermon Series Sneak Peek

2008-04-18T21:23:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! If you're on the "inside" here you get the heads up on what's coming next. We're announcing our next sermon series Sunday, but you find out today. I'm super excited about this series. It's called "Little Rascals: From Diapers to Diplomas". It will be my first time EVER talking about parenting. I know not everyone is a parent and we will be intentional about making sure that each sermon can relate to everyone in all stages of life. I am DEFINITELY not the perfect parent and in already preparing for this series am being challenged. If you're an Elementer and a parent, you need to be at this series. If you're an Elementer and NOT a parent, you know parents and you need to be at this series. Anyway, here are the graphics for the series. Enjoy.

Is it from God?

2008-04-18T09:44:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! I posted here and here on making sure that what we do in church is actually God asking us to do it. That our "vision" for a church or ministry IS the call of God. While those two posts definitely didn't cover or answer all the possible variables in the call of God, or hearing the voice of God, I still believe it's true. We shouldn't move unless we are dead sure God is behind it. The Israelites didn't move in the wilderness until the cloud lifted and went before them. Moses' vision to lead the people of Israel was ludicrous, but God was behind it. Joshua's vision of taking on Jericho was a death sentence, yet by simply walking God showed up. Nehemiah's vision to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem was laughed at, yet in 52 days it was done. How do we know if our vision is from God?

We have some major decisions coming our way at Element Church. In fact, over the course of the next week some of the biggest decisions I've had to make as a leader will occur. Second guessing takes place. Sleepless nights. I dream a lot about decisions while I sleep, and I've done that. God has given us a vision to be and do certain things at Element Church, and with that it brings LOTS of uncertainty. It brings risk. It brings fear. I read lots of other pastors blogs. I don't agree with everything I read, or everything these pastors believe. If I only read or listened to people that totally agreed with me, how could I be stretched? I could I be SOLID in what I believe? So keep that in mind as I share what I read on another blog this week. Now, while this is not a "dead set recipe" for knowing, I thought it was some good insight. This is from Perry Noble.

How do you know if your vision is from God? Great question…here are a few suggestions…

If you feel confident that you can accomplish what is in front of you with no problem at all…then you didn’t hear from God.
If no one is angry at you…then you didn’t hear from God.
If you don’t have to ask anyone to sacrifice to make the vision come true…then you didn’t hear from God.
If religious people are not steaming at you, blogging about you and/or leaving your church…then you didn’t hear from God.
If you have the money in the bank to do what God has asked you church to do…then you didn’t hear from God.
If every step is perfectly designed and nothing happens to totally throw you off along the way…then you didn’t hear from God.
If someone doesn’t try to talk you out of what you are about to attempt…then you didn’t hear from God.
If you don’t stay up at night thinking about the vision…then you didn’t hear from God.
If your vision is in contradiction to God’s Word…then you didn’t hear from God. (And no, you didn’t get a “special revelation” that gave you permission to trump His Word!)
If you know all of the answers…then you didn’t hear from God.

Something to think about,

Jeff

One who will be missed

2008-04-17T20:13:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! I write this with heavy heart, yet SO HAPPY for what my grandpa is experiencing. About 4:45 PM today I received notification from my mom that my grandpa passed away. He'd been battling for a while now, things turned for the worse Sunday, and after a long week he went home to be with his Savior! My dad, his two sisters and my grandmother were all able to be in the room when he passed. His body didn't struggle and he seemed to go in peace. We thank the Lord for that. My grandpa was ready to die. He wanted to go home. There are few men in my life that I looked up to more than him. I have INCREDIBLE God centered grandparents on both sides of my family. They don't just say it, they ABSOLUTELY live it. Memories have flooded my mind this week. I have GREAT memories of him. Tears have come. But this evening, every so often, I just smile. Grandpa is experiencing his reward. He is with God. I can't fathom that. WOW! Blows me away.

Our family will take off as soon as church is over on Sunday to drive to St. Louis. The funeral will be Monday. In the middle of this sermon series on eternity, my wonderful grandpa is experiencing it. I could fill this blog with things about him. When Sabrina and I got married we didn't know when we'd have kids, but I began praying a prayer for my kids that I have tried to pray every day. I looked up to and valued my grandparents SO MUCH so I prayed that at least my first born would know their grandparents. God answered that prayer and more. I'm not sure how long my kids will remember my grandparents, but they all know today that Papa Great is with Jesus in Heaven. His legacy lives on in them.

I'll miss you grandpa!

Jeff

The next One

2008-04-16T21:44:00.000-06:00

I am admittedly not a natural evangelist. And by evangelist I don't mean a traveling preacher. I mean the guy who can and does naturally share their faith with anyone at anytime. A true evangelist, with the spiritual gift of evangelism, can share their faith and not be obnoxious about it but actually engage the other person in a real conversation about faith, Jesus and salvation. An evangelist isn't the person who leaves a track on the toilet seat, or yells on the street corner. Anyway, that is for another post. It always gets me excited when I do get the opportunity to share my faith with someone who does not know Jesus and they are actually receptive or even initiate the conversation themselves. Just recently I met someone who openly does not know Jesus YET they are REALLY searching for the Truth. I was able to sit down with them for almost an hour and talk about my faith and theirs and try to answer some questions. In no way is this due to my amazing evangelist skills but to their pursuit of me to ask questions. This person had been turned off by other Christians, even pastors, because they weren't willing to allow them to question or search. The reason is they wanted them to make the decision NOW. I mean "Why wouldn't you do it now right?" Anyway, the reason I titled this "The next One" is because of what keeps me excited about my faith. What keeps me anticipating what will happen at Element Church. What keeps me pumped about what other churches experience. The thing that does this is the "next one" who will receive Jesus. We don't know who it will be but God does. The "next one" could be at your work. The "next one" could be in your home. The "next one" could be the person you meet tomorrow. I've added this person I've met to my prayer list and will pray for them by name each morning. I want to do my best and BE my best to them and around them to try and show them Christ in me. I don't know when or if they will receive Jesus but I know they could be the "next one". Do you have a next one? Do you pray for the "next one"?

Waiting for the next one,

Jeff

Devotional Thoughts...

2008-04-15T07:47:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church. I just finished John today in my devotional reading and thought I'd share some things I wrote down in my journal. I am and underliner and a writer. If I wrote down everything I underlined in Scripture I'd run out of paper quick, so I don't always journal what I underline. Anyway, I try to journal verses and thoughts that jump out at me more than others as I read that day. Here are some of my thoughts.

Matthew 1:21 --- Jesus came to save HIS people from their sins. No one else could do the job HE had to save HIS people. That is one of things that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. (I was going to say "that is what distinguishes" but I know some goober would say "That is not the ONLY thing...")

Matthew 7:2 --- Jesus never said that we "can't" judge. He said that the standard we use in judging is the standard that will be used against us. I don't have the authority to condemn, but I can tell by someones actions whether they are a "good tree" or a "bad tree".

Matthew 7:5 --- Jesus never said we can't point out the speck in someone else's eye, he said that we must first make sure that our eye is clear. If Pastor Grant, who is of my closest friends, has a speck in his eye, not only do I have the right to point it out, I think I am obligated as his friend. As long as my eyes are free of the "plank". When someone says "YOU CAN'T JUDGE ME!" They are in one sense correct that I don't hold their final judgment, but I sure can judge whether their conduct is fruitful or unfruitful. I know some will disagree, but I think in some cases we are responsible to "judge" our brothers so as to help correct heir behavior.

Matthew 7:12 --- If we do this we'll obey all the law. So hard to do, yet so simple.

Matthew 15:8-9 --- Where so many people are at in their life.

Matthew 18:3 --- Faith like a child.

Matthew 20:1-16 --- Good parable on people who decide to follow Christ later in life. Their reward is STILL the same.

Matthew 24:44 --- When is Jesus coming back? Not sure, I know we just need to be ready.

Matthew 27:9 --- This amazes me. The value of Jesus came to 30 pieces of silver. THAT'S IT!

I wrote this in my journal "The stone was rolled away for the men to see it empty, not for Jesus to walk out. He didn't need help to walk out, HE JUST LEFT!"

I'll catch up on Mark and John later.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Church Planting

2008-04-13T20:50:00.001-06:00

This post received some attention today at church. Several people asked about it. lol I figured it would. Just thought I'd add some thoughts about it. First off, I'm not mad at anyone and no one has tried to start a ministry at Element that I don't agree with OR start a church in opposition to Element. For two years now, since February of 2006, I've been in the church planting world, seen many different types of plants, talked to many different planters and run the gamut of hearing all types of planting stories. I've also seen and/or heard of all types of churches struggling with the "we should start this ministry" syndrome. From these things I've seen/heard I came to the conclusion of those top five reasons. They serve as a warning sign to ME because we are all susceptible to doing things for OUR sake and not Christ's. To me, the ONLY reason for doing anything in the church is the voice of God. ANYTHING! I've done things for MY sake in church. I've probably done some things at Element for MY sake. I don't want to do that. I don't want to see other guys do that. Anyway, it had been on my heart lately. I had started that blog on numerous occasions and erased it all. It all came out on Thursday. Church planting is near to my heart and I love seeing healthy church plants. I hurt to see it done unhealthy. Anyway, just from my heart. Thanks for listening.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (4-13-08)

2008-04-13T16:00:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Did some fun stuff today at church. Another great day and here are my ruminations on it!

--- 10 people acknowledged that they accepted Christ into their hearts today. YES! Again, that is what it is all about. Offering people Life in Christ fires me up. Pray for these new followers of Christ that the Holy Spirit will empower them to grow and strengthen in their faith.

--- 455 in attendance today. I'd love to stay in the 450 - 500 range while we continue to seek and pray for a new location to open up. We've passed 500 twice but just not sure how long we can sustain those #'s in the situation we are in. We'll continue to do church with all our might knowing that our God is not bound by walls, #'s of seats or movie times. God will continue to connect people with Life REGARDLESS. Amen? (Ha, now I've started preachin')

--- We tackled the subject of death and hell today. Wow, the gravity of death and the reality of hell still weighs on me. I'm sure I thought about it more this week than usual but it just blows my mind that people will die to today and experience hell. That weighed on my heart so heavy this week. I think it should every week. For more, read this.

--- To illustrate death and the reality that we'll all "go back in the box" I was carried into service in an enclosed coffin today. First of all, the next time I do that I HOPE I'M REALLY DEAD! That is not a "happy" feeling to lay in a casket and be carried to the platform. I don't do well in enclosed spaces.

