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.
Willow To Eliminate Mid-Week Service April 17, 2008
Posted by Steve in : Chicago, Breaking News, Sunday Services, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies, The Cultural Conversation, Culture and Faith , add a comment(Christianity Today.com) For three decades Willow has been focused on making the church appealing to seekers. But its detailed and thorough research (summarized in their new book REVEAL) shows that it’s the mature believers that drive everything in the church—including evangelism. Greg Hawkins, the Executive Pastor says, “We used to think you can’t upset a seeker. But while focusing on that we’ve really upset the Christ-centered people.” He spoke
about the high levels of dissatisfaction mature believer have with churches. Drawing from the 200 churches and the 57,000 people that have taken the survey, he said that most people are leaving the church because they’re not being challenged enough. Because it’s the mature Christians who drive evangelism in the church Hawkins says, “Our strategy to reach seekers is now about focusing on the mature believers. This is a huge shift for Willow.”
One major implementation of this shift will occur in June when Willow ends their mid-week worship services that had been geared toward believers. Instead the church will morph these mid-week events into classes for people at different stages of growth. There will be theological and bible classes full of “hard-hitting stuff.” Hawkins said most people are very enthusiastic about the change.
On the seeker end of the spectrum, Willow is also changing how they produce their weekend services. For years the value people appreciated most about the seeker-oriented weekend services was anonymity. This is what all their research showed. People didn’t want to be identified, approached, confronted, or asked to do anything. But those days are over. “Anonymity is not the driving value for seeker services anymore,” says Hawkins. “We’ve taken anonymity and shot it in the head. It’s dead. Gone.” In the past Willow believed that seekers didn’t want large doses of the Bible or deep worship music. They didn’t want to be challenged. Now their seeker-sensitive services are loaded with worship music, prayer, Scripture readings, and more challenging teaching from the Bible.
Willow has been wrestling with the research from REVEAL since 2004. Hawkins said, “We’ve tried incremental changes for four years, but now we know we have to overhaul our whole strategy.” Small steps are no longer the method; Willow is revamping everything. “It would be malpractice for us to not do something with what we’re learning.”
In the larger REVEAL survey taken by 200 churches, people were asked what they want most from their church. Three of the top four responses were:
1. Help me understand the Bible in greater depth
2. Help me develop a closer personal relationship with Christ
3. Challenge me to grow and take the next step in my faith
Hawkins said that sometimes Willow gets accused of managing the church based on market research; of simply giving people what they want. “Look at what they want!” he said while pointing to the screen. “They want the Bible, they want to be close to Christ, they want to be challenged. Yes, we will give them what they want!”
What are YOU Expecting this Easter? March 16, 2007
Posted by Steve in : The City, Church, Inside Park , add a commentWe are getting ready for a Big Easter in the city as we do a three part series on Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter on “What Are YOU Expecting?” where we will explore expectations: what people expected of Jesus, what God expected of Him and why Jesus came, died and rose from the dead. Here is the Easter graphic this year and the questions we are asking of people as they think about the resurrection at Easter:
What are you expecting? People come to the city and have many expectations for their lives: job opportunities, a spouse or meaningful relationship, great friends, happiness, comfort, good times, excitement, spiritual growth, fulfillment. What are you expecting?
Many years ago, the people of Israel were looking for a king, a political leader who would lead them out of the bondage and oppression of the Romans. They welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday with fanfare, yet less than a week later, he was hung on a cross to die a lonely death. What were they expecting?
Then on Sunday morning, several of Jesus followers went to the tomb but it was empty. What were they expecting?
We’d love to have you come to Chicago and join us this Easter season:
Park Community Church — Easter Season Services - April 6 and 8
Good Friday Services, Apr 6 — 5:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m.
Francis Parker School - Map
Easter Sunday Services, Apr 8 — 8:30 a.m. 10:00 a.m. 11:30 a.m.
Francis Parker School - Map
Can You Go Without for One Day? March 5, 2007
Posted by Steve in : Technology, The Cultural Conversation , add a comment
It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible. If they disappeared for just one day, would we in church-land be able to cope? Be a part of one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the internet. The idea behind the experiment is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if everyone participates! Shutdown your computer on March 24th and find out! I am interested in all the pastors and church staff out there……Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer? or have you become addicted to email, calendars, etc……
Vote YES or NO here.
Leave us a comment — let us know here if you and your church staff can turn off the technology for one day.
The Shutdown Day idea started because the founders were worried about how much time everyone spends on computers and how little time is left these days for the other things in life. It has developed into an international event, a global experiment…Be a part of it, Shutdown Day, March 24th 2007
(right now the voting is 88% of folks say they can go 24 hours without using their computer…..How about you?)
