RAK for May

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

Life Groups Serving

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

Cheyenne Egg Drop

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.

Element Church --- Community Involvement

I have a great opportunity to join a community partnership that will give us GREAT connections into the needs of people in our community. I've been invited to begin attending the Laramie County Community Partnership meetings each month. "The mission of the Laramie County Community Partnership is to maximize resources and influence change to improve conditions of wellbeing for people in Laramie County." All sorts of different non-profit groups, need groups, community organizations come together to (as the mission statement says) maximize resources and influence change...They deal with family and social issues, homeless issues, alcohol and tobacco issues, etc. I am VERY excited to get my hand into something like this and begin to learn more about how we can "maximize resources to influence change". I am convinced that churches don't need new programs, we need to unite with those already going to help maximize their effectiveness. I need to be better at getting involved in stuff like this, so I couldn't say no when invited to attend.

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Element Church --- New Community Partnership

I announced (briefly) on Sunday a new partnership that we are thrilled to be a part of. Needs Inc. here in Cheyenne has asked us to be a part of a brand new program they are starting to try and keep the food pantry stocked. Needs Inc. is a non-profit organization that helps fill the needs of many low income families here in Cheyenne. It seems there are always certain items they can't keep stocked in their food pantry and they know the frustration of going to the grocery store and you may not even know what the food pantry needs. SO, they have developed "The Can Man Program" to try and help this problem. Element Church is proud to be the first church on board with this program and we have been asked to be the "spaghetti church". Instead of just asking the community to "bring food" to the pantry, they are going to ask specific organizations to bring specific foods to the pantry so as to make sure they have the right variety of food to give out to needy families. One of our goals as the Element team is NOT to create our own new programs, but to partner with those that are already going. Needs Inc. NEEDS our help, so we are going to give it. What we are asking of you Elementers, is that when you go grocery shopping, to pick up one can of spaghetti sauce and one bag of noodles. Needs has asked for 25 oz. jars of sauce and 1 lb. bags of noodles. This ensures consistency in what they are able to put in the distribution boxes to the families. You can pick up some general information about Needs Inc. at the e:connect table on Sunday mornings. In this very small way, we can begin to help feed the hungry in our community. If we need to, we will add more items to our list of what we will provide. Lets BLESS THE SOCKS OFF of Needs Inc. with what God can do through us!

Following Christ,

Jeff

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Adopt-A-Mom Updtate

As you may know, Element Church adopted four moms through the Life Choice Pregnancy Center here in Cheyenne. These women were counseled by Life Choice and have chosen to give life to, and keep their babies. These are four moms who were in need for Christmas and we wanted to come along side them and give them a holiday they could remember. We received MANY donations of gifts and currently have received $940 to offset some of the costs of providing these moms with their needs and gifts. Elementers, you did a FANTASTIC job. Last night some Elementers got together to wrap gifts and here is are some pictures of that. Click on the slide show to view them in a larger format.



Also, another Life Group has picked up another needy mother and family to provide Christmas for. That makes a total of 6 families that Elementers will be providing Christmas for. GO ELEMENTERS!

Random Acts Of Kindness Idea

We started something this month that we will continue each month, and it's called "The Random Acts Of Kindness Idea For The Month". Serving is a key part of what we want to do at Element Church but I believe sometimes we wait for the next church sponsored community outreach or missions project to do something. What if we just started serving our neighbors as part of our lives? So we want to give monthly practical ideas to try and get us in the habit of serving. This months idea is to shovel your neighbors driveway and/or sidewalk. Just make sure it snows first.

We showed this video to promote our first idea. We chose the windiest day of the week to film, and as you'll see, it effected the video juuuuuust a tad.

Christmas Outreach and outreach thoughts

Hey Elementers! Don't forget to go to Wal-Mart or Target and start supporting the moms and their families that we are providing Christmas for. Reagan has done a phenomenal job of setting all of this up. We have found needs, wants and desires for these moms. All four moms are soon to have, or recently had children in which they chose LIFE for those Children. We found the moms by partnering with and working through LifeChoice Pregnancy Center. Check out their web-site and see what they do. They are an awesome organization. Element was one of a few churches who sponsored tables at their recent fundraising banquet in October.

We are not supporting these ladies to get them to Element, or even to get them to Christ. We ARE doing this to BE Christ to them. To be the hands and feet of Jesus. That's all. Would we welcome them at Element? YES! Do we want them to receive Christ? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT! Simply put, this is part of going to our Jerusalem. Being missionaries to our city. I'll be posting tomorrow on my missions philosophy.