Apologies to the first service. I had intended to start my sermon from inside the enclosed coffin and then come out. I couldn't hear anything in their so I started my sermon not knowing that on the outside my mic was cutting in and out and no one knew what I was saying. I got pretty flustered in the casket cause' I knew something wasn't right. Felt it affected the entire sermon after that. The sound issue really messed up. For service 2 and 3 I just opened up the casket right away and started off. Seemed to work MUCH better. Props to the four guys who carried me in and down the stairs. Tough stuff!

--- The band sounded GREAT again today. We opened the service with a cool instrumental. You'll have to watch online to check it out. The theme of worship was "salvation" today. Adam did a great job with worship on a tough week with hell. Singing of Jesus' provision for us and rescue from sin, death and darkness to righteousness, life and light was very appropriate.

--- Had two new theater workers letting us in today. They were not only on time, had doors open, lights on, BUT they helped with set up. They did a bunch of stuff for us. It was great!

--- 1 PM movie today, but the theater manager told our lobby crew it started at noon so we tore everything down and had nothing for 3rd service guests on their way out. Mis-communication.

--- Got news this morning that my Grandpa (dad's side) is not doing well at all. He's been in the hospital off and on for over a month now. A few months ago we thought he wasn't going to make it, everyone had said their goodbyes and funeral plans were made. He miraculously pulled through. As of today, they're not sure he'll make it through tonight. We're waiting to see what happens and if he does pass we'll be driving out to St. Louis to be with family and attend the funeral. Your prayers would be appreciated. He is 89 years old, LOVES GOD WITH ALL HIS HEART, and is READY to face eternity. I thought about him a lot today as we talked about eternity. He is one of the men who has influenced my life the greatest. Such a great example of being a godly man. Passed on to his son, then me, now hopefully I can do just as good passing it on to mine.

--- Speaking of MY son. Not good when the # for the pastor's kid flashes up on the screen from e:kidz. Let's just say this...I think Jonah thought he was gonna face eternity when I dealt with him once we got home! LOL He tried to pretend he was asleep when I came in his room. The anticipation of discipline is FAR worse than the actual sometimes.

--- Two more weeks with Eternity. This weekend I'll be trying to answer the question that everyone wants to know "What is the meaning of life?". The final week of Eternity is going to be FUN. Can't share everything for that week yet. ha ha ha

--- Our next two series are going to be a BLAST. We're tackling parenting in May, then in June we're doing a series that will be perhaps the toughest I've EVER done! WOW, do I need to get prayed up for that one. It's called "Untouchables" and we'll be tackling four subjects that the church needs to address. It is going to be tough. Adam came up with an amazing graphic for it. I'll unveil the graphics this week for those two series.

--- That's about it! Heading for my Sunday afternoon nap! Thanks Element Church for being a WONDERFUL group of people to serve. You guys are the best!

Following Christ,

Jeff

5 reasons NOT to start a church...

2008-04-10T21:16:00.002-06:00

...or any other ministry. Just because you've been to (insert name of church) and REALLY LIKED it doesn't mean you should start one yourself OR that your town needs one. I know, coming from someone who started a church that is ironic. Just because (insert name of church) started a ministry DOESN'T MEAN your church needs to start one. I've fallen for the trap in ministry before, maybe you have to, of seeing something work somewhere else and AUTOMATICALLY thinking "If we do that we'll get the same results." I've implemented programs, ministries, strategies and the like into youth ministries and churches I've led thinking they will give me the same results (insert church name) got. SO, that being said, here are my top 5 reasons NOT to start a church or any other ministry.

#5 I'm tired of being told what church should be like. HA. We start a church because we're tired of being told how church should be like, so we're going to do it how WE think it should be like. You know what happens as soon as, oh I don't know, five people are coming to your church? SOMEONE IS GOING TO TELL YOU HOW CHURCH SHOULD BE LIKE. Even with the success of Element, we've got our fair share of people, FROM OUR CHURCH, telling us how they think church should be done. That will never go away. EVER! People have opinions, they have preferences, that doesn't make them evil OR give you license to start a new church OR ministry.

#4 I was a good youth pastor (or staff pastor). LOL Funny thing is I WAS A YOUTH PASTOR before this. If you think you want to start a church because you were a good youth pastor and/or you could do church better, DON'T. A lot of guys start churches because they think they can do church better than the one they are already serving in. Did I always agree with my sr. pastor? No. Would I have done some things differently? Yes. Is that my reason for starting a new church. ABSOLUTELY, 100% NO!

#3 (insert name) thinks I could start a church. (insert name) likes my idea. Umm, unless GOD thinks you could start a church and GOD likes your idea you shouldn't do it. And if you are serving in a church and your pastor/leadership team doesn't feel "led" or "called" to do what your idea is, maybe they aren't the ones with the wrong vision. Just saying. Too many churches start and fail, and too many ministries start and stale because someone supports "MY" idea. Note "MY" idea.

#2 It worked for... Willow Creek, Saddleback, Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble. I don't care if it worked for the Apostle Paul it doesn't mean we'll get the same results. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "What model of church are you?" What they want to know is, are you doing church like Willow, Saddleback, NewSpring, Mars Hill (either one), or any other successful church. Why can't we do church like Element? I've been influenced by MANY churches and pastors, and most of them you would never know their name. I know of people who attend a church like one listed above, come back to their town and because their town doesn't have one of "those" churches they think one should be started. WHY? Maybe God doesn't want one of those churches in town. He may want you to start one but ONE THAT IS YOU AND NOT RICK WARREN! Now I have used ideas, principles and approaches from guys and churches like I mentioned, but THEY ARE NOT A REASON TO START A CHURCH OR A MINISTRY! What's funny is, typically when someone says we need a (insert name) type church or ministry, they start it and it's NOTHING like (insert name) would have done it. In fact they probably would hate it.

#1 I don't like..."...any churches in my town." "the ministries in our church." "my pastor." "my job." I'll take the last one first. If you don't like your job STARTING A CHURCH WON'T FIX THAT! Nuff' said. I've heard of and spoken to so many guys who use the "I don't like..." method of church planting or ministry adding. You know what? When it comes to something as serious as planting a church or starting a ministry, GOD COULD CARE LESS ABOUT WHAT YOU LIKE? He cares about what YOUR CITY and what YOUR CHURCH umm... I don't know NEEDS! And maybe, JUST MAYBE we don't always know what our church or city needs. If you don't like your pastor try PRAYING FOR HIM, or SUPPORTING HIM. If you don't like the ministries in the church try SERVING IN THEM TO MAKE THEM BETTER. If you don't like any churches in your town, well, tough cookies. It's not a reason to start one. This is by far THE MOST ABUSED REASON for starting churches and ministries in America.

Why did I start a church? Why SHOULD I start a church (or ministry)? Only...ONLY because the voice of God stirs my heart. ONLY! It was scary enough for me to start this church KNOWING that the only reason was that God was asking me to. If I were doing it for any of these other reasons I would be DOOMED to fail and KNOW IT from day one. NONE of those reasons are reasons to start a church. Ok, I'm done. That's been on my heart lately.

For more read this and this.

Listening for the call,

Jeff

Hell week!

2008-04-09T19:36:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! No, we're not doing any horrible initiation rituals or anything. Isn't hell week what they call Frat initiation time? Anyway. I was able to work on my message for Sunday most of the day today. I told Terri at the end of the day that I think it's the first time I've dedicated an entire message to death and hell. I've definitely talked about hell and probably hung some people over it when I shouldn't have, but never done a whole message on it. I am VERY excited about an illustration we're doing this week. It'll definitely be a first for me. You won't want to miss it. One thing I'm saying in my message is that I DO NOT like talking about hell, but I AM NOT afraid to. Hell is REAL. It is HORRIBLE. And it is a place that people are dying and going to EVERY DAY! That scares me. Not for me, but for everyone who is headed for eternity without knowing Jesus. People must know the truth about Heaven and hell.

Now, I am convinced of this. About a year ago I felt a shift in my heart. I've always said the old cliche question "Where would you go if you died tonight?" Or "If you died today, do you know if you'd go to Heaven?" Now, those are ok questions I guess, but I began to wonder if we were asking the wrong question. I think we're asking the wrong question. Instead of asking "Where would you go if you died?" What if we asked "Where COULD you go if you LIVED today?!" LIFE is what we long for. Life is what we need. And you know what? If I LIVE for Jesus today, guess where I go if I die? We've so focused on death so much that I think we forget to live. We've so taught about Heaven so much that I think we forget people are going to hell. I know for myself I need and want a higher awareness and sensitivity to the fact that people around me may be headed for eternity away from God, and are living their lives without the fullness of knowing Jesus. MAN that should rock our world. Does it yours?

Hell week. It's going to be a heavy week at Element, but what an opportunity to offer life. Be praying for us this week as we tackle this subject.

And now...

2008-04-07T09:40:00.000-06:00

Final drum roll please...? /\/\/\/\/\ *those are drumsticks* Here are my top three memories of the past 10 months.

#3 Gas buy down. With 502 people in church this past Sunday, what we did last May seems even crazier to me. I think God sometimes clouds our "fear factor" in moments when we need to advance without fear. We had about 10 - 12 committed Elementers on Memorial Day weekend when we pulled this thing off. We recruited family and friends to come help from Greeley, Oklahoma and Gillette just to have enough help. We wanted our first event in the city to be a servant project, and we thought helping people fill their gas tanks would be a great service. We had no real consistent offering coming in, no volunteer base, no way to really promote the event. You can read all about this event and how it worked in the following blogs. Bunch of posts on this one here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Little did I know where Element would go from here. I almost put this #1. It definitely gets the award for "Most Posts On The Blog For One Event".

#2 Element Gives Back. HOLY COW was this fun! We developed a blog to log all the stories of ways people gave back. Go to www.elementgivesback.com to check it out. We planned in August to do a sermon series in January on finances/stewardship. As we were approaching the series we began talking about how we were going to illustrate the scriptural principle of tithing and portraying the idea that "this money is not our own". The gives back idea is not original to us. We saw another church do this in a different way, so we prayed about it and felt like it would be an AMAZING way to model this and that God wanted us to do it. We felt like to do it correctly we wanted to give back one weeks entire offering to the congregation. So we made the decision that the offering from January 6th, we would give back in varying increments to the congregation, on January 13th. Little did we know the kind of impact it would have on our congregation. We spoke truthfully and openly about finances and God's command for us to give 10% of our income back to Him. This is something we hope to do every year at surprise times. It not only teaches the congregation to give back, but it keeps Element Church in that mode as well. You can read all about it here, here and here.

