Lead Team

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

Graphics

Can't tell you how nice it is to have Adam, who is an AWESOME worship leader on staff. But his skills don't stop there. Adam creates all of our graphics for sermons, mailers, web-design, etc. His job description right now goes WAY past worship. Here is the sermon graphic for our Thanks:Giving mini series coming up the next two weeks.

We are taking the two words, Thanks and Giving, for our two week mini series called "Thanks:Giving". Here is the graphic for that series.

We are doing a five week sermon series for Christmas entitled "Believe". John 20:30-31 says "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." So we are going to take 5 of the miracles of Jesus recorded in John and attempt to answer some questions. "Why did Jesus come?" "What did he do?" "Why should I believe?" The two graphics below are for our invite cards and we are doing a direct mail similar to those cards. I wanted a "non-traditional" approach to our Christmas series, so we aren't really going to talk about the birth, shepherds, angels, wise men or "no room in the inn". We're going to look at the life of Jesus and we'll know why he came by his actions.

We are going to be doing some fun stuff through our Believe series. Some outreach things we are doing are going to be so much fun. Adam is developing some GREAT worship sets for the series. Some creative twists on Christmas songs. And maybe even a theme song we'll do through the whole series. We'll be kicking off our two services with this series. Pretty fun. Have I said I love what we do? I really do.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Blog Link

Adam has some good insight on worship today on his blog. Encourage you all to check out Adam's and Grant's blogs often. Just don't skip mine okay!

My team!

Wow, how nice it is to leave for a week and no things are in good hands. Check out Grant and Adams blogs about this last weekend. I love working with our entire team.

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

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 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

Front:

Back:

The importance of a strong team (and good leadership)

I can't tell you how blessed I feel to have the team around me that I do. Keenan and Katrina are invaluable to element church. They came in September and by living their lives for the Kingdom led us to MANY of the relationships we've made. Grand and Terri are invaluable. Grant is a walking billboard (not a joke about his height) and Terri has gone above and beyond her call of duty to get the office set up, AND keep it going. Adam and Amber have only been here two weeks and they are also invaluable. How refreshing it was for me to worship at Unplugged and know it would be done well, preparing the way for the Word. I don't have time and you wouldn't take the time for me to write about my teammates. NONE of them have a college degree in ministry. NONE. Yet all of them are and WILL be superstars in ministry! I'd take a heart on fire for God and HIS ministry any day over an educated person with no fire in their belly. Are their bumps in the road with a team? YES! Is their patience required in a team? YES. Keenan and Katrina have lots to learn. Grant and Terri have lots to learn. Adam and Amber have lots to learn. Know what? I have TONS to learn. One thing I've realized as now "the boss" of the team is I have sooooooo much to learn on leadership. For every challenge and correction I give to a teammate I need to be challenge and corrected. Strong team is important but a strong team needs a strong leader. I pray I can be that man. As I have patience with my team I hope they have patience with me. I know I'm not the greatest in leadership, but I know I serve the greatest God. And all of us TOGETHER will get this thing done. We'll look back and laugh at some of the stupid things we did. At some of of the things we learned that will seem so obvious, but as we look back I hope we'll see a trail of souls that were won into God's Kingdom because we were willing to be leaders REGARDLESS of how much we knew. Hope that made sense! I love my team. Today I wouldn't trade any of them for anyone else. I mean that.