A2 Conference: John Burke, Gateway Community Church November 3, 2006
Posted by Steve in : Weblog, Church, Urban Church, Methods & Strategies , add a commentEven thought I am far away in Turkey, I wanted to finish my review of the Willow A2 Conference — It also doesn’t hurt that it is 4:00 am and I am wide awake and no place to go…….. “No Perfect People Allowed” is the mantra of a 20’s/to 40’s church in Austin Texas, founded by John and Kathy Burke. I got a chance to hear John again after meeting him a year ago at an RSI conference. He and his team have been very helpful as we exchanged information about capital campaign tactics and managing growth. I found his approach to ministering to this generation compelling. John has pastored a church that has seen God work in marvellous ways — the standard huge growth to several thousand, many coming to Christ, etc — all the typical things you hear from conference speakers.
The compelling story here for me is that John is resolute and laser-focused on reaching people with the Gospel. After the half-hour summary of their ministry approach, John and his right-hand man, Charles Dishinger, took Q&A in “the Bullpen”. Many of the questions dealth with the messy side consequences of evangelism, mainly that if you go out to minister to the types that Jesus would minister to, how do you get these people discipled and grow them to a place to lead others? They key for me was John’s unwillingness to disengage in dialogue with all people all the time about Jesus Christ. He is an evangelist and is unashamed of his focus. What came through to me was the compelling argument that John leads with evangelism and has a team behind him to do discipleship and leadership. IMHO, this is the way it should be! We should be about reaching AS MANY AS POSSIBLE with the Gospel and we can build the right team behind us to ensure donctrinal purity, appropriate training and development, etc. Like Gateway, we at Park Community Church are built of the same cloth and share this kindred spirit. I applaud everything that John and his team are doing and wish them all the best.
Willow Creek A2 Conference - Day One Summary October 25, 2006
Posted by Steve in : Weblog, Methods & Strategies , add a commentWow! What a day of team-building and mind-stretching by some of the best ministry minds in the land. Got to Willow and into the 7,200 seat auditorium in time for some great cross-cultural worship to open up the conference. Then Bill Hybels came out and began to talk about key events in his life that have shaped him as a leader (other than his profession of faith). These are not small things but events where God touched your life, rocked your world, and caused you to dive into ministry.
My Personal Key Takeaways from Bill Hybels:
- What would the world be like if every pastor raised their game 5%…just 5%. This had me thinking about incremental gains that could be made and time-hog projects that could be jettisoned to get 5% more effective in our ministry at Park Community Church in the city of Chicago.
- He was impacted because a Godly man asked him a couple of simple questions: “What are you going to do with your life that will last forever? Are you going to just keep accumulating stuff and experiences as the signature of your life or are you going to leave an eternal legacy?” Also, his youth pastor told him “the only thing that will move on after the fervent heat of Christ’s return melts the earth is people, so why would you invest your one and only life in anything other than people?”
Man, can this guy tell personal stories that get you motivated or what?
Then Craig Groeschel from Life Church in Oklahoma came out to address their strategy of multii-site church. Life Church is one church, meeting in nine locations through the use of video and satellite technology. This enables all of the locations to be connected as one, no matter how far apart they are physically. Each LifeChurch.tv location has the same dynamic worship experience, with its own “personal touches”, including its own live band and campus pastor to lead worship. People who attend LifeChurch.tv find the quality of a large church with the intimacy and personal interaction of a smaller church. The Mission of LifeChurch.tv is to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ.
My Personal Key Takeaways from Craig Groeschel:
- They have taken an “evangelism as our priority” view and therefore have been on the forefront of multi-site church.
- He was quick to say — don’t follow us — ask your own questions and figure our what God is doing in your backyard.
- He did give us some great questions to ponder as he taught out of Acts 2:
- What is we invited peopel to surrender their lives to Christ’s headship EVERY Sunday?
- What if we gave to everyone who had need?
- What if we promoted other churches in the area and people left Craig’s church but got plugged in at their new church?
- What if you preached to people on video?
- What if a church was no longer bound by walls and buildings?
- What if we could redeem technology for Kingdom expansion?
This has promoted team discussion on the viability of multi-site in our young urbanite setting and its potential. Very interesting to ponder…..
We then got to hear from Matthew Barnett of the LA Dream Center, who gave a riveting message based on Nehemiah 2:10 — promoting the welfare of the Israelites. This was a good day to sharpen iron against iron — it also allows us to focus as a team on some of the issues raised and how we would deal with them.
Off to the Willow Creek A2 Conference October 24, 2006
Posted by Steve in : Weblog, Urban Church, Technology, Methods & Strategies , add a commentTomorrow a few of the Park Community Church team is headed to the Willow Creek Acts 2 conference, including Jackson Crum, Scott Clifton, Jen Cousino and Franklin Woodland, one of our elders. It is so exciting to do ministry with these folks and the rest of the team. Each of them has a passion to see people come to know the eternal salvation offered through Jesus Christ, and we have such an opportunity in the city of Chicago!
Some of the speakers include Bill Hybels, Craig Groeschel, Erwin McManus, David Ireland, John Burke, Mark and Nicole Connor, Matthew Barnett and Gene Appel. We are hoping to get a better undestanding of the role multi-site plays in a church’s life, as we continue to expand in the city.