#1b October 7th, 2007 is a day I will never...NEVER forget. I cannot tell you how it feels as someone whom God called to come plant this church, to stand at the door of a theater and watch over 200 people come to hear the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. When we decided to do this thing I didn't have a clue if 2 people would come, let alone 200. I was amazed. ABSOLUTELY AMAZED! To literally begin to see the vision unfold before your eyes. To see the promises of God be fulfilled. Yet it was only the beginning. That day we worked SO HARD to get to, I stood there and said "This is only the beginning.". God didn't call us to launch Sunday. God didn't call us to "start" a church. He called us to lead this church, and I'll do it till I die or He calls me on. I think this would make any list I make from here on out. Not sure how launch Sunday doesn't take the cake. You can read about it here, here, here, and here.

#1a Another #1 is yet to come. Element Church, God is not done with you yet. What amazes me is the new stories that come, will blow these out of the water. God is in the business of doing AMAZING things through His people. It was fun for me to recount these stories, so if no one else enjoyed it I did. And to think, my wife had to talk me into start blogging. I'm so glad I did so we have record of all the things God has done. I'll leave you with this from Isaiah 55

"And these events will be great honor to the Lord's name; they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love."

Greater things are yet to come,

Jeff

Blog Link

2008-04-06T17:10:00.000-06:00

Hey guys! Just wanted to link you to Adams blog. I had almost blogged about how Adam was feeling today but thought I'd leave that up to him, lol, and he did. It was one of those Sundays for him where I think spiritually he was just really feeling attacked. We prayed about it before first service and I really felt like God used him and the band today. Anyway, thought I'd link you to that.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (4-6-08)

2008-04-06T14:19:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Three services took it's toll on my today more than any. I am worn out today. Not sure what the difference is. We had GREAT services today. Here is my rumination on the day.

--- We had no worship guides or connection cards today. Poor Curtis took them home on Friday night so he and his wife could stuff the guides with the connection cards. Somewhere between then and this morning, he put them on top of his wife's car, who then drove off with them on the car. Somewhere in Cheyenne someone knows A LOT about Element Church. Heather was rummaging through dumpsters in the area this morning looking for them. Needless to say it was quite the morning for them two. I gave Curtis a hard time about it from the platform. He took it like a champ.

--- Speaking of Curtis. He is leading Varsity Fusion tonight in a Random Act of Kindness that my wife and I are DEFINITELY taking advantage of. For 2 hours they are watching Element Kids so their parents can go on a date. HOOK ME UP! That link I posted goes to Curtis' blog. They are doing a fantastic job leading Fusion.

--- 502 in worship today. WOW! Folks, that blows my mind.

--- Had a noon movie again today. With our growth and the movie times something is gonna have to change. Announcement coming? We'll see!

--- Road Crew tear down was AMAZING today. The noon movie was not in our theater but a 12:30 one was. We were out the door by 12:10. People were walking in with their popcorn and sodas as we were closing the door.

--- I thought the worship set Adam put together was GREAT! I felt the "theme" of the set was Adams best as far as themeing everything together. We sang I Can Only Imagine and people seemed to really engage in that one.

--- It sure seems people are beginning to experience freedom in worship. Just seeing more and more people engage physically and emotionally to the worship.

--- Started our Eternity series today. Talked about Heaven. I felt it went really well. I was struggling earlier this week putting something together since it is such a HUGE topic. I ended up feeling great about it leading into today and after today.

--- Next week will be tough. Tackling the subject of hell. The reality of it according to Scripture.

--- We had a better turnout in e:coustic today. That service hasn't grown like I'd like thus far but we saw some good growth from last week. I think we had around 50 in there today. Only 33 last week. It's helped alleviate a little pressure in the other services. We could use some more road crew help in there to set up. If you're interested you can email me.

--- Sundays fly by for me with the craziness of the three service transitions. I start out in our main worship center then head over to e:coustic at 7:30 to help the road crew there. By the way, to the guys who are helping in e:coustic, YOU ARE DOING AWESOME! Keep it up. Then we tear down and we're out. Amazing how quickly it goes by. Hard to imagine we are at the theater for 6 hours on a given Sunday.

--- I can't say this enough...All the Element volunteers are incredible! You guys make Sunday morning what it is.

--- Love serving and leading you guys. Thanks for allowing me the pleasure of doing it.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Top 10 part 2

2008-04-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

YO Element Church! Here is #6 - 4. So hard to pick just 10 moments but I'm trying. Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, thought it would be a good blog. And now...

#6 Our first preview service. Before we launched on October 7th of 2007, we did several preview services. Our first one was the first Sunday in July. A preview is just that, sneak peak at what the church will be like. It provides time for the church to "practice" what a Sunday will be like when they launch. Crazy to see our set up from then. We had to haul in every stage piece every week. You can read about it and look at pictures here, here and here.

#5 Two services. Funny how each decision we make gets bigger and bigger. Every decision, at the moment, seems like the biggest decision we've ever made. We actually struggled so much with going to two services. I can't imagine NOT doing two, and now we're doing three. If you'd have told me in November we'd be doing three by March, I would have needed a new pair of pants. You can read about two services here and here.

#4 Egg Drop and Easter: Ok, I'm running out of spots so I had to put two into one. Doing the egg drop and then the full house on Easter are tied for #4. Did I want to be this far by March in our church? YES! Was I shocked? YES! lol, every pastor wants their church to grow like this, but every pastor also knows that each church responds and moves at different paces. God has chosen to bless Element Church in the last 6 months. Here, here and here are Egg Drop and Easter thoughts.

Three through one coming soon!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Top 10 part 1

2008-04-03T19:56:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! It's been 10 months since we did our first major servant project and started our Unplugged services (June of 07). With that I wanted to offer my Element Top 10 moments. I'll link you to a few of my archived blogs from my Top 10. It's amazing where God has brought us in 10 months, and I think it's fun to remember what has happened. So, without further adieu, the Element Top 10. Drum roll please....

#10 Starting Life Group and finding our office and finding the theater all in the same month. Here is a link to a blog on our Life Group. 13 people came. I remember how excited I was. It seemed like FOREVER before people came to our group. Here is a link to finding our office. MAN, God provided a great space for us. I think it was and is HUGE to start with an office as soon as possible. And Here is a link to our first tour through the theater. My comments are funny in light what we're going through now.

#9 Egg Hunt Cancelled! In April of 07' we were going to serve at the city egg hunt by providing inflatable games. This would have been our first face into the city. We put an ad in the paper and were REALLY excited about serving and then it got canceled. We were very bummed. Here, here and here are a some posts on it. And look at how GREAT this years event was.

#8 Christmas Outreach. This outreach wasn't as "flashy" as some of the other things we have done but that wasn't the point. I was SO excited to actually help out 4 specific moms and their families over Christmas. They were all blown away. Read about it here and here. 8 moms this year? 12? I hope to go all out again for some families.

#7 First Element Wedding. This was so much fun and it made it so much better to have my boy Grant help perform the ceremony. Read about it here.

This is hard. Didn't know how hard it would be to pick 10. I'll give you four more tomorrow. My top 2 are SET! Easy to name my top 2. But you'll wait.

What are your favorite Element moments?

Foolish

2008-04-02T20:35:00.000-06:00

This post by Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington D.C. was awesome!

Teaser: The people God uses the most are people that aren't afraid of looking foolish. In fact, if you aren't willing to look foolish you're foolish!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Heaven is big!

2008-04-02T20:25:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! No I didn't have a near death experience, but I did figure out through studying my sermon that this is a HUGE subject to tackle. Holy cow! I'm excited about this Sunday's message as we talk about Heaven. I REALLY struggled putting this message together the further I got in because of how much stuff you could talk about. The Bible has a lot to say about Heaven and we have LOTS of questions about it. I finally felt like I broke through this afternoon and I am very excited about the approach we'll be taking as we look at Heaven. I hope we all have a greater understanding of Heaven and eternity after this Sunday.

I spoke at the MOPS group out at Cheyenne Hills this morning. I was a asked a few months ago to come speak on their "salvation message" day and was honored to do so. Adam and I definitely did NOT fit in a room full of women. It was a lot of fun and I appreciated the opportunity to share with the ladies.

I didn't feel real well today. Battled a headache from about noon on. Not sure what was going on. Feel better now. Sab and the kids are over at a friends house so just waiting on them to return. I know, kind of a weird post.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Lead Team

2008-03-31T22:34:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! On Monday's we usually have an all staff meeting over lunch and then break into a Lead Team meeting which includes the pastoral staff (Grant, Curtis, Adam and myself). Today however we called off the all staff meeting and went into an extended Lead Team meeting to pray and brainstorm some major decisions coming up in the life of Element Church. If God leads and opens doors, we may just be advancing into some uncharted territory for Element Church. All I can say right now is to please pray for God's direction for the Lead Team in these decisions. There are two things that I am going to be SO EXCITED to announce this month if things progress as we hope. HA, I love leaving everyone hanging.

My sermon this past Sunday could not have come at a more opportune time. In August we planned this Heroes series and I knew on March 30th I would be preaching on Jonathan and his armor bearer from 1 Samuel 14. I knew I would be preaching on the warrior's heart and "ADVANCING AT ALL COSTS". "Anticipating the response of God" Jonathan advanced against the multitude of philistines on the notion that "perhaps God will help us". Hmm, coincidence? Both of these decisions we have to make are "advancing" decisions. Both of them are risky. Both of them need God to show up. And both of them are scary!

In all major decisions we have make at Element Church the Lead Team whiteboard's it. "We need to whiteboard this" is becoming a common Element Team phrase. We write down the pro's, con's, questions for the decision we are making. It really helps us brainstorm all possible options. It helps us dream. It helps us get a grasp on what we are facing. We pray about what we whiteboarded and the ultimate decision rests in the Holy Spirits leading on all we talked about. I'd love to show you a picture of today's whiteboard, but I can't.

Ok, I've already shared too much. I love this church and I love Elementers. You guy's are the greatest. You put up with me every week and these crazy leave you hanging blogs. Be praying for the team. Also, Eternity series starts this week. VERY excited about that.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (3-30-08)

2008-03-30T14:40:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Can you say April? I knew you could. Amazing that April is upon us. In some ways it seems like we've been doing Element for years, and in others it has BLOWN by. This weekend will be 6 months since we launched. Today was another awesome day at Element Church. Here my my ruminations on the day!

--- Check out the new Fusion Student Ministry Blog. Curtis started blogging his thoughts from the youth ministry. Curtis is doing a PHENOMENAL job leading our teens. He's posted two times in the previous couple weeks so he's already moving ahead of Adam and Grant. HA!

--- 406 in church today. God continues to bring us people and we are blessed and honored to have them. I said today in 3rd service that I am amazed people come to our church. I am truly humbled and honored that God chose me to do this. Thank you to all who make Element possible.

