Here's the latest update on the Northeast campus:
- Last Wednesday, I preached at our First Wednesday communion worship celebration. I cast the vision for the Northeast campus and talked about how God has been good to us in the past, how He is being good right now, and how I believe that greater things are still yet to come. I showed some pictures to give people an idea of what we'll be doing and explained some details about what this will all look like. I tried to answer the big what, why, and how questions but I know that I'll still be spending a lot of time clarifying things and answering more questions that people will have.
- At the end of my message, I challenged people to take the next step. I asked them to fill out a communication card and commit to pray or to get more information about being a short-term volunteer for the NE campus. We had 45 people sign up to pray and 9 people indicate that they'll volunteer or want to know more info before saying they'll volunteer. I wish we would have had more people respond in the volunteer category, but I'm VERY please to have 45 people who are committed to pray because that's the foundation of everything we do.
- I was very pleased with the band on First Wednesday. We had some very tough sound issues that we weren't quite able to work through, and they had the fact that they'd never played in a venue like our auditorium and they'd never played together as a band before going against them, but they pulled it together and sought God to be with them, and I think the Lord was definitely honored through their music. I know that for some people it was hard to hear the vocals over the music, but that's something we'll work on. All things considered, there's room for growth with the band, but they definitely did a great job and I'm very proud of them.
- I've been working on some process descriptions for how to do things like baptism, communion, parent/baby dedication, graduate recognition, and GrowGroup signups at the Northeast campus. It's interesting how you take things for granted when you're a permanent campus and how you really have to be creative and rethink things when you're a portable campus. It's easy to baptize when you've got a building with a built-in baptistry; it's a whole different thing to baptize when you're in a portable campus and you have to fit everything - like a baptistry - in stage boxes in a trailer.
- I've been looking through all of our guests this year at the East campus and been looking through lists I made of potential volunteers and potential attenders and it looks like we have a base of around 55 - 60 people to launch with so far, if everyone on those lists says they'll join our NE campus family. We've got a long way to go and need to build some more mass up for the launch because the goal is to have 300 there, but that's a pretty good starting point.
- By the end of the year, we'll have a little over $70,000 accessible for launch expenses, but we really need over $110,000 just to cover our expenses for equipment, supplies, advertising, rent, etc. So to come up with the remaining balance of what we need, awhile back I created a ministry plan (basically a business plan for the NE campus) with the idea of going to other Kingdom-minded churches and businesses to ask them to financially partner with us, either through donating or subsidizing the purchase of equipment, making a one-time donation, or making regular donations each month or quarter, etc.
- Walter will be talking with the church council this Sunday afternoon about the revised timeline and about the idea of getting funds for the NE campus by using that ministry plan. I believe that the ministry plan idea can really help us with our financial lack, and can be a great image of what the Church is supposed to look like, cooperating with each other across denominational and doctrinal lines all for the sake of being the one, united body of Christ and for the sake of furthering the Kingdom of God.
Here's how you can pray this week:
1. Pray Luke 10:2 over Del Sol Church, both the East and Northeast campuses. At the NE campus, we definitely need more volunteers to serve, but since we'll be taking some high capacity leaders from the East campus, we also need to ask God to raise up leaders to take over there.
2. Pray for Walter and the church council this Sunday afternoon as they discuss some very important issues concerning the Northeast campus, among the other things they'll be discussing at that meeting. Ask the Lord to guide their conversation and their though processes as they meet so that everything they say and decide will be what He wants.
3. Pray for my health. About a month ago, I fell off my roof and injured my right ankle and knee. I was all better and healed up so I started running again, but I didn't pace myself and work my way back up to full throttle, so when I was running on Tuesday morning, I injured some meniscus cartilage. It doesn't look like I'll need surgery, but it's still damaged and still somewhat painful, so please pray for total healing for my body and for protection from anymore injuries.
Thanks for your prayers - I know they're definitely making a difference!
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