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You’re All Invited

November 21, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Each month, we review our website functionality and our website statistics, looking to see if we believe our site is being used as much as it can be, and if it is meeting the needs of our elders, staff, leaders and congregation. So far, so good this year as we add, tweak and redo different parts of the website.

One of the latest changes we have added is a link allowing our congregation to “Invite a Friend” right from the Park home page. It’s located to the right of the main Message Series graphic. In only its first three days, our folks have clicked and sent more than 50 invitations to friends, co-workers to attend Sunday services!

Go ahead and click here and send an electronic invitation!

Here is the current invitation:

Filed Under: Inside Park, Methods & Strategies, Technology, Weblog

Fellowship One Goes Live at Park!

November 17, 2006 By Leave a Comment

As Park has grown, we have grown in our organizational ways like any small organization. We cobble together individual solutions by ministry and try to work together on church-wide information needs. About four years ago, we began a process with a developer in our body to build an open-source Church Management System (CMS) in conjunction with another church. Stephen Rylander poured his soul into making this CMS work for us as we expand and grow in the city of Chicago.

However, even with his excellent skills and total dedication to the project, the team came to the conclusion after three years that this homegrown solution was good for the present, but would not take us to where we wanted to be in the future as our church pursues the vision of seeing 1% (30,000 people) of Chicago reached with the Gospel through church planting, church partnerships and para-church organization partnerships here in this world-class city. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Church, Inside Park, Methods & Strategies, Technology, Weblog

Our Own Becky Johnson Releases Her First CD!

October 17, 2006 By Leave a Comment

At Park, we are a city church ministering to about 1,200 folks who are between the ages of 20-45 and we are passionate about the arts in this world class city. We love to rock out, do church on some Sundays “unplugged”, and are attracting some of the best and the brightest in the music, video and media arts world. Just this week, our own Becky Johnson released her first CD.
Check out Park Community Church’s own folk rock / acoustic artist, Becky Johnson.

Becky Johnson's Debut CD

Her new album “In The Middle And In Between” is now available. You can check out some of the songs from her album at her myspace and order your copy while you’re there.

Filed Under: Church, Inside Park, Weblog

The Great Investment – Investing in the City

September 11, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Today, we initiated our new 8 week series called “The Great Investment”. It is a chance to call on the congregation to invest in the things that God has called us to in Chicago. This first week, Jackson Crum spoke about Jeremiah 29 and the challenge to bring peace and prosperity to the city where you live.


Some people have asked me why do I live and minister in such a big city. So I pulled out my old notes from my Pastors conference at Redeemer Presbyterian, which tie to Jeremiah, and here they are (this is sometimes referred to as my “Go Big or Go Home” speech”).

Cities are a critical element in God’s redemptive plan, because they are places of size and population density, centers of influence and commerce, and the gateway for those who are broken, in transition or in need. Given its preeminence as a global business and transportation hub, we believe that Chicago is one of the most exciting and strategic places to minister.

From a Biblical View
Cities are central to Jesus’ mission. Moreover, the apostle Paul’s missionary work was almost completely city-focused. He went to the large cities and almost exclusively devoted his time and energy there. The early church did the same. Why was there such a focus on urban centers? There are at least three reasons:

1. Cities are “cultural centers.” Cities naturally attract people from all walks of life. People migrate to big cities for jobs, for relationships, for opportunity. Many come who are in need of the social services support structure that a big city offers. As we come in contact with this great diversity of people, it challenges our perspectives, reveals our prejudices, and causes us to grow. The urban environment also challenges the people of the city to reach more of their God-given potential. As a result, not only do cities need Christians but Christians need cities. We will encourage Christians to learn from the city how to celebrate diversity, accept and love all people, and strive for excellence in all we do.

2. Cities are “population centers.” Cities are becoming more filled with people. In 1950, 30% of the world’s population lived in urban areas. According to the UN Population Division, more than one-half of the world’s population will live in cities by 2007, and more than 60% by 2030, with more than 90% of the world’s population growth during that time occurring in urban areas. In Chicago, the areas where we minister have more than 25,000 people per square mile, the second most dense population area behind Manhattan. All of these cities are filled with people made in God’s image whom Christ loves and calls his church to love. At Park, we encourage Christians to invest their lives in the city and to love, respect and serve the people of the city.

3. Cities are “places of shelter and refuge.” Cities have always been places of refuge. Many come in need of the social services provided by large urban cities. By their nature, cities are places where immigrants, minorities and refugees can cluster for support and protection in a new land and where the homeless and poor can find shelter and provision. Present–day cities are filled and becoming more filled with great needs. Park is an active partner with others in the city who are seeking to serve the physical as well as the spiritual needs of the city.

In Jeremiah 29, God’s people were and are encouraged to build homes, to plant gardens, to establish families, to settle down and stay in the city and as well to seek and pray for the peace and prosperity of the city.

Our church, Park Community Church, is committed to encouraging and enabling people stay in the city, to establishing and redeeming Christian marriages and families within the city, being role models to our neighbors, and passing on the Gospel to future generations —thus impacting the city of Chicago: one life, one family, one block and one neighborhood at a time.

As we are individually transformed, our new lives in Christ will touch and reach our communities: family, friends, neighbors, coworkers and others within our spheres of influence. “When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices…Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted” (Proverbs 11:10-11).