Following Christ,

Jeff

The Team Is Assembled

As of Saturday, June 2nd of 2007 the Element staff has been called, assembled and moved to Cheyenne. Adam and Amber Cruz made the trek from Sheridan, WY to Cheyenne to join the Element staff. Adam is our lead worshiper. Both him and Amber have already been contributing what they could from Sheridan, Adam especially with the purchasing of sound equipment. This really has been 15 months in the making. In March of last year, soon after God stirred my heart to begin this adventure He placed Adam on my heart. I told Sabrina, I feel like I need to ask Adam to be our worship leader. Through some prayer and some conversations with people I HIGHLY trust it just didn't seem like the right time to ask. So I filed that thought in a drawer in my brain (there are lots of empty drawers there so didn't think I'd have trouble finding it). Grant Clark had already committed, in fact (I've said this many times) I always told Sabrina "I'll never plant a church, but if I ever did Grant would be the first person I'd ask to come along". Keenan and Katrina Fitzgerald were searching for God's direction in their lives and God directed me to them to be a part of this team. Keenan was feeling God's call on his heart into youth ministry and God confirmed in all of us that this was the right direction. Keenan and Katrina have been HUGE for us in the meeting of people and establishing relationships. November of 2006 comes along and that drawer opened up. Remember the drawer that held the thought of Adam. I began feeling again I needed to contact Adam. I told Sabrina, "I think it's time I call Adam". So I did. Funny how God works things out huh? I told Adam what God was doing in our lives and asked him what he thought about coming to be the worship leader at Element. On the phone he started laughing and said that God had been birthing in his heart more of a passion to lead worship. I need to wrap this up, but they were very careful to pursue God's direction in all of this and in late January, early February made the commitment to come to Cheyenne. WOW! How amazing our God is. To orchestrate the lives of 4 families to come to a city none of us knew anything about, to share with people about a God we are desperate to know more. I LOVE IT! This week we get to do our first event together as we start Element Unplugged. Check it out at www.elementweb.net I love my team. I love Element Church. I love Cheyenne. And I LOVE serving our God.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Watching the game...having a Pepsi

I'm here at my house with Grant, Keenan and one of Keenans co-workers watching the NCAA National Championship game. I love times like these where we can just relax, unwind, and not think about "church". LOL Of course while I'm relaxing, unwinding and not thinking about church planting, I thought I'd get on my blog and talk about church planting. Having teamates is HUGE in this process. I don't know what I'd do without Grant and Keenan here with me. Grant is our Community Connections pastor as well as a local employee of Frito Lay. I asked him to join so I wouldn't lose my free chips. Keenan is our Student Ministry Pastor as well as a local hardware store employee. Anyway, teamates you like and trust are vital, at least to me. I don't know how some guy's drop into a location all alone and begin with nothing. God has raised up some great men to work with me in this. Can't wait for Adam to join us down here and start the process. Grant, Keenan and Adam, I thank God for you guy's everyday. I LOVE YOU MAN! Ok, back to manly stuff. GO MY FAVORITE SPORTS TEAM GO!

"I think about it every day bro!"

February 28th, 2006 was the day God confirmed in my heart the stirring He had begun. "I am about to do a brand new thing. I've already begun, do you not see it (italics added)?" Needless to say going to work that day I had a million thoughts going through my head. I HAD TO TELL SOMEONE, but who do I tell? Pastor Dan? I wasn't that brave (Dan's great, I just didn't want to perform CPR that day). The staff? Too risky, I hadn't told Dan yet. I had always told my wife "I'll NEVER plant a church, but if I did I'd want Grant Clark to go with me." I've dubbed him "The General" (Ulysses S. Grant). Grant is a walking network. He loves talking with people, can easily share his faith or talk about the church. Grant had grown into one of my closest friends at HPCC and someone I could always talk to about anything whether in the church, my family, or just personal struggles. Guess who walked into the church that morning to visit? BOB STOOPS! Ok, not Bob but The General. I couldn't NOT tell anyone anymore so I pulled Grant aside and asked him "Have you ever thought about planting a church?" Without skippin' a beat and looking me square in the eyes he said "I think about it everyday bro!" My heart literally about came out of my chest. I began telling Grant what God was doing in my heart and asked him to consider coming with us. Little did I know (much longer story Grant will have to tell) that 2 years earlier God had began speaking to Grant about church planting but felt God just saying "Wait"! What an amazing, creative, sovereign God we serve! Grant and his wife Terri agreed to come on staff as our Community Connections Pastor. Grant will be in charge of connecting our church to the community (outreach) and our community to the church (small groups). Interesting combo I know, I'll post about that someday. I think it's a really cool role we are creating. Terri is going to be our office manager as well. God is assembling a great team here at Element and his handiwork is evident in putting it together.