Weekend Wrapup Additions

WOW! A couple of additions to the weekend wrapup. The office staff met today to evaluate our preview service. That's always fun yet challenging. Asking the questions "What can we do better?" "What needs to be fixed?" "What did we do well?" Hard questions to ask sometimes but I think when we are offering the GREATEST news imaginable we want to package it in the BEST package possible. Anyway, couple things totally not about what we did wrong or right that I wanted to add.

--- Our offering was $2118.61. Again, GO GOD! That is awesome! Several first time givers which we celebrate! Thanks God!

--- We had 24 volunteers. Yeah TWENTY FOUR. And they aren't just warm bodies to plug in, they are qualified, love the Lord, serve people, volunteers. We didn't beg, plead, or have 47 sign up sheets. We said "You have an OPPORTUNITY to serve your church and to serve your God." They took the opportunity. I hope we teach that well. Serving is NOT an obligation. It is NOT a duty. It is ABSOLUTELY one of the GREATEST opportunities we have as followers of Christ. To serve our God and serve other people.

Anyway, couple of extras for ya. CAN'T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN!

Following Christ,

Jeff

Weekend Wrapup

Had another GREAT Sunday at Element Church. Didn't see the increase in attendance as I would have liked but we had a BUNCH of first time guests. Here are some thoughts and results from preview.

--- We had 63 in attendance yesterday. At our last preview we had 75, that was with 18 out of town guests. I didn't know what to expect.

--- Our offering was over $1500. Largest yet. Go God!

--- We had 4 families/individuals fill out connection cards as FTG's (first time guests). At least two others were FTG but didn't fill out a card.

--- We had a HORRIBLE time setting up and specifically in the technical audio/visual area. It REALLY set us back time wise for the morning. It all came together and the service went great but MAN it was a frustrating morning.

--- We have, already, an AMAZING group of volunteers. People helping at 6:30 AM loading up a stage. 7 AM had 8 people setting up (we need more). We had 6 or 7 volunteers on our first impressions team. We had several in the e:kidz department. We are off to a great start with volunteers.

--- We added two stage pieces which were priceless. It enabled us to set up one whole corner for a drama that Keenan did. Keenan did a great job on a little monologue to set up my message.

--- The theme for the day was "What will your story be?" Showed the video "The Martyrs Prayer" as part of my message. Adam and the band closed the service with an AWESOME version of Blessed Assurance. It wasn't your mom and dads hymn that's for sure.

--- The band sounded great. WE HAVE A DRUMMER! One of the guy's new to our church is playing drums for us. We added a drum shield which helped us control sound TREMENDOUSLY.

--- Got a list of new things to work on. I'm glad we're doing previews. Helps us tweak things that need to be tweaked. Learn from our mistakes. Get ready for our public launch.

--- Can't wait for Unplugged on Sunday. Hoping to see some of these new faces back. We have not had ONE week yet without a new face. That's all we're praying for. "Lord, bring us new faces." At this point we just want to see and connect new people.

--- Sept. 9th marks our next preview service. Starting that Sunday we will be in the theater every week. Please join us in praying that we outgrow the theater quickly. I WANT a space problem.

--- On a side note...Can't share a whole lot of detail but please also pray for the theater situation. Slight possibility that we won't be able to stay there. Long story and lots of details but the future at this time is uncertain. Please pray!

That's it. Thanks for following along. I probably forgot stuff that I'll have to add later.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Preview Premonition

HA! Couldn't think of a different title.

--- We felt ready for preview this week. It felt weird. Last month the week before preview was frantic so this week it was like "Are we ready? Shouldn't this be a crazy week?" It was a very busy week but felt controlled.

--- Projector at the theater looks fantastic. Got that figured out. Got the correct cable, the presentation software is working, etc.

--- We are organizing the trailer today and getting it ready to go.

--- Praise practice at 10 AM this morning. One of the new guy's in the church is playing drums so that's cool.

--- Doing our first drama this week. Keenan has something good worked up that will compliment and set up my message well.

--- We have a GREAT group of volunteers this week. Katrina held her e:kidz meeting Tuesday while Grant and I held our First Impressions meeting Thursday. Beginning to see those spots fill up well.