--- I am having less and less of hand in what goes on during Sunday which means more and more is being done through our volunteers. We have AMAZING volunteers. It's dangerous to name names but I'm going to. Pam (sound tech) is completely mixing the service on her own now and doing a great job. A few weeks ago I I was helping her mix everything. She's learned everything on the fly! Heidi REALLY stepped up in the lighting this week in 1st and 2nd service. I thought the settings she created were awesome! Kevin is doing great stepping up as leader of the e:coustic team. I think in a matter of weeks we'll hand that over completely to the team. I just love seeing people serve. We have a LOT of volunteers and they all do such an amazing job. WAY TO GO TEAM!

--- I LOVED the worship set and feel today. Adam's arrangement of the old hymn "All Creatures Of Our God and King" was awesome. The band was very smooth today and the spirit of worship was VERY good in the room. It is SO COMFORTING as a preacher to know that the worship each week is truly going to set up the Word. Every week, I know that Adam has put together a set that will usher in God's presence and prepare the people to hear the Word of God.

--- Our transitions between services were perfect today. I had a few minutes of time to spare in between all of them. We've only done this three weeks but it seems like it's always been there. Weird!

--- I hear Curtis is doing a great job on announcements in each service. Who knows, I may let him do that every service. No need for me to do it in first service. lol Don't do something good or you may just inherit it as your job.

--- One month from now our newest staff member arrives. VERY excited about that! Andy and Aubrey Hazelet will be arriving in early May and taking over the JV portion of Fusion. They are going to be a great addition to our team.

--- I mentioned today in the service, and I absolutely mean it, that the guys who work on my staff are the best in the world. I really do hope you all understand how great Grant, Adam and Curtis are.

--- I spoke in the sermon today how much I appreciate the hearts of those guys. I go to work each day and preach on the platform each week knowing they are with me "HEART AND SOUL".

--- Today we looked at the final Hero Jonathan and his armor bearer. I love that passage and the courage of those two. Willing to advance regardless of the cost! We talked about "the heart of a warrior" as we closed out the series.

--- Dedicated two children in the service today. I love doing that. Our set up is DEFINITELY not conducive to doing dedications, or anything on the platform, but it was a joy to dedicate those kids. One being the son of one of my closest friends, Ben. Very proud of the dad Ben has and is becoming and his dedication to the church. To know the Ben of Oklahoma Bible Academy (our high school), and the Ben of today is awesome to see where God's brought him. Way to go Ben!

--- We are baptizing 5 people in one hour. 3 of them got saved at Element Church. YES! Jonah asked if he could be baptized today. He was VERY upset when I told him no. Not sure he's ready yet. Although I know he asked Jesus into his heart and understands what Jesus did for him. I just want him to understand the significance and importance of baptism. I don't think I'd let him take communion at this age. We'll see. I want to be careful as a parent to teach them what those things mean so they understand the value of them.

--- My bracket is in the pot! Literally I might just flush it. I think I'm beating Adam though and I KNOW I'm beating Grant. He was WAY down there. That's what he gets for picking against OU just to spite me! He'll learn.

--- 4 PM baptism makes for a long day. It's usually at 3 PM I'm laying down for my nap. But I definitely mind missing my nap for this!

--- OK, that's it! That was a lot of rambling. My mind is usually so full and just RACING with thoughts on Sunday. I should wait until Monday to type the rumination. PEACE OUT!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Heroes Closure

2008-03-27T22:28:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! I'm back in town and was back in the office. I had an unbelievable time with my wife being away. It was a very nice sabbath rest for us. We don't get much time to just have to each other with the four kids around so having my mom take the kids for a few days was AWESOME! Thanks mom!

I can't believe we are closing out Heroes this week. I am VERY excited about this message. When we planned this series back in August, I knew I'd preach on this passage. We're looking at an obscure passage in 1 Samuel where Jonathan and his armor bearer take on a hoard of philistines in battle. This sermon this week is REALLY challenging me at the stage of life we are in at Element Church.

God changed directions on us for the next series called Eternity. We had planned a series called "Marked: Living for Eternity" but it started to be to similar to Heroes so we switched gears and Adam helped me in putting together "Eternity: Heaven, Hell and the In Between". We feel this is a great follow up to Easter and the Heroes series. We are dedicating one entire message to Heaven, one to Hell and two to what I do from now until eternity.

I'm working a rare Friday tomorrow since I was out most of the week. Again, very excited about the sermon and church on Sunday.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Devotional Thoughts

2008-03-25T14:59:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church. I was doing pretty good consistently posting some devotional thoughts of mine from my morning quiet times. I think the last time I posted on here I was way back in the OT somewhere before the prophets. Thought it was time to post a few things. I just finished Matthew today. Cool to read through the Easter story two days after Easter. Here are some thoughts from my devos. There is lots more but I've waited to long to share it. These are some of my favorites from the past several months.

Daniel 3 --- The story of Rack, Shack and Benny (veggie tales names) inspires me EVERY time I read. That story never gets old. The courage and resolve of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego is motivating. Their "But even if..." moves me.

Daniel 6:10 --- King Darius signed a decree saying no one could pray to anyone but him for 30 days and this verse describes Daniels response. "But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with it's windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to God." He didn't shut the window. He didn't change his routine. He didn't cry out "WHY ME LORD?" He thanked God, AS HE ALWAYS DID! Love that. I want that attitude.

Hosea 6:3 --- Great prayer "Oh that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know Him."

Hosea 13:6 --- Good warning for a new church like ours experiencing success. "But when you had eaten and were satisfied, you became proud and forgot me." #1 I don't EVER want to be satisfied. Unless every person in our city is saved I don't want to be satisfied. God's desire is for "all men to come to repentance". It should be ours as well. #2 Only one person deserves any credit for what's happened at Element. THE LORD GOD OF HEAVEN'S ARMIES! I can't explain what's happened at our church. Sure I wanted it to happen when we started, but God made it happen. No amount of planning or vision can MAKE something happen. Only God can. I will continue to seek vision from God and cast it as best I can. We will continue to plan and "orchestrate" to the best of our ability, but without the divine intervention of Almighty God our efforts are in vain. All that from one little verse. lol May we NEVER forget God or take credit for what is done.

Amos 5:20-21 to long to type it out. Read it here. You can also read another post about this passage I did here. God doesn't want our traditions, our methods, our liturgy. He wants an ENDLESS RIVER of righteousness and justice.

Amos 7:14-15 Read it here. This is exactly how I feel most of the time. I'm not a professional, but God called me.

Micah 2:7b --- "If you would do what is right you would find my words comforting." The reason most people don't like God's words is because they are not doing what is right.

Micah 6:6-8 --- Again, God doesn't want our sacrifices, our offerings or words. This is what the Lord requires of you. Read it here.

Zechariah 4:10 --- God gave me this verse when we started Element. "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand."

I'll post my thoughts from Matthew another time. This got too long.

Following Christ,

Jeff

My Hero Video

2008-03-25T00:42:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church. Here is the video we showed on Sunday. Not sure why it lost so much quality but you can view it anyway.

Easter Rumination (3-23-08)

2008-03-24T14:56:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Sabrina and I are on a little retreat this week. Our denomination has a pastors and wives retreat every year following Easter. This year our Conference was holding ours in Cody, WY. Adam and Amber as well as Sab and I were planning on attending. Last week we got the news that they were canceling the retreat due to the medical condition of our Conference Superintendents wife, Vonda. Vonda has been battling brain cancer for the past year. They said that she took a pretty bad turn for the worse and Dale (superintendent) needed to focus on her and memorial service plans and not the conference. The conference reimbursed each church their expenses that we already paid for the retreat at encouraged every church to still send their pastors on a retreat. SO, here we are. Enjoying a few days away with just Sabrina and myself. Our hotel just now got their Internet working. I tried blogging last night from my phone but it wouldn't publish. (Yeah, I'm sick, I know) My mom drove to Cheyenne from Wisconsin and is watching the kids. It's been a day now away from the kids and although it is a MUCH needed break for us, I think we would live VERY boring lives without our kids. it's 3 PM and we're like "We don't have anything to do". lol It's a very refreshing and energizing time for us so far to take a break from everything. It's hard for me to take a break, but I think it's good to do so. Thank you all SO much for being a part of Element Church. We did get word this morning that our Superintendents wife passed away. Please pray for the Erbele family as they go through this. The last I talked with Dale he said that he told Vonda "For years we have showed people how to live. Now we need to show them how to die." They have been a SHINING example of life through this.

Ok, here are my ruminations on Easter Sunday.

--- 27 people indicated that they received Christ yesterday. I was praying for 20. WOW! Pray that these people make the next step in their walk with Christ.
--- 528 attended one of our three worship experiences on Sunday. Dude, 528, are you kidding me? I'm am BLOWN AWAY! When we started this adventure I knew that with God ANYTHING is possible, but I didn't necessarily think it would happen. May God receive all credit and glory.
--- Third service was JAM PACKED. Didn't seem like a seat was left.
--- e:coustic was full too. We draped off the back two rows but it was filled up pretty well. That service is so chill. Very laid back. I actually preach sitting for most of the service. When I get worked up I gotta stand though.
--- We made the service one hour yesterday. We were expecting a bigger crowd so we wanted good traffic flow. Transitions went great yesterday.
--- We had to break into the theater to set up. We got to the theater around 6 AM and our theater worker was nowhere to be found. We broke in and worked in the dark till nearly 7 AM. Grant used a leatherman to get the lights on eventually. Our worker showed up about 7:30. Crazy.
--- I did a REALLY cool illustration to close my sermon. Illustrating how it's not the outside that matters but the heart. You'll have to watch it online to see it.
--- The praise team all wore sport coats and Grant, Curtis and myself were in suits. Good lookin' bunch of dudes.
--- I serve with the GREATEST team ever man! I am blown away by our staff and volunteers. It's amazing what we pull off on a Sunday and the volunteers that do it are unreal. For 5 months old to have the # and quality of volunteers blows my mind. I can't wait to see where God takes us.
--- I love preaching three times. Sounds weird, but I actually think it's easier than two. The 2nd service actually rests me up for third. Sitting to preach, chillin' with those great people just gets me ready for third service. By third service I nearly have my sermon memorized. There has been GREAT energy in that service so far too. Really cool!
--- LOVED the song we sang "At The Cross" Such great words to it. "You tore the veil. You made a way, when you said that it is done!" LOVE THAT LINE!
--- We put together a very moving movie piece with clips from The Passion put to music with the Foo Fighters "My Hero". It is waiting to be approved on Google video. I'll put it on here asap so you can see it or link it to anyone else.
--- Yesterday was a lot of fun. If you're an Elementer THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR CHURCH! Pray for many of our guests to return and for those who made decisions as well.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Easter Weekend Prayer Requests

2008-03-22T11:16:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! HUGE weekend for the Kingdom of God and for us at Element Church. If you could take a break from your day and pray for a few moments on the following things I would greatly appreciate it. These are some things that are on my heart before our Resurrection celebration.