This outreach may not be a gas-buydown in which hundreds of people are served and the news airs it and the city reads about it, but that doesn't make it any less outreach. We are meeting a practical need for some moms who are IN need. Sometimes our serving the city will be a big project. Other times it will be smaller. EVERY TIME it will help bring life to individuals and to our city.

Starting in January we are going to be on the ground floor of a new program to help keep the food pantry stocked at "Needs Inc." here in Cheyenne. Needs is a community non-profit serving the needy of Cheyenne. I'm not sure I'm at liberty to share details but I will when I can. We are the first church in on this program and it will be a HUGE service to this community group and to the needy of Cheyenne. NEEDS also knows they can include us in any service needs they may have.

We are continuing to develop our relationship with the City of Cheyenne. We have asked to be involved in the Easter Egg hunt again this year and even added an idea of our own, that if pulled off, would seriously be the BIGGEST Easter egg hunt this city has every seen. (Not sure the city is on board with the idea...we'll see) We have offered our service to the city, not only at events, but to clean parks, clear brush, paint over any vandalism (graffiti), etc. We want to serve... just to serve.

Anyway, I don't want to just give from our church during the Holidays, but all year long! We are starting our ability to do that. We are 8 weeks old and we have provided inflatable games for the city Easter Egg Hunt (snowed out), held one gas buy down (2 hours, 200 vehicles), provided free inflatable games at the city SuperDay, held anther gas buy down (4 hours, over 400 vehicles), provided prizes to the city Goblinwalk, Sponsored three tables at the Life Choice fundraiser, adopted 4 moms and families to provide for Christmas, and starting in January, this new NEEDS Inc. food pantry deal. I'd say we are building this into our DNA. Wouldn't want it any other way. And we're not done yet. Still developing other ideas and always open to knew opportunities to serve.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Thunderbirds, Serving, and Victory

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

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

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

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

Fired up,

Jeff

Kindness

Terri bought and took cookies to every office in our office building today! She put them in a little gift bag with an Element Church info card and a handful of invite cards for preview. Doing little stuff like that I hope will let people know what we are about. Tomorrow I'm gonna get some more pizza for the theatre crew. They have been outstanding to us. Thought that was a cool thing Terri did. She has been INCREDIBLE for us in the office. Can't imagine doing this without her help. GOOD JOB TERRI!

Superday Recap

Today was a good day. I am VERY sunburned, even after coating on the sunscreen. What a great way to get our name out there again before our preview next Sunday. We had some great connections and conversations again. Already thinking how we can up the ante next year. There are some things we could have done better at Superday today, we just didn't know what to expect being our first time doing it. Better signage is the main thing. And a more organized way of getting connection cards out. Next year maybe we could do a drawing or something too, for some cool stuff. Been thinking about that lately. I'd like to find a way to corner the market on inflatables too. I think they are BY FAR the biggest attraction for kids at this thing. We are going to call Superday this week and see if we can do more next year, maybe be the only ones doing inflatables. The Superday committee actually sponsored 3 inflatable areas. We were the only church that was offering a service as far as an activity at Superday. That amazes me. Two or three churches had exhibits where people could come and see what they offered. The Salvation Army did free water. Other than that, I didn't see any church in the brochure. 20,000 people at your door, guess what? WE'LL DO IT AGAIN NEXT YEAR EVEN BETTER! Below are some pictures of the event. Thanks for you who were praying! A bunch of people were very interested in Element and said they would come to preview. I love doing stuff like this. Serving is the best way, THE BEST WAY, to engage the community. And we'll keep doing it. Again we had AWESOME volunteers, some who stayed all day. Ok, I'll stop. Pictures below.

Following Christ,

Jeff

I'm now delivering pizza!

No I have not had to get a 2nd job. We wanted to do something kind for the Carmike Theatre since they have been so kind to us in providing a meeting space. SO, yesterday I took up two large pizzas to the five employees who were working. The two guy's who took (yanked) the pizza from me were very appreciative. It's just a simple and easy way for us to serve the theatre. We are going to try and work a deal with the theatre as well to purchase movie tickets from them at a discounted rate to give out to our first time guests as a connection gift. We've got some cool ideas for launch day gifts as well. Anyway, thought it was cool to take the pizza up and we'll continue to do stuff like that regularly to honor and serve the theatre. They have been GREAT to us!

Superday and Preview

Our next servant evangelism event is this Saturday at Cheyenne City's Superday. We are providing inflatable games for the families who attend. We are using this event to leverage toward our first "full" preview service in the theatre. Below are the connection cards we got made to give out. Adam did a great job of putting them together. We had a great team meeting tonight mapping out some preview stuff. Volunteer lists, set up, that kind of stuff. It's great to have the team to sit down and talk stuff through with. I don't know how guy's do this alone. We'll update more on Superday, Unplugged and Preview in the coming weeks.

