Dr. Pepper & Chinese Democracy

So, I have tried a couple times today to go to Dr. Pepper’s website to get the free Dr. Pepper for the Guns & Roses release of Chinese Democracy. Amid the “service unavailable,” and “server errors,” etc, I managed to get in a couple times, but after putting in my registration info… it just stops. Apparently people all over are having a hard time getting in by either website or phone. I just tried again and they have updated their site with:

“We are sorry for any delays you have experienced in securing a coupon for a free Dr Pepper. While we had taken additional steps to meet the expected demand for our offer, the response has been greater than anticipated. To resolve this, we are increasing our server capacity and making a toll-free number available (1-888-DRPEPPER or 1-888-377-3773). In addition, as a result of the technical delays, we are extending the offer and will provide more information shortly.”

At 10:45pm Central time their countdown is now listed at 18 hours until the promotion ends. And my page is continuing to load….

3rd Preview Service

This last Sunday The Exchange Church had our 3rd preview service. The team did a fabulous job. The music rocked. Production was the tightest so far. Hospitality did great. The staff met on Monday night and again we went through the task of evaluating the service and how to make it more impactful. Overall, everyone is doing an outstanding job and we are getting ready for our last two preview services before our launch in January.

Here are some pics from the last two preview services:

2nd Preview Service Recap

Last Sunday we had our 2nd Preview Service and it was tight. Yes there are still things to work on and for sure we made some adjustments for the next one, but overall the team did a great job. Nicole and the worship team did outstanding as we worshipped to Hillsong United and Phil Wickham to name a couple. I just finished listening to some of their set and it was seriously some great stuff. Hospitality rocked it out and the marketing we did during the previous two weeks was sweet as well. I continued talking about “The Story,” and how our life is a story and we are the central characters in our story, but who or what is holding the pen? Who or what is writing the storyline of our life? And we talked about the church’s story and purpose as well. The weeks are full of hard work and the “holy hangover” is just that, but what we are focused on is life change from the unchurched person walking in the doors to the mature christian and this week we did that. So, even though we have things to work on and improve, we came together, worshipped God, and impacted lives which is what it’s all about. Not to bad for a preview service. And we are getting ready for the next one November 9th.

Preview Service This Week!

So the Exchange Church is doing our second preview service this week and it should be sweet. We’re continuing The Story series and last time was great. You can check out our facebook page here for more info on what it’s about. It should rock!

2nd Preview Service

So, this week we are doing our second preview service. It’s been a while since I last blogged basically cause we have all been crazy busy doing on everything, but it’s been great. Here’s what’s gone on since:

Angie and I attended the ARC church planting assessment in Atlanta, GA. This was the second church planting assessment we’ve gone to and much different than the first. Both were good times and we met some cool people, plus it’s aways great to see what God is doing all over the country. We also received a recommendation as we did with out first one so that was cool.

We had our first preview service. We rocked out. It was cool and although there are some details to work on there were no major issues. We did no publicity for it except for one facebook invite to some people who were involved in various aspects and there were still others that showed up. Sweet. 

Staff meetings are starting to come along. Perhaps the most important thing I’ve found while leading ministries over the past few years is the importance of the staff meeting as that can either make or break your ministry. Our key leaders are starting to come together and I can see the beginnings of them feeling comfortable enough to critique, think, and brainstorm different ideas. Really acting as a team and it is great. I can’t thank Fellowship Church and especially Terry Storch enough for showing me how to rock out with great creative, conflict filled, yet team-oriented staff meetings while I was at FC that only propel our ministry to greater heights.

Other stuff: Our venue is at North Central University. It’s right at the intersection basically of Interstates 35W and 94 in Minneapolis. Our worship team rocks, great job to Nicole for putting together a great crew. Our volunteers have been phenomenal, whether going to church for a while or not ever really going before, they have all rocked out and been passionate about what they are doing. 

Stuff to pray for us about: Thank God for everything He’s done so far. Pray for a sponsoring church for us to go with ARC. Pray for continued finances as we are reaching unchurched and college students right now which is going well, but obviously tithing isn’t necessarily a priorty for them at this point. And thanks to everyone that’s been praying and supporting us. You all rock.

Mike Walker Creative

The other day I had a chance to talk to an old friend on facebook. This guy is the real deal. His love, advice, character, integrity, professionalism, experience, etc. is just phenomenal. If you are looking for a great creative media (sound, lights, graphics, marketing, etc) consultant and service provider check out Mike Walker Creative.

I had the honor of working for Mike at Fellowship Church. This guy has a love for helping churches, pastors, staff, use media in a way that enhances the service, but doesn’t distract from what God is doing. When God called us to move away from Dallas, Mike is one of those that I knew I would miss because just being around him you soak up an amazing amount of practical information related to church and media. Besides that he’s just a cool guy. I’m excited about what he is doing and the services he is providing to churches who are interested in enhancing their creative communication.

You can also read his blog here.

Angels and Airwaves and Church Planting.