1. The Lost --- Seriously we should approach the throne of grace with confidence on this one. No one wants to see the lost come to church tomorrow more than our Father. Pray that Element and ALL Bible believing/preaching churches are filled tomorrow with fellow Cheyenneites who do not know Jesus as their personal Savior. Tomorrow is the one day a year that most people at least seriously think about attending church. Pray that God gets them there.

2. Element Church --- We are expecting a lot of people tomorrow. Pray for a sense of expectation. Pray for the Holy Spirit to FILL that theater with His presence. Pray for each person who will attend. Pray for Adam as he leads us in worship. Pray for me as I ask the question "How has Easter affected you?" Because of the crowd we are expecting we are intentionally shortening our service to create more comfortable traffic flow between services. Pray that we are smooth with our times and transitions.

3. Movie Times --- Every Saturday I check the paper to see when movies will be playing. I opened today's and there are 4 movies starting at straight up noon. I was under the impression that that was not going to happen but apparently I was wrong. We typically get done with church at 11:45 and are out by 12:30. That poses a slight problem. I'm not sure what screens those noon movies are showing, but if they are in any of ours we will have an issue. PRAY PRAY PRAY that it does not cause disruption to our presentation of the Gospel. The GREATEST message ever told we get to tell again tomorrow and offer a life changing experience to people.

4. Other pastors/churches --- Pray that God would bless the other pastors and churches around our city with WONDERFUL Resurrection celebrations. Pray for the words to be spoken and the Gospel to be proclaimed in all churches tomorrow, not just ours.

Why pray these things? Our main Scripture tomorrow is taken from Acts 26 where Paul is telling King Agrippa what God had told him he was sending him to do. "Yes, I am sending you to the Gentiles to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me."

That is how God wants Easter to affect us. Tomorrow, people will be given the opportunity to turn from darkness to light. To be rescued from the power of satan unto God. They can receive forgiveness of sins through the RISEN JESUS which is the ONLY way we can have a place among God's people, and be set apart through our faith in Him. WOW, what an opportunity.

Anticipating and Expecting,

Jeff

Easter and beyond

2008-03-20T09:21:00.001-06:00

Hey Element Church! Don't forget, three opportunities to celebrate Easter this coming Sunday at Element Church. I'm VERY excited about the message and day we have planned. In typical Element style, we aren't doing a "typical" Easter service. Whatever typical is. We're going to be asking the question "How has Easter affected you?". I'll be doing a REALLY cool illustration in my message that will hopefully bring home the point we're trying to make. Take this natural opportunity to invite your friends, co-workers and family to church. Easter is a time when most people are at least thinking about attending a church service. Why not Element?

I like to give you Element insiders the scoop on what's coming next. Here are the graphics for our next series called "Eternity: Heaven, Hell and the in between". It should be a great series to follow up our Easter time and Heroes series. Everyone wants to know about the afterlife. Is Heaven and Hell real. What is it like? And what do I do until I get there? Hopefully this will answer some common questions and challenge us to live for eternity.

When they catch it...

2008-03-18T19:42:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! I love it when people catch what you're throwing. And no, I'm not talking about baseball, football or cow chip tossing. I'm talking about vision, leadership, example. I saw this lived out in one of my children yesterday and that REALLY excites me.

There is nothing more frustrating as a pastor or a parent (they can feel amazingly similar depending on what church you are in, lol) than the people you are leading not catching what you're throwing. Now, I know many a parent and MANY a pastor who get upset when people don't catch what they throw, the problem is that those same parents and pastors wouldn't catch it themselves if someone threw it to them. The parent/or pastor challenges the children/or people to do something, or be something, or go somewhere, etc. that they themselves won't or wouldn't do or go. Amazing how folks can see through that pretty quick. However, when people DO catch it, it's so cool to watch. Back to my child.

We got some snow on Sunday night into Monday morning that left a small but decent coating over the ground. I was at work and Sabrina was working around the house as Jonah headed outside to play. A few minutes later Sabrina poked her head out of the front door to see what the guy was up to and he was at our neighbors shoveling their driveway. He got it cleaned off as best he could then went to the next one. He then did the walks. He came back in and Sabrina said "What were you doing out there?" Jonah answered "Shoveling the neighbors driveways." She asked "why?" His response (I LOVE THIS) "There was snow on it." HA! I LOVE it. A few months ago I took Jonah with me to clean off some neighbors walks and drives. When he asked me "why?" my response was pretty similar. "Their is snow on it so we want to help!"

I don't know if Jonah would have done that on his own without first me throwing it to him. In the church it's the same thing. The people won't get out and serve unless we serve first. They won't love unless we love first. They won't live unless we live first. They won't catch it when we throw it unless we catch it first! And by the way, Element is catching it!

When they catch it...

Jeff

Voice trumps budget every time!

2008-03-17T21:38:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! This has been on my heart lately, and after this weekend I felt I needed to blog it. I don't claim to be a church leadership, church planting, or church in general expert, but I do feel that through this process of planting a church I have learned a TON of stuff! WOW has this been a learning process. One of the things I have learned the most about doing church is the value of listening to God's voice OVER the budget when the two conflict. Does that mean we don't have a budget. NO! We developed a budget pretty early in the process but I learned very quickly that the voice of God doesn't always come to us when a budget is being made. (I also learned that the budget of a growing church plant changes weekly lol) Sometimes the voice of God comes at a time when it APPEARS there is no money. Hmm, there in lies the conundrum. I TRULY believe that many churches around our country do not reach their maximum impact in their community because they listen to the budget first, and the voice of God second specifically when the two conflict. Now I know that we can use this TOTALLY as an excuse to spend money willy nilly on stuff that is NOT of God, HOWEVER, it is an issue we must address. Already in the life of our very young church I feel God has asked us to do some things that if we we listened solely to our budget, we wouldn't have done them. At the heart of our DNA at Element is serving our city. This already has created voice vs. budget issues. In May of last year we really felt like our opening service project to the city should be a gas buydown. This made NO sense when we had less than 20 people committed to our church. It didn't make sense financially or voluntarily BUT God's voice trumped budget. AND IT WAS HUGE! It didn't make sense in September to do another gas buydown before we launched our services, but voice trumped budget. It didn't make sense in January to give one weeks entire offering away so our people could serve others, but voice trumped budget. We moved into February and we quickly outgrowing our space. Our lead team sat down and talked about options. The ONLY options that would work included MAJOR financial risks for us, HOWEVER, voice automatically trumped budget when it came to reaching our city for Christ. When we did our budget last November we didn't plan on adding an entire service in another venue and seeing 370 people come to church. What if we would have set the precedent of listening to the budget and not the voice? A third service with the price tag it had would have been shut down pretty quick. What about the egg drop? That came out of NOWHERE for us. HOWEVER, our DNA is to serve EVEN if it costs money. We knew God wanted us to do an Easter outreach and when the opportunity arose VOICE TRUMPED BUDGET. We committed financially to the drop and what happened? FREE HELICOPTERS! If we would have listened to the budget we would have NEVER had the opportunity to watch God provide like that. This calls for some SERIOUS prayer for wisdom and discernment as Element continues to minister and serve. As I continue to lead this church, my prayer is that We/I will ALWAYS listen to the voice and NOT the budget. Voice trumps budget every time. Now I probably made some people mad. (the ones that listen to the budget) lol

Following Christ,

Jeff

Egg Drop Video

2008-03-16T18:22:00.000-06:00

Here is the highlight video that Adam put together. I apologize for the quality. We had to reduce it quite a bit to get it uploaded. I'll try to get a better quality sometime this week. ENJOY!

Sunday Rumination (3-16-08)

2008-03-16T14:32:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Well, three services was a SUCCESS! I don't know if it could have gone any better for the first time. The last couple of weeks have felt we were re-launching a new church. It's great to have the other venue and totally opens up more space for us to grow as a church. Here are my ruminations on the day.

--- WE MADE IT! lol The slogan at the office lately has been "If we make through this weekend..." It's been go big or go home lately at Element. Scheduling three consecutive MAJOR events on the same weekend is crazy. My staff has permission to shoot me if I do this again any time soon.

--- Friday we had a GREAT time at our volunteer appreciation banquet. We had a great meal, great fellowship and great entertainment. We opened up the floor for people to share testimonies and I was blown away at what some people said. God is so good!

--- 4, 1, and 8. Those are the #'s of hands I saw raised in our three services of people who prayed to receive Christ today. I love offering Life to people. It's what we're all about.

--- 386 in church today! Second service was packed. I'm a horrible guesser at how many we have in church. I was sure there was over 400. 386, 5 months. STILL blows me a way.

--- I only get to be involved in worship one time now during first service. I don't know what the other two were like but the Holy Spirit was SO heavy during first service today. People were very engaged and it just seemed to click like no other Sunday. I love when God chooses to saturate a room with His presence. He did that today.

--- My voice held up. PTL! I drank some hot tea with honey yesterday a couple of times, and drank LOTS of water yesterday and today. In fact, my voice felt great all the way through. Thank you for those of you who were praying for me. I seriously could feel my voice stay strong when I thought it might give out.

--- E:coustic from beginning to end went great! THANK YOU so much to those of you who have stepped up to serve in there. The team for e:coustic today was GREAT! I left our normal room to oversee e:coustic set up. Those guys rocked it out today. In a couple of weeks they'll be on their own running that thing. Except for a few minor hiccups, set up and tear down went GREAT over there. It was so cool after 3rd service to walk across the hall and it was ALL put away correctly. GREAT JOB TEAM!

--- The transitions went pretty smooth between the services. I ended 1st service and got to 2nd service as they were singing the last song. We then had a 2 1/2 minute sermon illustration video. By the way, the e:coustic room looked great. Very simple but very cool!

--- Two guys from the worship team closed out first service with a song for offering, we played a song off itunes for 2nd.

--- As I was getting to the end of my message in 2nd, I could not remember for the LIFE of me what time I needed to be done. It's a good thing I ended when I did cause I was making my way across the hallway and Adam comes running out "YOU'RE ON DUDE!" I ran into our e:worship room and changed out microphones, ran down front, got my notes and my podium in place almost exactly when the illustration video ended. It was close! WAY close! BUT WE MADE IT!

