Matt Heard Returned to Park - June 29th July 7, 2008
Posted by Steve in : Weblog , add a commentOn June 29, Matt Heard returned as our first guest speaker at our Crosby Campus. Many of you know that Matt was the founding pastor of Park Community Church back in 1987 when he took 50 people up to the Geneva Youth Camp to talk about launching a new work in the city of Chicago. He served as pastor until 1990 and presently serves as the lead pastor of Woodmen Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs.
It was an emotional time for Matt, as he saw Park through its first three years, then left to get his seminary degree in Florida. “I want to congratulate and affirm you for continuing a vision and unpacking it in powerful ways in this city,” Matt said. He challenged us through a message on the ‘theology of plumbing’ of what our role here in the city is. Matt defined the theology of plumbing as the difference between a pipe and a bucket: what goes into a bucket stays in a bucket, but what goes into a pipe flows through that pipe somewhere else. In the context of our Christian life, we’re not called to be buckets. Buckets keep what God has done in our lives to ourselves, and what flows into a bucket stagnates. Rather, we’re called to be pipes, and let what God is doing in us flow out of us into the lives of those around us.
In closing, Matt encouraged us saying, “We don’t fully comprehend how significant these days are for Park Community Church. It’s a moment of celebration for what God has provided, but it’s also a moment of decision of how you will steward what God has provided in this new building. Realize this building is to be a tool in God’s hands in facilitating a community of ‘pipes’ who will be conduits of who God is and what He’s done in the city.”
We encourage you to take a moment and listen to the entire message and share your thoughts and reactions to the message in the comments section.
(HT: Park Facebook)
Multi-Site from the Horses Mouth July 1, 2008
Posted by Steve in : Weblog , add a commentOne of the things I am most excited about Park Community Church is our vision — to be a biblical community where the Gospel of Jesus Christ transforms live, renews the city and impacts the world.
As we opened up our building last week, it was great to hear that the building is a tool, a gathering place, but we are the church and we need to take the Gospel to others in this city of 77 community areas. As we look to launch other campuses in the city, I came across this and thought many would find it interesting.
He spoke about In last week’s issue of Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox, the right column had a banner button that linked to an interview by Tony Steward with Scott Hitzel and Randy Craft, two guys that actually implement the hands-on efforts at Saddleback Church’s multi-site location in San Clemente.In this spontaneous 16-minute interview, you’ll hear the first-hand report of nuts & bolts involved at a remote campus. At around the 5:00 mark on the clip, Scott gives an overview of 4 models for how they have distributed content between the Lake Forest location and the San Clemente location.
I think this video clip can be particularly helpful as we think about launching a multi-site campus.
Park Community Church on Comcast March 4, 2008
Posted by Steve in : The City, Chicago, Breaking News, Inside Park, The Cultural Conversation, The Arts in the City, Culture and Faith , add a commentCheck out FAITH TODAY’s preview of a 10 minutes piece on Park Community Church its growing impact on the city that is playing on Comcast On Demand.
Ministry Travel: Ensure the Lowest Fares May 29, 2007
Posted by Steve in : Technology, Methods & Strategies, Tech Tips , add a comment(Yahoo) Have you ever bought an airline ticket from ministry travel only to see the price fall in the enusing weeks and your frustration rise as you try to manage costs? Now there is something you can do about it.
Few customers realize it, but many airlines will give refunds if they cut the price after you have bought a ticket. Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest, United and US Airways all offer vouchers for the full price difference — if the price drops $200, you can get a $200 coupon towards a future trip. Others offer vouchers, or cash, after deducting change fees (which can run up to $100). In industry jargon, it is called a “rollover,” and in most cases it only works if you bought the ticket directly from the airline. (It generally won’t work if you bought them via a Web site such as Expedia.com or Orbitz.com, unless the price drops in the first 24 hours.)
The rollover policies have been in place for decades, but, until recently, it has been tough for consumers to figure out when their flight’s price has changed. The catch is you have to call while the lower price is in effect to get your rollover. That is where a new Web site, Yapta.com, has come up with a clever way to take some of the anxiety out of buying airline tickets.
Yapta, a company run by a former Alaska Airgroup Inc. pricing vice president, was launched May 22. It tracks fares on specific flights you select before or after you buy a ticket. That is an improvement over Web sites that just track markets, but don’t allow you to specify which flights you really want. You can use Yapta before you buy to alert you by email to pricing changes on a particular trip, or let you know if the price drops after you’ve bought a ticket and you’re eligible for a refund. In order to obtain the voucher, you need to phone the airline directly. (You usually can’t snare one online.) So as you are planning on attending that future multi-site conference, input your preferred flights and when they get to your budgeted level, it will notify you and you can then purchase the tickets.
One woman, who signed up with Yapta to test the site before its launch, paid $800 each for four tickets from San Francisco to Kona, Hawaii. A few days later, she got notification from Yapta that the price had dropped to about $400 per ticket. She called United Airlines and got tickets reissued at the lower price plus four $400 vouchers. “There’s no way I would have been checking sites to see if the price went down,” she said.
Check it out now here.
Missional Living as Leaders May 12, 2007
Posted by Steve in : Church, Inside Park, Methods & Strategies, Missional, Leader Zone , add a comment
Last night, we gathered 150 of our leaders and celebrated the incredible work that God is doing in and through Park Community Church. One of the highlights was the message given by our Lead Pastor, Jackson Crum, on the need for our leaders to live missionally in the city. Have a listen here.
Leader Zone Tonight May 10, 2007
Posted by Steve in : The City, Chicago, Inside Park, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, Leader Zone , add a comment
Tonight, we gather our 200 leaders at the Kitsch’n Restaurant by our new warehouse building (restaurant is at 800 N Larrabee St at 6:30 p.m.) and get a chance to interact, to inspire, to spend time together and plan for the summer. In 2007, we are striving to be more intentional about growing and developing our leadership community at Park Community Church, as we begin to think about reproducing, adding a fourth service, adding a location and growing to reach many more people in Chicago this summer who do not know the life-changing message of the Gospel. If you are a leader at Park (small groups, ministry leader or team leader), please join us for our second Leader Zone Meeting of 2007, tonight. God is up to something BIG here in the city and we are excited to come alongside that work.