So Angie is gone in Colorado for work and I picked up the DVD “Start The Machine,” a documentary on Angels and Airwaves. It has been sweet to see and ever since Rob Bell made me look at the behind the scenes looks at stand up comedy in an email he probably doesn’t remember at all, two music videos have made me think of church planting and preaching in a different light. One is Green Day. The other is this one. Tom Delong of Blink 182 started this band and it chronicles the band as they start their journey much like “The Comedian” does of Jerry Seinfeld when he works on totally rebuilding his act. It is so close how it all fits with starting a church. The challenges, the payoff, the love, the dedication, the hardship, the craziness, the thought process….

Here are a couple parts that jumped out at me:

12:50 – Tom is working where to go with a sweet guitar riff with a song, doesn’t know where to take it and in trying to figure it out he says, “It has to be the ultimate payoff. There are a bunch of things that sound good there, but whats the absolute best thing? I’m just trying to figure out cause if I was in the audience and I was hearing this, it’s so good, it better go somewhere f****** awesome.

 - I love that! Because that is what it’s so about as we work to craft services and sermons. Yes the Holy Spirit and God play a part an enormous part of that. But, we have to do our part too; They take our part further then we possibly could. How would what we say and how we state it best impact people’s lives? How would the songs, the creative aspects, and make it the best we can? There are so many things we can do that could fit, sound, etc that would work okay in any given service, but what’s the very best for that particular point we are trying to communicate to the congregation that week where they deeply grasp what we are saying while being captivated by who God is?

And right after that the drummer of The Offspring fame is talking about how even though Tom can’t get the whole conceptual idea of the song across all the time, whatever he throws out there so they can catch, brings together this sweet song.

- Vision. Sometimes you just have to give people glimpses of what you imagine and let them help you take it to where you wanna go.

And at 56:09 one of is bandmates is talking to him about a bad interview he gave and said to him: “you want so hard to be back to where you were and be relevant and immediately and like before you used to be like, before you had this band you whatever you guys wanted to do you could do it right then cause it meant something cause…”

- Totally wrestled with that. The concept of what I could be doing and what I am. It’s so much harder starting something new. But, sometimes you just have to follow what you believe in and give it all to that. 

Anyways, it’s an interesting and comfortable feel in starting something new. Pretty sweet.

Time

The other day Jason asked me, “Do you ever get any time to yourself?” Crazy considering just 3 days prior to that I was at Starbucks for the first time with nothing to do. I had finished work early, went to Starbucks to work on church planting stuff for The Exchange, and was going home to meet a friend coming up to visit. I finished up my emails I was sending out and realized I had 10 minutes before I had to leave. It was odd to remember how it felt reading a sweet book out in the sun while having a java chip frappachino. I wanted to go to my car to grab a book I had picked up 6 months ago but hadn’t started. It hit me I didn’t really have time to even get started in the book. But it was still nice to remember what that felt like. Church planting while having another job is a beating sometimes. I know that in the end it is worth it and as soon as I am to the point where I can drop my other job and spend my day focusing just on church that will be great. But for now and with the expected launch in just a couple months, those times to just hang out are rare. So as Jason asked me it was a reminder that soon things will hopefully lighten up and I can enjoy those books at Starbucks or hanging out more with friends. But that day, I headed over to the car, left, and had a tremendous few days of tightly packed schedules where we got a ton accomplished. And that was very cool as well.

Church planting and Moses

Right now I am going through the book of Exodus in my own study. I love the opening chapters and what it speaks about for how God works. I mean, God comes to Moses and is essentially like, “Hey, I am sending you to take My people out of Egypt. Go tell them and do it.” Moses is like us. He’s practical. He’s got a couple decent questions. Like, “Uh, God why in the world should they believe me? And, “I have no speaking skills whatsoever, how could I to talk to, much less lead these people?” And God is like “K, go tell them what I say, and then here’s some signs for you.” In fact in one part it says something along the lines of signs that they may believe.” hmmm. That part had me thinking for a while though. So often, we want a sign from God. “Show me something and I’ll know it’s from you and what you want me to do.” Yet, God seems to work a different way. He says, “Go, speak what I have given you to say, and then the sign of what I told you will happen, will happen.” God tells Moses exactly what will happen. But, it all comes after Moses goes and speaks to the people and to Pharaoh. That is often how God works in the Bible. He has those with whom He has given the vision speak, and then He gives them the signs to back it up. And it isn’t always in miracle, but sometimes in the ordinary. For example, God says to Moses that Pharaoh won’t let them go. Just a simply fact of what is going to happen here. Moses gets a good boost from meeting up with Aaron, and the Hebrew people are behind him and excited, but then he goes to Pharaoh and not only gets shot down, but gets an increased workload on the people he is supposed to be delivering. But, the promise is there. Moses did what he was supposed to do, and the result was just as God said, that he would go to Pharaoh and Pharaoh would say “no.” That’s how it often works in the Bible, and that’s how it seems to work with Church planting as well. We do what God says, and then He confirms it. I would so much rather have everything just show up and be perfect before we need it and take that as a sign and comfort, yet that’s not God’s way. It is going, trusting, and doing, and then seeing the sign come.  

Portable Church

I sent away from some info today from Portable Church Industries. I have heard some great things in how they make it easy for church plants. However, I have no idea how much they cost or a timeline they work on. We did work with the Portable Church system back when we launched a satellite campus for Fellowship Church and had a good experience in using their stuff with how easy yet professional they make it work. It will be cool to get more info on them regarding details for a church start.