--- I LOVED third service preaching today. VERY relaxed. VERY comfortable. VERY prepared. LOL I think I about had my sermon memorized by then.

--- Props to my boy Adam who is doing a great job timing out our services. Also, props to Adam who stayed up nearly all night getting footage of the egg drop to show a highlight video today at church. I'll put that up as soon as Google video approves it.

--- Props to Grant and Curtis. Those boys stepped up their game in the three services as well today. Curtis is now doing announcements in the two of the three services. Grant is organizing 2 first impressions teams and closed 2nd service for me. Grant is also becoming the pastor people can connect with following the two services that I cannot. Wow, craziness!

--- I seriously LOVE our staff team. I say this a lot, but I hope you guys realize how GREAT those guys are. Unbelievable.

--- It was very weird telling the same jokes and stories three times. A couple times I said in my mind "Have I already said this to these people?" Apologies if I repeated anything. I actually really enjoyed preaching three times. I know, I'm a sick person! To me, it was easier to go three consecutive times, than to preach once and have to wait. Weird!

--- EASTER THIS SUNDAY! If you're an Elementer you need to invite someone to Easter services. I hope we pack that place out! We are doing a VERY cool illustration this Sunday and hopefully we'll be pulling off one of the most powerful dramas I've ever seen.

--- I was wacky in 3rd service. The energy was very high in that service. I was all jacked up with energy from already preaching 2 times. There is not much that gets me higher than preaching. I LOVE IT! I hope it shows. Be funny if I love preaching but no one wanted to listen.

--- Be praying for us as we're looking at another building option this week. If it worked out this would be a semi-permanent location but we'd no longer portable. It would service us for the next couple of years, depending on growth levels in the church. Portability in church is exhausting. Without some MAJOR superstar volunteers coming early and staying late we could not do what we do.

--- Well, thanks to Katie Sab and I enjoyed lunch by ourselves and have the afternoon to ourselves at home today. That means un-interrupted nap time, which is where I'm headed. If I think of anything else I'll post more later.

I love Element Church! Thanks guys.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Wind Chill = 9; Snow = 1/2 to 1 inch; Egg Drop? AMAZING

2008-03-15T14:34:00.000-06:00

YO YO YO Element Church! Amazing what went down today. Absolutely amazing! That's Curtis (youth pastor) hangin' out of the chopper droppin' eggs. HOW COOL IS THAT? No one else but God deserves credit for what was pulled off this morning at Miller Field. Absolutely amazed. Here is what went down today. I need to be careful or I'll type WAY too long.

6 AM got up and went right to the window. Much to my chagrin, there was a coating of snow on the ground, weather channel said 22 degrees with a wind chill of 9. I filled my coffee cup and headed down to the office to make some final preparations for today. (I fully expected to cancel the event at this time)

7 AM picked up Adam and drove trailer over to the field. It was VERY cold and everything was covered in snow. Within minutes volunteers were showing up. I looked at Adam and said "I don't think we can do this." Adam said "Bro, we've got to do it!" The volunteers said "What can we do to pull this off?" ...I paused and said "Shovels...LOTS AND LOTS OF SHOVELS". People made phones calls for shovels, others went home for shovels. Our thoughts were on shovels. The Sun wasn't even up at this point. I'm thinking "Will anyone show up?" HA, wow. What small thinking I have sometimes.

Our volunteers absolutely ROCKED IT OUT today. AMAZING! Seriously they did an unbelievable job pulling this off. We had 20 people shoveling a stinking football field. We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. People received their assignments for game areas, cleared it with a shovel and set up their games. At 9 o'clock a line started forming. Gates didn't open until 9:45 AM.

The Sun was up, wind was down and it turned into a BEAUTIFUL day. By the time we dropped the eggs it was sunny and in the 40's. The line of people waiting to get in seemed to go on forever. Folks, over 2000 people came to the egg drop today. 1000 kids received a ticket and we know that many families bypassed the tickets and just came in. There may have been 3000 there. IT WAS PACKED!

The helicopter came roaring in and did an amazing job hovering and dropping the eggs. They flew over several times and the crowd screamed and yelled. So cool! The amount of people was overwhelming. We weren't prepared for that many. I'm so glad we ordered the extra 10,000 eggs to make it 25,000 total. After we cleared the field of snow we covered it with about 10,000 eggs.

After the chopper dropped the eggs the kids were chompin' at the bit to hit that field. When we did the countdown it was CHAOS! 1000 kids going nuts over Easter eggs. Some kids got WAAY to much while others who weren't as aggressive were short changed.

We gave away 4 Easter baskets, tons of candy, a video ipod, and a Nintendo Wii with a video chair. While we were standing there the YMCA director said "I'll throw in two 6 month memberships to give away." HA, that was crazy.

We're already talking about changes to make. No event is perfect by any means. There are MANY things we can do better. Now that we've done it once, we kinda know what to expect. We seriously may need 50,000 eggs next year. LOTS of people asked if we were doing this again. LOTS of people were VERY interested in Element Church. Our goal was not to get people to church, it was simply to serve the city and say "This is for YOU!" If no one comes to church because of it we'll STILL do it again next year, BIGGER AND BETTER!

If you were a volunteer today and have any suggestions for us as far as logistics, traffic flow, personnel, please email me and let me know. We need to start compiling a list of how to improve the event. I think the advertising worked. LOL

Two weeks ago we started planning this thing. TWO WEEKS! In two weeks God pulled a LOT together. WOW! I think for two weeks of planning it went pretty well. I felt bad for the pre-school area. They were overflowing. Also, I apologize for any families who were jipped on candy and eggs. I trust that the majority of the people had a GREAT experience today. In any event this big there are bound to be people who don't get a good experience. Our goal next year will be to make it smoother, more enjoyable and more successful.

If adding our third service tomorrow goes this well, I'll be a happy man. I was more nervous for this event today than any other event I've done EVER in church. I did not feel ready yesterday. Element E:Team, you guys ROCK! Thank you to all who helped out. Watch tonight on the 10 o'clock news for a report on the day. They were out there and interviewed me following the event.

Told ya I'd type too long. Praise the Lord for safety, good weather, amazing people and out of this world volunteers. We'll post pictures and video tomorrow! Adam is working on a vid for church in the morning.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Egg Drop Needs Filled

2008-03-13T20:22:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! If I make it through this weekend it's going to be amazing. WOW do we have a lot in one weekend. Almost there! All the Egg Drop needs have been met and we are set and ready to go. We have a local concession wagon coming to sell refreshments (not sure if I shared that or not). Weather is going to be GREAT! (I'm trusting God. So should you. lol) I have thoughts of thoughts running through my head that I want and need to blog. With e:coustic, egg drop and Easter coming up, it's been a whirlwhind and the blogging has been lagging.

I love Element Church and can't wait for this weekend.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Egg Drop Needs

2008-03-12T17:22:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! We're in need of a few supplies for the egg drop.

3 Wheelbarrows
3 Scoop Shovels
We'll be using these to pre-cover the field with 10,000 eggs before we drop the 15,000 from the helicopter.

2 motorized kids vehicles. We have 2 little motor cars donated for the event, we'd like to have 2 more. One of the basketball courts in the toddler area will become a motorized car area. (Motorized Mayhem we'll call it)

If I think of more I'll post it!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Egg Drop Details

2008-03-12T16:52:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Here are a few VERY IMPORTANT egg drop details.

--- PRAY LIKE CRAZY! lol Calling for sunny and colder on Saturday. 40's. Snow showers on Friday. I'll take sunny and 40's. Snow would not be good.
--- Mail invites hit the boxes today. We've already been getting calls from people about the egg drop. I think this can be a GREAT turnout.
--- VOLUNTEERS please wear your red Element shirt or a red shirt in general.
--- VOLUNTEERS please park farther away from Miller field so close spots are saved for attendees. 3rd or 4th avenue is good. Also, we've been given permission to park at Lenox Auto Body which is a few blocks from the drop zone. DO NOT PARK IN THE PARKING LOT!
--- VOLUNTEERS timeliness is a must. We'll be meeting at 8 AM and then breaking to our assigned areas. We are putting the final touches on placing people, mapping the area out, doing some city approval stuff and talking with the helicopter company.
--- They are bringing two helicopters. That is going to be cool. Both will be doing rides and then one will do the drop. The drop is going to be wicked sweet. Just talking with Curtis about it gets me excited.
--- We have a local concession company coming to sell refreshments.
--- I can't believe what we've pulled off in two weeks. We are INSANE to try it this late but I CAN'T WAIT!

If you are volunteering and have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me or call the office. Thanks to all who are helping. See you Saturday.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Voice

2008-03-11T09:59:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Yesterday my voice was nearly completely gone. My throat is sore and I'm battling a small but annoying lingering cold. My concern is this Sunday I get to preach three times. I am VERY excited about e:coustic and the opportunity to reach new people but I have never preached three times on ANY day let alone three consecutive times with a 10 minute break. Normally I think I'd be totally fine, but with this cold and voice issues I need some prayer. SO, if you're out there and read this and are willing to lift me up in prayer, please do so. I preach a certain way (maybe that's a fault lol) but I don't want to let up one bit in any of the three messages and if my voice begins to go I may have to. Anyway, I trust God will have my voice ready and rested for Sunday morning.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (3-9-08)

2008-03-09T15:35:00.000-06:00

Hey Element Church! Here are my thoughts on the day!

--- One person marked on their connection card that they received Christ today! PTL
--- MANY people responded through raised hand that they were a follower of Christ but wanted to be "wholehearted" in their devotion to Jesus.
--- We talked about Caleb today, who at 85 years old STILL was passionate about fulfilling his God given destiny.
--- God said of Caleb that he will receive the land that was promised to him because his "attitude was different than everyone elses". God said of him that he was "wholehearted".
--- I talked about "calendar challenged" people today. lol I LOVE Caleb's spirit in Joshua 14. At 85 years old he was PASSIONATE about his God. I want to have a faith like that. GIVE ME MY MOUNTAIN!
--- 336(?) in church today. I put the question mark cause can't remember if it was 331, 333, or 336 or some other 33#. It's in the 330's.
--- Band stinkin' ROCKED DA HIZZY today. Our new sound board and speakers made ALL the difference in the world. That new sound board is amazing. WOW!
--- We were much more even in the two services today. We've been HEAVY on the 9am attendance and slim pickins' at 10:30 lately. Today was way more even.
--- We got done with practice at 10 till today. That's a little to close for my comfort.
--- Our sound tech was sick today so I took on a much bigger set up role than I'm comfortable with. Thankfully Bryant and Curtis filled in on sound board. Thanks guys! You did a great job.
--- 15,000 eggs are going to fall from a helicopter this Saturday. Mailer should hit the boxes this week and we were in the paper yesterday and hopefully again this week.
--- Egg drop volunteers need to be there READY for the meeting at 8 AM.
--- I can't believe we are adding a third service on Sunday. Towards the end of my sermon today my voice just went for a few seconds. It was gone. I'm going to have to stop singing and talking until I preach. Crazy! Pray for me, Adam (and band) as we do the three services.
--- Easter already?
--- I hate the time change. Especially when the alarm sounds at 4 am.
--- Had several people showing up late for the services. I always think that's funny. How come no one ever forgets to change their clock on the day it would make them early to church? HMM...
--- I love speaking on purpose, destiny and passion. Life to its fullest fires me up. I think SO MANY Christians are content with wilderness living when the promise land is waiting for us to attain.
--- One of my favorite lines from today "Caleb received rest in his heart before he ever received the rest in the land." Joshua 14:10 Caleb says that God kept him alive the whole time that "Israel" wandered in the wilderness. Why not say we? I believe it's because Caleb didn't feel like he wandered. His spirit, his heart was at rest. He was WHOLEHEARTEDLY God's!

