What's happening at Connection Church.me
I haven't been keeping up on my blog recently, so here are somethings that have been going on at Connection Church in the past month.
- We have reached the 80+ mark in worship for over 4 weeks in a row. That's over 90% growth in the past 3 months alone! I'm humbled and thankful for God's grace in the growth that He is giving us.
- Our staff set a goal to break the hundred mark in the next 6 weeks. I was a little hesitant in sharing this with our congregation because it attaches a tangible number that isn't always the best measurement in what God is doing, but I felt like this is so doable and it gives us a goal, that in the words of my father-in-law, is a S.A.M. goal (Simple, Attainable, and Measurable). It's going to be fun to watch and experience, so Connectors, let me encourage you to keep investing, keep inviting, and keep the dream alive in your hearts.
- We just finished our series called Re-Sync, in which we talked about four areas that our lives need to be continually synced to: Eternity, Repentance, Grace and Generosity. You can listen to any of them here.
- In today's service we challenged our people with the generosity challenge. Basically it challenged those who aren't giving to start, those who are giving to move closer to the 10% mark and those who are at the 10% mark to move above and beyond. I was so encouraged by the amount of people who took the challenge. God will show himself faithful to you.
- Next week we start our new series, "800 lb. Gorilla in the Room." We will be having a conversation about some very hot topics that everyone knows is there, but no one is talking about. It's going to be a series that may ruffle a few feathers, be a little uncomfortable at times, but most importantly give some Biblical perspective to the world around us. You don't want to miss it.
2 comments:
First, I thought it interesting that the captcha for this post was "aciest" - hm, sounds almost like another word ;).
I do find the idea of trying to grow a church to be interesting, because in so many ways, you're trying to build up a community. Ways that tie people together - and while that common thread is "faith in these particular principles", I've been fascinated lately in how you build up that community.
I've noticed a local church putting up signs not too far from my house of "Our church is over here" - other than signs, or blogging, or doing the "door to door" thing, how are you relying on building that community?
Just curious. Seems like it would be a challenge in this day and age.
John,
Thanks for the comment. BTW, I follow your "Blogthereligion" on twitter, and I read the article the North Tampa paper did on you...very interesting to me and from the church critiques you've done, I think you are pretty fair and straight forward.
Good question about how to build a community. We've tried a lot of things, from mass mailers (which was a very expensive way of getting a few people to come), yard signs, handing out water and candy bars in public places, just about anything we can think of to get the word out.
All that being said, we find the best and most effective way to build a community is through what we call a missional lifestyle. For lot of people the word missional or missionary conjures up a door to door kind of thing, which we do not do, because I think it's highly ineffective and obtrusive to peoples privacy.
What the word does mean, however, is a continual living out our life in the culture in which we live. We try to step into culture, not away from it, and build relationships with the people around us, and once we've gained their trust through a friendship, we extend an invitation to not only come to our church, but to experience Jesus in the way we have.
Guests are our primary focus on Sunday morning. We go out of our way to try to make them feel comfortable as well as valued. This can be tricky, because it's easy to be fakeously (just made that word up) nice, which makes people as uncomfortable as when no one talks to them.
So, we try to be very strategic in making them feel valued, which extends beyond Sunday morning and into the week.
Building our community is a never ending process that we are always strategically trying to figure out. It's a mission that we've embraced.
Love to have you come an visit us sometime...would love to be highlighted on blog the religion, too.
steve
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