--- We are getting to the theater at 7:00 AM tomorrow to set up. The first movie doesn't play until 12:30 so we have extra time this Sunday to tear down.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Video of Preview

Well, here is a video of our entire service. HA, horrible quality but you can get the idea of what it was like. The audio is straight from my cheap video camera. Adam put it all together and we had to compress it way down in order to get it on there. We'll get better at this.

Preview Pics

We were able to get several good pictures of preview. Our set up, banners, stage, volunteers. Because ALL of us were doing something in the service we didn't get many action shots. That's on our list for next preview. Our VERY long list of things to do.

click here to view all the pictures from preview (ones that came out good anyway).

Adam worked a ton today on getting the video done for all to see. We should have on our website tomorrow the video of the entire service. Had a couple of really cool things happen today that I'll blog about later tonight or tomorrow. Getting ready to enjoy a piece of cheesecake. mmmmm

Following Christ

Jeff

Post #70 (Pictures from Preview)

Most of these are in no particular order. I wish there was an easier way to put a bunch of pictures on here. I haven't figured it out yet. ENJOY! Man it was a good day!

















I can't get this to flip. This is our welcome banner hanging from the ceiling in front of the theater. Kinda turned out blurry.

Preview Recap

WOW! Can't think of a better word. We had 75 people today at Preview. Other than our gas buydown and Superday servant evangelism projects we had done NOTHING, ZERO promotion for preview and we had 75 people. Had a couple families from HPCC in Gillette and we appreciate them being there to support us and help fill the place up. So I say 75 but not everyone are possible return people. HOWEVER, we made some awesome Cheyenne connections, and the majority of the people there were part of our team or Cheyenne folk. The service really went off with no major problems. We had a couple sound issues before church started but figured it out and our computer presentation software was REALLY dragging creating weird transitions during worship. About a 3-5 second delay on slide progression for some reason. We'll have to figure that out. The band stinkin' ROCKED today. MAN, what a blessing to have a solid worship leader. Grant did a great job connecting with people which is what he does best. He did a welcome, did greeting, was the point person for any problems with the theatre and was awesome with set up/tear down. Keenan also did a great job being the front man at the mall doors, helping set up all the e:kidz sound systems, connecting with people and helping with sermon props. Katrina and the e:kidz volunteers did a great job. We had 10 kids JUST in Itty Bitty Explorers (infant - 3 years). Had 3 kids in Elevate (1st - 5th grade). I haven't seen the count from Explorers (4 yrs - Kindergarten). We got to the theatre and found out that we had to have all our stuff out of the hallway by 11:15 AM. Didn't plan on that but it worked out ok. Keenan and Kyle (Kyle was HUGE for us as an intern, WOW) left 15 minutes before church got out to start clearing out crates and e:kidz stuff from the hallway. Terri did a PHENOMONAL job with our e:connect table. Man did that look sweet. I know I'm missing stuff but had to get off my brain some things I was thinking about. Our volunteers were AMAZING. God was worshipped, the Word was preached and we made some new connections. It was a good day. Thanks for those of you who were praying, I got some more stuff to add here later tonight. We'll get some pictures and hopefully video!

Following Christ,

Jeff

PROJECTOR WORKS!

This morning we got the projector working finally. THEN, we had to figure out 50 feet of s-video cable, so we got that figured out this afternoon. It feels like we've done all we can for the preview tomorrow. Tonight we are having praise team practice and then IT'S ON for tomorrow! Set up begins at 7 AM and preview begins at 10 AM. I know I've said this 100 times but I have no idea what to expect tomorrow. I haven't had many nightmares and usually I do and then things go AWESOME! So does no nightmares mean it's not going good or that God is just granting me peace. LOL Please be praying for us tomorrow. Pray that new people would come check us out. Pray specifically that people from the gas buydown and Superday come to check us out. Pray that God would grant us favor as we present the Gospel and worship God together. WOW, I can't believe our first preview is here. We'll have pictures and video hopefully tomorrow or Monday. I'm sure I'll blog tomorrow about how things went.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Theatre Set Up