Alright, my put on more later. I'm going to Billings for some denominational meetings tomorrow and Tuesday.

Following Christ,

Jeff

SPRING FORWARD!

2008-03-07T23:17:00.001-07:00

Hey Element Church! No day where you are required to lose one hour of sleep should include the word "Spring". We talk about having a "spring" in our step. I got so much sleep I was able to "spring" out of bed. I love the sights and sounds of "spring". "Spring" is a positive word. Never the less, we are required tomorrow night to turn our clocks ahead one hour. I am blogging this so that as many of our Elementers who read this would remember. Also, I am officially changing the name of this day to "It sucks to lose an hour of sleep day"! LOL The great thing is, I'll be one hour closer to church when I go to bed. Only I need to be in bed by about 6 PM tomorrow night. PEACE

Egg Drop Invite Cards

2008-03-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! We got 2000 invite cards ready to go for the Cheyenne Egg Drop! We'll have them available Sunday for you to take and hand out. If you want to stop by the office and grab a stack we encourage you to do that as well. If you have kids ages that are 12 and under in school, have them take a stack to give out to all their classmates. Jonah is taking one to all of his classmates today. We have a limited time for the promotion of this event so your help in getting these invites out is HUGE! If you've signed up to volunteer for the Egg Drop, we are working today on putting each volunteer at a station. Someone will be calling you this weekend or early next week to tell you where you'll be serving and any instructions. Continue to pray for the weather next Saturday. The extended forecast now calls for being cold, with a mix of snow and rain. God can, and I trust WILL, allow this event to take place. (But even if he doesn't...)

Following Christ,

Jeff

ABSOLUTE CRAZINESS!!

2008-03-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! I apologize for the lack of blogging this week. My oh my, this time for us at Element I think is crazier than launch. Seriously, it is insane. Every day was like Christmas this week at the office. Because of e:coustic we have add to duplicate our sound system, computers, stage, EVERYTHING, so we get boxes every day all day from UPS and FedEx.

Adam and I took out as much of the stuff as we could to the other theater yesterday. We are able to store, pretty much ALL of our stuff at the theater which is huge. I am SO STOKED about our new sound system we're unveiling in e:worship this Sunday. We basically are taking all of our current equipment to e:coustic and we upgraded e:worship. New lights, sound board, speakers, etc. It is super sweet stuff. In fact, Adam, Morgan and I were on the floor laughing at how HUGE our new sound board was. We seriously may not ever have to buy another sound board as long as we're a church. It is stinkin' SWEET. And sounds amazing! Our current board had major problems so we had planned on upgrading anyway, before we even added e:coustic. I think the board is bigger than Pam (sound tech) and she's gonna freak when she sees it.

We have 25,000 Easter eggs sitting in the office. lol Boxes are everywhere from all this stuff we got going on. You can check out the egg drop website here. It's super simple but it gives us a web presence. Adam is doing a TON of stuff right now so just to get this up was a chore. Adam literally is a church planting stud. I don't know of another lead pastor that could find someone like Adam with his skill set to put on a team. He's been amazing! Thanks bro! He's so much more than a worship leader (although he's an awesome worship leader).

Weather is looking decent for the 15th. High of 43 and partly sunny. We seriously need to pray like mad for God to help us with the weather. I really feel as if God moved on our behalf for the drop. Free helicopter, great location, and I found out today that the newspaper is going to do some stuff on the event. Look for a news brief in this Saturdays religion section and an article next week as well.

I'm VERY excited about this weeks message and worship set. I actually got back on track in my schedule today and took the entire day to study. I need to get back to being strict about that. I typically take Wednesday and lock myself in my office and study study study! When I don't get that I suffer for it.

Ok, that gets you caught up a little bit. I know there is probably so much more but it is literally mayhem right now. LOL The crazy thing is, I LOVE IT! That's just how we roll.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Sunday Rumination (3-2-08)

2008-03-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! March is here, Easter is just around the corner and we're starting three services with a 15,000 egg drop on the same weekend. That's how we roll.

Great service again today. Below are my ruminations on the day!

--- 6 people today acknowledged that they prayed to receive Jesus into their hearts. PRAISE THE LORD!
--- 15 -20 people indicated that they really felt challenged to "step it up" as a follower of Christ. That was cool.
--- Each week, regardless of what our topic is, we try to do some sort of spiritual decision time. I'm not sure we've had a service where we offered a specific time for a spiritual decision and not one person responds. That is the most important part of our service.
--- 366 in church today. I really feel like we've maxed out what two services is capable of handling. Before we hit 300 our staff felt like 350 was the most two services could accommodate. We've been over that three times in four weeks now. I'm really hoping that e:coustic enables us to see even more people come to church and to Jesus!
--- I LOVED our worship set this week! Adam and the band did incredible. God Of This City is my new favorite song.
--- Our scheduled drummer (Bryant) got called into work early this morning (search and rescue I believe. He's an AF helicopter pilot) so we didn't know what we were doing for a drummer. At least one of the songs HAD to have a drummer to really make it work. Adam called our other regular drummer and he came at a moments notice. We have two AWESOME drummers. So amazing who God has put on our team. Thanks Bryant and Brian for your faithful drumming. (Brian did awesome too. Without any practice)
--- During communion the band did another one of my favorite songs and it fits our series perfectly. It's called "Faith Like That" by Jonah 33. Amazing song and the band knocked it out!
--- The city scape set design looked great! Adam built 2 skyscrapers, we had chain link on the stage, stop lights and other stuff. It looked cool. Hopefully we'll get some pictures up soon!
--- The lobby was set up different today and it looked and worked GREAT! We have a merchandise table now and a Life Group table. Putting a Life Group table in the lobby has REALLY helped us getting people signed up for groups. Not sure who's idea that was but it's working great!
--- If you are an Elementer and not in a Life Group, I encourage you to get in one. As the church is growing you need to be connecting with people in a smaller group. I am convinced that a church is NEVER too large if it has effective and healthy small groups. We're working hard to ensure that ours are effective AND healthy.
--- If you want an easy way to invite someone to Easter, use some of the Heroes invite cards we gave out today.
--- We have Egg Drop invites coming and will need your help in getting them distributed around town. We didn't order them on time because of the craziness of last week and trying to get the event finalized. If you have kids, send some with them to school to give to their friends. We're hoping for a HUGE turnout.
--- If you can help by serving on the team for the Egg Drop or by helping with supplies that would be great. We need several of the motorized kids cars to use in a pre-school game area. (The cars they can actually drive like the jeeps, corvettes, etc.) We need someone to build us a bean bag toss and ring toss game for the little tykes as well. (Or if you know where we can get those) And we need one of the kids basketball goals. We want a pre-school game area for the 3 and 4 year olds to participate in and we need those games. The older kids will have races to participate in.
--- We are THRILLED about this event and hope it's a wonderful service to families in Cheyenne. If you could help us spread the word that would be AWESOME!
--- Three services is gonna wipe me out.
--- Three services is gonna HYPE ME UP!
--- We pretty much have our e:coustic team in place. Could use a little bit more help with set up/tear down.

Alright, that's about it. I'll add more later. Off for my AWESOME Sunday afternoon nap.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Egg Drop Weather!

2008-03-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! Ok, here's where we are at. It sure seems God has helped us out in some Egg Drop details. The helicopter company doing the event for free is a HUGE God thing. The approval from the school district at literally the last minute for us I feel was a God thing. The company we got the eggs from was able to prepare 25,000 eggs. YES, 25,000! Now, I ask us to approach God in prayer for some good weather. Here is the forecast right now, 2 weeks out from the event. Obviously the biggest factor for us is wind and precipitation.

Today's weather was unbelievable. 66 degrees and very little wind. Let's collectively join in praying for good weather and a GREAT event!

Following Christ,

Jeff

New Series!

2008-03-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! Tomorrow we start a new sermon series and I am REALLY excited about it. It actually has been weird preparing for it. It is a totally different feel from the previous two series'. Heroes, I hope will be inspiring and motivating for us to awaken the Hero within. Lurking inside all of us are Heroes of the faith. As we take an inside look at some Biblical heroes, what I hope we will see is that they were just like us. They were ordinary people living extraordinary lives because they believed in an EXTRAORDINARY GOD! We've got a worship song that is the theme for the series that is ROCKIN' MY WORLD right now! It's a song that I feel is exactly where Element is at. Adam has worked REALLY hard on a cool set design. As a portable, new and growing church we try to do some cool set designs on a budget. I think Adam could write a book called "Set Designs On A Budget". This one (I think he got it done) is going to be a cool fit for Heroes. Come as we look inside the lives of people like Esther, Caleb, Gideon, Jesus (Easter DUH), and one person who the Bible doesn't even give a name!

Following Christ

Jeff

Cheyenne Egg Drop

2008-02-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! Well, I think it's officially official that the Egg Drop is BACK ON! We talked to the school district today AND to the helicopter company. The helicopter company is thoroughly excited to be on board. They ARE doing the event ABSOLUTELY FREE! They will be offering rides for $30 a piece AND they are so excited about the event that they committed to be our helicopter provider every year! HOLY COW! Talk about roller coaster rides. The School District has been great to work with and are set for the event to take place on their property. So, on Saturday, March 15th at 10 AM (gates open at 9:45) the First Annual Cheyenne Egg Drop will take place. If you are an Elementer and want to be a part of the event sign up at the e:connect table on Sunday morning. If you cannot serve at the event, but would be able to provide some prizes, that would be AWESOME! We'd love to give away some very cool stuff. Element is providing one Nintendo Wii and a video ipod to give away. We are also going to give away some helicopter rides and Easter baskets filled with goodies. If you'd like to add to that list with something to give away (that isn't sitting in your basement), please let us know. Can't wait to serve through this event.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Introducing...