At Park, we want to be the kind of church that causes the City of Chicago to rejoice. So we will use our time, gifts and resources to meet the needs of others in our community and will also partner with ministries that are making an impact in the city. We also believe that the Gospel has a deep, vital, and healthy impact on the arts and culture, business, media, education and government of any city. Therefore we are highly committed to support Christians’ engagement with culture, helping them work with excellence, distinctiveness, and accountability in their professions.


Filed Under: Chicago, Church, Inside Park, Methods & Strategies, The City, Urban Church, Weblog

Podcasting for Churches: Lessons from the Field

August 4, 2006 By Leave a Comment

About six months ago, the communications team that I am a part of at Park Community Church began to set out on a journey to update our website. Key elements of the update included a new home page, an online calendar, a summary of events that we call “the Quick Six” and the ability to offer people multiple ways to get our Sunday message.

Today I’d like to report on our success to date. On the multi-message delivery methods, we revised our audio messages and created video files of each Sunday. We have found that Sony Sound Forge (audio) and Sony Vegas 6 (video) have given us unbelieveably clear sound and video with smaller files.

We relaunched the new site on June 15th and have tracked our website downloads since then. We were only able to install a statistics package on our Feedburner feed 7 days ago. Here are the statistics…………..

From the website:

1,607 downloads in 7 weeks, almost evenly split audio versus video, which work out to an average of 229 website downloads per week

From I-Tunes:

157 downloads in seven days

The lessons that we have been learning:

People want different venues to get their message. We know that people check out our church by listening to our messages. We know that people who miss a Sunday listen or view the message via the website. We also know that others who used to go to Park get the message that way.

If you build it, they will come. We spent a considerable amount of time and effort to design and develop the message downloading, (including sound and video quality) not knowing whether anyone would utilize the technology. Our website users showed us that they appreciate easy and useful information.

Filed Under: Inside Park, Technology, Uncategorized, Weblog

Lake Michigan Baptism

July 23, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Today, more than 75 people got out of bed early, went down to Lake Michigan and in cold water and in front of more than 300 people, publicly professed their faith in Jesus Christ by being baptized in Lake Michigan. The annual ceremony took place at 7 a.m. at North Avenue Beach, and was followed by an awsome annual baptism celebration services at Germania Place. For those that joined us, this was a day of exclamation and celebration for the entire church — it’s probably the biggest day each year in the life of Park Community Church!

Filed Under: Church, Inside Park, The City, Urban Church

The “8 Minutes With God” E-mail goes live

July 11, 2006 By Leave a Comment

After much planning and design, Park Community Church has launched “8 Minutes With God”, a daily email reflection/devotional that drills down a little deeper on the previous Sunday message.  As we are fresh off the first week in our series on Genesis called ACT ONE: Genesis, the devotional focuses on Genesis 1 and the Creation. We will run the devotional Mon-Fri each week, and it is written by the Teaching Pastors, based on the message from the previous Sunday.

At Park, we know that spending time reading the Bible will help our church family develop spiritually, and we are always searching to create ways for them to grow in thier journey with God and further their spiritual development. At our church, whether you are a stay-at-home mom trying to juggle the needs of three kids, or are in the marketplace trying to meet the deadline for the next company presentation, we know the hectic life of an urbanite, and have used this devotional to create a short 8 minute “spiritual oasis” during the day for folks to connect with God.

From a pastoral perspective, we have three goals with this daily email.  First, we know that when we meet on Sunday for worship, there is only 30-35 minutes for the Teaching Pastors to discuss what the Bible says on the topic. The first goal is to allow the congregation to unpack the Bible verses and topics we heard on Sunday and spend more time in reflection on some of the key points during the week that follows. This allows us five more ”bites at the apple” to explain, get folks in the Word, and drill down on the Biblical topic from a Sunday. 

Second, we hope that folks would be encouraged in their own lives by a daily look at what God has to say on the topic and begin to cultivate a deeper walk with God. Our surveys and discussions with other growing churches show us that those who spend time in the Word are generally growing faster in their spiritual walk than those who do not.  This devotional email is helping to get some momentum in this area for those who do not have a regular Bible reading/quiet time.

Third, we hope that the reflection questions would serve as good conversation starters for our church family with their friends, co-workers, neighbors and loved ones. Genesis is a familiar story to most and provides an opportunity to have a spiritual discussion — we have exhorted the body to take a chance and go for it! There was lots of effort and a great job done by our crack Communications team, led by Kim Caifano.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Inside Park

ACT ONE: Genesis

July 10, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday we launched our new series “ACT ONE: Genesis” at Park Community Church and Ron May’s intro message on creation was fantastic. As you start this journey, you have to first wrestle with the question of whether God created everything. Ron did a great job of explaining creation and how God created everything. You can listen or watch Ron’s message on our message downloads page. Just this week, I saw a great 40-second web graphical illustration of the creation story in Genesis — check it out.

Genesis is the first book of the Jewish Torah, the first book of the Jewish Tanakh and also the first book of the Christian Old Testament. The name Genesis is a transliteration of a Greek word meaning “generation,” “birth”, “origin,” or”beginning”. Genesis at its broadest can be looked as the story of four guys (Adam, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph) and four events (the creation, the fall, the flood and the tower of Babel). Without the book of Genesis, the rest of the Bible would make little sense. Genesis lays a solid foundation that allows us to look at and begin to answer the big questions in life, such as: Where did we come from? Why are we here? and where are we going? These are questions God answers more fully as the Bible story unfolds. Genesis describes the beginning of the world, of human beings and civilization, of families and nations, of sin and salvation.

If you are in Chicago, why don’t you join us over the next six weeks as we look into Genesis?

Filed Under: Inside Park, Sunday Services
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