Following Christ,

Jeff

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Final News Story

This is the final top story that KGWN News Channel 5 showed about our event. This time they didn't mention our church name but the previous two nights they did. By this point I think people knew who we were. We are grateful to the news station for such great coverage and believe God really had a hand in what coverage we got.




Following Christ,

Jeff

UNBELIEVABLE!!

Guy's I can't describe what happened today. We serve an AMAZING God! Today could not have gone better. Here is a timeline of the event:

11:45 AM we showed up at Big D Exxon gas station
12:00 PM met with Volunteers to hand out element shirts, instructions and any supplies. Our volunteers ROCKED IT OUT today. I don't know if there would be better volunteers anywhere than the ones we had today. We had 13 come from HPCC to help us and 11 of our own Element folks.
12:15 PM first customer gets in line.
12:30 PM MAYHEM car, after car, after car began lining up. It quickly became a traffic nightmare. We didn't have time to even prepare our trafficers to direct people so folks made up their own system. That was not good. The cops showed up quickly and we had an ex Sheriff on our volunteer team.
12:45 PM Rod Warne (ex sheriff) and Keenan Fitzgerald (student ministry) quickly formulated a plan and within minutes we were streamlined. Those 2 guy's SAVED us today. We funneled everyone down 1 block from the station, around a corner another block and then lined up in a huge parking lot behind the gas station.
12:50 PM Opened the pumps. Because of the quick traffic organization we were able to funnel people quickly to the pumps. The traffic guy's were informing everyone when they got up to the station not to pull up to a pump until told to by me. That was also a big deal for us. We did not let individuals just line up behind each other at the pumps. They would get to the station lot I would wait for the go from a volunteer watching for open pumps and we directed them to a pump. People were actually "amazed" at our organization. I was VERY PROUD of or team to say the least.
1:15 PM KGWN News 5 shows up. They put lapel mics on a couple of the volunteers while we worked. They interviewed people in line and some volunteers. It should be the top story again tonight which will make 3 nights in a row.
2:00 PM We had to have run over 100 cars through the first hour. We were rollin'.
3:00 PM Shut off the line so no one else gets in. At 3 PM we had 25 more cars in line and we served all of them.

Out of over 200 vehicles we only had 3 complaints. 2 were in the first 5 minutes with the traffic problem a couple of folks got mad. One guy wanted to fill his 100 gallon drum he brought in the back of a pickup. I wouldn't let him and he felt we weren't a good church. lol That's putting it mildly. For over 200 cars only 3 complaints aint bad. We received praise, after praise, after praise from people who were amazed at how well the process went.

Dozens of great conversations. Many MANY people saying they want to check out our church. Several people were so grateful saying things like "You don't know how much this helps for you to do this." "We're blown away at your acts of kindness." etc.

We prayed as a group afterword that God would be seen in our service. We hope this moves people closer to Him. If that means the come to Element, praise God. If they go to another Bible believing church and find Him, praise God. It's not about us!

I did a video recap. Check it out below. Thanks for all your prayers. My mind can't even contain right now what all happened today. If you have any questions please ask me.

Filling up,

Jeff

Top Story 2

Friday night we were once again the top story on News Channel 5's 10 PM news cast. Bob Geha came to the gas station and did a live interview with me at the top of the show and then we ended the show with a 1 minute recap. Again, Bob and the news station have been great to pick this up as a newsworthy story. Today at 1 PM the news station again will be covering the event and we expect to be on the news tonight as a story again. I was able to share on the news about why we are doing this. That we want to be servants to the community and that it's a practical way to show God's love. Our team prayed last evening at the gas station for God's safety, to help with connnections and for things to run as smoothly as possible. We really hope this makes an impact to the people we come across today. Below is the video of last nights news cast. The first segment they were having some video trouble but the audio worked.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Top Story

HOLY COW...We were the TOP STORY on the only local news station here in Cheyenne tonight. KGWN News 5 picked up our gas buy down story as soon as I shared the info with them. Robert Geha spearheaded the coverage for us and has been great getting us exposure. Today we had a walk through with the GM of Big D Exxon. News 5 sent a videographer out to get some shots of us for the story. I had no clue they were going to interview me on the spot there and air it tonight. Well, we sat down to watch the news that we set to record and what was the top story?...ELEMENT CHURCH. I couldn't stop laughing. I've been nervous all day about not being a total DORK on tv. Gas prices have been THE top story every night this week, so for us to be doing this on Saturday it made a natural top story on the news. I couldn't believe it. Tomorrow morning in the paper we have a simple ad running, tomorrow night we will be doing a live interview on the news then on Saturday I believe they will be covering the actual MAYHEM that ensues. LOL, this is gonna be crazy. Watch the video and I put the ad we are running in the paper as well. Pray for us. We think we have enough volunteers. The gas station has been PHENOMENAL and the news station has been more than gracious. Like I said before, I think God is all over this for us. We (I) feel TOTALLY unprepared for this...I wouldn't have it any other way! We need God to be prepared and I believe he is.