2008-02-28T11:40:00.001-07:00

Hey Elementers! Just wanted to introduce you to the newest employee at Element Church. With the rapid growth God has blessed us with, the increased office work became too much for one person to handle. Therefore, we felt it was time to bring on someone to take over the receptionist duties in the office, as well as some office tasks that would free up Terri to continue doing a great job in her role as office manager. We felt God directed us to one of our own Elementers and she agreed to take the job. I'd like to introduce to you Pam Rapp. Pam serves at Element every Sunday on the e:team as our sound technician for the main worship service. She is doing a fantastic job already and we hope she enjoys us as much as we have enjoyed having her. Thanks Pam for joining the team. You're doing a GREAT job!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Cheyenne Egg Drop Almost Became Soup

2008-02-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Get it? Egg Drop Soup? Ok, not funny I know. Hey Element Church! What a ride it's been in our office the past two weeks. A little insane, even for my crazy taste. My personality typically is, if something isn't chaotic, let's change it to make it so. The past two weeks have needed none of my messing with stuff. With the rapid growth, three services, and a major outreach event it's done it all on it's own. We were on a roller coaster with a building situation thinking we'd found something then crash and burn. Thinking we'd found something then crash and burn. Then we get confirmation on doing this SWEET event called the Cheyenne Egg Drop, where we drop thousands of eggs from a helicopter in the sky before our Easter egg hunt. We had talked to the helicopter company 2 months ago and they had agreed to do it. We had petitioned for a place to do it here in town but felt it just wasn't going to work. Then on Thursday, we find out we'd been given a place. CHAOS ENSUED as we in the office try to pull together a 15,000 egg Easter event, with a helicopter drop, prizes, games, supplies, etc. all completed before Sunday. WE DID IT! And then loop # 30 in our roller coaster ride hit on Monday afternoon when the helicopter place backed out. YES, after a couple months of feeling great about it, they all the sudden got cold feet. PANIC set in as we realized a mailer was getting ready to go out to roughly 7,000 homes, 15,000 eggs were on their way (pre-stuffed), and 48 volunteers had already signed up. An event cancel was in progress. Tuesday morning Adam said "We should just call some other companies". I said "Dude, it's too late in the game." Well, my employee didn't listen to me, AND I'M GLAD! Adam got a return call last night (Tuesday) from a company out of Denver. The dude is going to do it, AND POSSIBLY DO IT FOR FREE! WHAT? Yeah, he was SO excited to help us out. He's a helicopter instructor and loves doing community events like this. As of yesterday, he said if we would allow him to charge for rides at the event, he'd come up and drop the eggs for free. CRAZY. So then today, IT WAS BACK ON! We're still waiting on final word from the chopper CO. but it seems as of now we're ready to roll. The mailing house is awaiting our word to send the invites out. We've ordered a TON of invite cards for you Elementers to take and use around town. Anyway, PRAY that if God wants us to get this done, it'll get done. It's going to be such a FUN event, I hope we can pull it off. Our new statement around here lately has been "That's how we roll!" And chaos, seems to be how we roll!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Element Gives Back

2008-02-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! Hope you all haven't forgotten about checking out Element Gives Back! I can't wait to do that again, and we WILL do it again! It will be a complete surprise but it will be done! There is a new story on there that came up a few days ago. Check it out. I got some CRAZY news on the Egg Drop for tomorrow, but I need to get in bed!

Cheyenne Egg Drop

2008-02-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! We are extremely excited about this outreach event that is being planned. If you read this today I encourage you to begin praying for God to help us in a few key areas.

#1 A couple months ago we started the planning on this event. A few weeks in we didn't feel like any location in the city was going to be made available to us for use so we kind of gave up on the idea until next year. Well, Wednesday of this last week we got a call from the school district and had been given permission to use Miller Field on the corner of Pershing and Evans. That started the ball rolling VERY quickly. We new we had limited time and needed to announce our event to Elementers on Sunday. So we had just a couple days to try and pull this all together. We found out on Friday that the helicopter was available. All that being said, the first prayer request is for no unforeseen roadblocks to be in our way. Pray that with the rushed planning we haven't missed something or don't miss something that could hinder this event.

#2 People to join the egg drop team. We need around 50 Elementers to join the team for this event. This is by far the biggest event we've tried to accomplish as far as #'s of people needed. If you are an Elementer we encourage you to step up and help us serve the city on this day.

#3 WEATHER! Our first ever servant project as Element Church was supposed to be at the City Easter event last year and it got snowed out. We know the risks of scheduling an event like this in March but feel it is worth the risk and will seek God to clear the way for us with the weather.

So, if you'd join us in those three prayer requests that would be GREAT! Hope to see you at the event serving with us.

Sunday Rumination (2-24-08)

2008-02-24T14:57:00.001-07:00

Hey Element Church! Great conclusion to Satan's Sex Ed today. I am SO pleased with how this series turned out. I was VERY nervous heading into the series but God has done some GREAT things through it. We've gotten many good comments on the series and it just seems as if God really helped some people through it. It was very difficult at times to say some of the things we did but I wouldn't take one word back. The room was tense many occasions and I felt awkward in others but all in all they were things that needed to be said. I don't want to train myself to avoid the tough subjects. The hardest yet best thing to do is to tackle them head on. Our next three series aren't going to be quite as controversial. Heroes starts this coming Sunday. Here are my thoughts on the day.

--- Four people acknowledged that they accepted Jesus Christ today.
--- Numerous people acknowledged they had prayed to God for forgiveness on some sexual sin in their life. Those two things right there are what is most important.
--- 371 in church today. Both services were fairly full. First service was VERY full again. So cool to see first service filling up. I'm excited about e:coustic starting in a couple of weeks. Hopefully that will open up some seats in our other services.
--- We're getting some good response on people to join the team serving at e:coustic. If you're an Elementer and not currently serving somewhere on Sunday morning we'd love to have you join the e:coustic team.
--- Band rocked it again today. Worship was great in both services and the Spirit of God was evident in both as well.
--- My body is going to be ACHING after three services. Wouldn't have it any other way.
--- We had a MAJOR announcement today. We've been approved (barring any unforeseen roadblocks) for our Easter outreach event. As of 4 days ago we didn't think we had a shot at all in doing the event, then one phone call changed everything.
On Saturday, March 15th we are going to be offering one HUGE Easter event. We are doing an Easter egg hunt with a twist. The event will include several easter games for kids ages 3-12, face painting, free balloons, giveaways including a nintendo wii and a video ipod. Then the big shebang. Following the games, activities and giveaways a helicopter is going to fly in and pick up THOUSANDS of easter eggs. It will then hover over the drop zone (egg hunt area) and will drop the thousands of candy and toy filled eggs over the field. Following the drop the kids will be able to rush the field and pick up all the eggs to put in their basket.
It's called The Cheyenne Egg Drop. We'll be sending a mailer out to families in Cheyenne to invite them to the event. We truly hope it will be a BLAST for all who attend and a way for us to serve the people of Cheyenne with a fun Easter event. Start praying now for AWESOME weather. March can be a tricky month for weather in Wyoming. I'll try and post some graphics on here later this week. We'll be getting an egg drop website up too.

Overflow

2008-02-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

Hey Element Church! Random and rambling thoughts will follow this sentence. I don't think my brain can take anymore right now. This week has been absolutely insane. I feel like their are so many projects that need attention (all of them my own doing) that I can't put it all together. Let me tell you something. This Easter season for Element Church is going to be OFF THE CHARTS!! I know it seems we've had a lot of "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT ON SUNDAY" stuff at Element Church before, but I am BUSTING AT THE SEAMS to share with you the announcement we have this week. We've been approved for the Easter outreach idea we had, and it is going to be an annual event that we will continue to make BIGGER and BETTER!! We're going to need LOTS of people to be a part of the e:team for this event to pull it off, and if you are an Elementer you'll want to be a part of it. It will be our privilege to serve the city in this way. We are launching e:coustic in a couple of weeks and we are doing a MAJOR direct mail promotion to the city inviting everyone to Element for Easter. I LOVE being able to do the stuff we do. I have a blog idea I need to put on here called "The way we roll"! I've been laughing all week at the way we do things. I can't do something and "just" do it! If we're going to do something we're going to go all out. This outreach event is something absolutely ridiculous for us to try and pull off this late in the game, but I feel we must. Other things we've done and attempted (as I look back) were absurd, yet they worked. I want to continue to set the precedent and standard for our church that we will do things for other people and make ourselves get outside of our theater no matter how much and how far it stretches us physically or financially. Outreach and Servant Evangelism is one of our essential ministries and part of our DNA, so we will continue to look for and come up with ideas to serve those around us. Random ramblings over. Hope to see you at Element Church on Sunday. If you can't make it, make sure and watch the blog for our exciting announcement!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Devotional Thoughts...

2008-02-21T19:59:00.000-07:00

I just started Daniel today in my morning devotions. LOVE the Old Testament and I'm excited about preaching some KILLER OT stuff through our Heroes series. One of my favorite stories in the OT is Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. When I read the story today a line jumped out at me that never really had before. It should really be the theme to our lives. It's not flashy or anything, just stood out.

In Daniel 3:12 King Nebuchadnezzar had ordered everyone to bow down to this towering image he had made when they heard the instruments sound. The instruments sounded and all bowed, except some of the Kings men came running to the King and in this verse said "But there are some Jews..." I want that said of me that if the WHOLE WORLD goes against God "But there was one man..." "But there was this church..." "But there was this family..." Jesus kind of spoke of this in Matthew 15 when he said "What good is it if you gain the whole world yet forfeit your soul". The young men from Judah could have bowed down with everyone else "But there were some Jews..."

THEN one of the GREATEST verses in all of Scripture I got to read today. Inspires me every time I read it. The King is thrown into a fit of rage because they wouldn't bow down. He told them they had one more chance or he'd throw them in the fire and said "then what god will be able to save you?" My boys answer in Daniel 3:16-18 with some of the greatest words of trust, courage and POWER in the Scripture. "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. (HERE IT COMES) But even if he doesn't, we want to make it clear to you, Your majesty, that we will NEVER serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up." In Pastor Jeff words they said BRING IT KING! HA. I love it.

I want a "but even if..." faith. That REGARDLESS of what happens in my life, in our church or in this world, I will not bow down to ANYTHING but Jesus Christ and HIM alone! Do you want a "but even if..." faith?

Following Christ,

Jeff