Wow, today was exciting. It seems there aren't enough hours in the day to get done what we need to get done for Sunday. Today we got to go set up all of our e:worship stuff in the main auditorium. It was a BLAST! Made me ready to get it on on Sunday. From the time we started backing the trailer up to the time we had everything set up it was 1 hour and 5 minutes. That was a killer time and we were going very slow. Now that we know how it goes in we should shave a bunch of time off that. It took us 35 minutes to tear down and load the trailer. Again that is going slow. I am very excited about how well everything worked. We are gonna be last minute on projector issues. We did not buy a projector for e:worship since we are able to use the theatres, HOWEVER, as of today we did not have the proper connection to hook up our laptops to their projector. Tomorrow we think we'll have it solved. MAN, I am so excited for Sunday. The e:kidz area is gonna be a total blind set up. We didn't have time to get in their today. I think it will be ok. Our sound system sounds GREAT in there. Adam fabricated a stage for us which gets us off the floor and more level with the people. That was HUGE. If we didn't have the stage I think it would look tacky with us all the way on the floor. There are some pictures below. We are dead center on the front row, but according to the picture it looks like we aren't centered with the screen. May need to adjust that. We are going to record the whole service on Sunday and I'll get some highlights up on the blog Sunday. Tomorrow and Saturday we'll be tying up loose ends and then gearing up for Sunday morning. WOW, we are really doing this! Love it.

Following Christ,

Jeff

CRAZY!

WOW, it's been a fast week! Working all day Sunday really helped us get ahead. We have been able to do a lot more this week than I thought we would. In typical Jeff style we've added some creative elements to the preview service that made more work but MAN am I excited for this Sunday. We are going to kickoff the service in an AWESOME way! For just our first preview we're going BIG! We are going to appear bigger than what we are and that's ok. We got our banners in today and they look absolutely amazing. They are really gonna help with the feel of the theatre and putting our brand on it. Tomorrow at 9 AM we are doing a test set up at the theatre to test out the sound system. We hear there are some people coming from High Plains to preview, that makes me excited. We STILL have no idea what to expect Sunday. We went to lunch with one o the guy's that has been a part of Element since Unplugged started and he said him and his wife have been inviting everyone they know and leaving invite cards at restaurants and stuff. We have had more web-hits this month than any previous month. Had a small spike on the day of Superday. Our custom stage has been completed and we loaded the trailer up today with room to spare. Tomorrow we'll take pictures of our setup so you can see it.

Closing thoughts:

--- I CAN'T WAIT for Sunday!
--- The opening of preview is going to ROCK!
--- I love Element Church
--- I LOVE our team!
--- I'm going to be very tired on Sunday!
--- I CAN'T WAIT for Sunday!

Following Christ,

Jeff

The heat is on!

One week and three days and we'll hold our first service in the theatre. WOW! We've got some major plans in the works as well. We (Adam at this point) is trying to build an entire 2 foot high stage before next week. We've got some custom element SWEET banners coming to show our ministry areas and directions to things in the theatre. I nearly completed my sermon today for our July 1st preview. We still need to organize the sound equipment, load the trailer with the sound equipment, learn how to use the sound equipment, set up the sound equipment for the first time, set up the kids area, hospitality, e:connect table, (should I continue). Ya know what! I LOVE IT! Scares the crap out of me, but I love it. I love doing what we're doing. I love sharing our vision. I love meeting people. I love writing sermons. I love dreaming. I love the unexpectedness. But MAN the heat is on. Adam and I were laughing today about the time crunch. This is just for one preview service. I'm a dreamer. In fact I think all of us on staff are. That can be a problem cause we keep wanting to do bigger things. We were in the theatre today (for the 4th time in two days) testing out a stage piece. I stood on top of it and said "I can't wait to be in here". You're gonna here this a lot from me the next week. I AM SO STINKIN' EXCITED TO HAVE A SERVICE IN THAT THEATRE! I might be preaching to six people but they'll get the whole sermon. We have no idea what to expect. Ok, typed enough. The heat is on.

Following Christ,

Jeff