Asking the Questions

This past week, we had Ken Dick [an elder at Christ Community] teach "in person" at the Sarpy Campus. Yes, "in person" is the correct description.

I will digress.

Too many times people say that a person will be "live" in concert or "live" preaching. I ask you, isn't that obvious? The person will be live just because they are standing there talking or singing. So...as we transition into becoming a multi-site church, we need to make sure that we adopt the language of multi-sites. That we have people on the platform teaching, singing, etc that are "in person" not "live."

There I feel better.

Ken asked us three powerful questions to ask yourself this at the end of his "in person" sermon on eternity.
1. In terms of eternity, how important is this?
2. Am I living my life with my bags packed?
3. Do I have an alien/sojourner mindset?

My application from those questions?
I used #1 when a driver wanted to cut in front of me because of merging traffic. Yes, I let him in.
#2 is causing me to evaluate how much stuff I have and that I don't really need as many shirts and sweatshirts as I have. #3, I have to confess, I don't. I'm trying to figure what that looks like. I like to plan and dream, but I believe I have to do that with a transitory, "just passing through" mentality. Big issue for me? I can believe and think that way, but reality is I don't.

Stay posted as those three questions percolate in my heart and brain.

I'm Smiling

Go figure. The Sunday with key volunteers sick, more tech stuff to do than normal, service adjustments made on the fly, and I felt the least "prepared" to be campus pastor, we had more people attending the Sarpy Campus than ever before this past Sunday.

Over the past few months, I have discovered that I am a "short term pessimist and a long term optimist." That means I try to do to much on my own and think that if I have enough time we can do a good job.

This journey with the Sarpy multi-site has stretched and humbled me more than in the shortest period of time in my 26 years of being a pastor. Yet, I wouldn't trade this for anything. I love working with such joyful volunteers and people who are passionate for reaching friends, neighbors and anybody else with God's love.

I had an article given to me that listed books I should be reading. Sadly, I have similar lists of books a good pastor should read. Or in a weak moment I bought the book listed. Those books are sitting on a shelf in my office. They are books that I call, "Books I will read on vacation or when I am laid up with an injury but not sick." In the article I came across a summary paragraph of a book entitled "Direct Hit" by Paul Borden. There was a sentence that I fell in love with. "Healthy congregations are defined by sacrifice. They exist more for those who are currently not part of the group than for those who comprise the current congregation."

I realized that the sentence described our Sarpy Campus. After reading that sentence, I can't help but smile. Knowing we have a wonderful volunteer team and that I won't read Paul's book.

Smiling,
Steve Walters

A Month in review

I decided to reprint an article I submitted recently for a multi-site newsletter. They asked me to give an overview of what we are doing and how God is working. May you be encouraged as we remember what God has done over just 10 weeks of ministry.

We at Christ Community Sarpy have experienced Ephesians 3.20 weekly. God has truly done exceedingly, abundantly more than we would ever ask or think.

Our core team of 200 men, women and children started with a soft opening on January 27th. Over three Sundays we worked out the bugs of setting up in a Middle School. Many people showed up to help our Roadies team to assist them in rolling out the carpet, putting table cloths on the round tables in the cafeteria and general transforming a cafeteria into a room that felt relaxed, welcoming and relational.

We have had close to eleven months to prepare for our new campus. There was support in many ways from the Old Mill campus. What was and is still amazing to me is the number of people God placed on our core team that were perfect fits for the needs and ministry at the Sarpy Campus. God provided an engineer who loves to play with the autocad software program. Jason dove into designing the sizes of our portable cases, along with their weight to then decide what was the best size of trailer for our church. God also provided a Jim, who just happened to live close to the new campus and had a truck to haul the trailer and store the trailer at his house. There are many stories of how God brought others onto the core team. People who lived close to the middle school along with those who are now driving double the distance to Sarpy than from Old Mill just to have the experience of starting a multi site so when we start our next multi site campus [hopefully closer to them] they will have the background to help with the next site.

We have had exponential growth in our Journey Groups [small groups] along with continuing increase of numbers in our children’s ministry. That says to me that adults are wanting to connect with others and connect with God as well as the children are having fun and want to come back again while bringing their friends.

Our first soft opening service had 204 adults and children attending one of our two services. Our grand opening on February 17th saw 353 attending to hear our Lead Pastor Mark Ashton there to not only help greet those coming, but to also give us a challenging message in person. Our normal format is to have a week delay in our DVD message, allowing us to have time to review the sermon and craft discussion questions that can be discussed around the tables during the service. The following Sundays saw our attendance dip to 290 and 312. However, starting on the first Sunday in March our attendance jumped back to 353 with both Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday having 368 total attendance. We finished March with 353 attending on the 30th.

We are excited to be intrinsically involved in seeing God work. Whether it is fringe people from the Old Mill campus getting deeply involved in the church or new families volunteering to help within attending two Sundays – we know that God is doing exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ever imagine.