Being Stretched!



Jeff

Gas Buy Down

A few updates on the gas buy down:

--- God is all over this. From the energy and support of the GM at the gas station to the instant pick up on the news station and newspaper, to the volunteer support that has come in.

--- Friday night during the 10 o'clock news I am going to be interviewed live at the gas station about our event. Please pray for me. I'm already nervous. lol I want Element to be portrayed positively as a servant showing God's love in a practical way. This opportunity to be live on the only local news station is HUGE for us. They will also be filming live on Saturday at the event.

--- We are running one standard black and white ad in the Friday morning paper, we'll be on the news Friday night, in the paper sometime this week as a news story and maybe more than that. We've handed out hundreds of invite cards and the gas station is putting on it's reader board info about the event.

--- We have 19 volunteers that have committed to serving on Saturday. 8 - 10 more volunteers that we are hoping to be there. 24 people is what I would consider "good" coverage to make sure things run smoothly. The more we have the more bases we can cover. Right now we will have 8 people pumping gas on 8 pumps. 6 people directing traffic. 4 people washing windshields and if possible Grant, Keenan and I will be connecting with people as much as we can. A few more volunteers would only help. We'll use everyone who shows up. If we have extra we'll give people breaks every once in a while.

--- PRAY PRAY PRAY If this generates the buzz I think it will then we should get some connections out of it. Priority #1: Serve. If we aren't servants to Cheyenne then I want out. Priority #2: Promote Element Church. Priority #3: Because we served and promoted Element Church we will connect some people with Life and hopefully get them involved in our church somehow.

On The News

I need to get on here and update more. There are a ton of things to share about what God is doing. This one is cool. We are doing the .50 cent gas buy down coming up on Memorial Day weekend. We don't really have the money to do the buy down PLUS promote it with advertising. One of my sphere of influence interviews was with the GM of KGWN CBS news station here in town (Joan Turner Doyle). I thought "What's the worst that could happen if I email her with our event and ask if they could cover it." The next day she emailed me back (knowing who I was cause I interviewed her) wished us luck with the church and said she had forwarded the info on to the news director. Wednesday on our way back from Minneapolis (another post for another day) I got a call from Robert Geha who about a news story they want to do with the gas buy down. From what I understand I will be going in to the studio next week for an interview then they will come live on Saturday to cover our event. That same day the newspaper called and wanted info on the gas buy down. On Monday of this week, Grant, Terri and I met with the GM of Big Oil that will be hosting our event. She was amazing. They are so excited to partner with us in this and she wants to do it again sometime. We made business size invite cards and people are handing those out. God just seems to be all over this event and we can't wait to see what he does as a result of it. No one here has heard of anyone doing something like this, LET ALONE a church! That's why we are here. Pray for DIVINE connections at the event. I can't imagine doing anything else than this right now.

Gas Buy Down

IT IS ON! Saturday, May 26th from 1-3 PM at the Exxon Big D gas station here in Cheyenne. We will be buying down the price of gas by .50 cents per gallon. Wish I could fill up. God has really opened up the doors on this one. Some people will ask about the cost/reward on this one. How many people will come to church from this? Maybe NONE! But this is the type of event that puts us on the scene. It starts to tell people who we are and what we will do. It labels Element Church as a church who is willing to do something TOTALLY out of the ordinary to show God's love in practical ways. We have to get our church name out there somehow and we could pay LITERALLY thousands of dollars on advertisements or marketing to promote our church name. If I'm going to spend money I'd like to serve someone in the process. (Now there will be times when we just do an ad, but this is not one of those times) Since this is our first presence in the community it needs to be one of doing something for someone else. We've made some business cards to hand out (see below) with the intentionality of leaving off the location. This makes the person go to our website if they want to know where to get the cheap gas. We will do this on our press releases as well. I think this is a genius idea that we got from another church planter. People then see your web presence and can see what the church is about if they so choose. I'm fired up about this event. Please pray for good weather, for patient people, for the right amount of volunteers and for GOD APPOINTED CONNECTIONS. Pray that the right media outlets would pick this up to get our name out there. We'll keep you posted on how this goes and have some pictures and video to share as well. (For some reason the website doesn't show up on this image. It is correct on the card itself.)