Contagion

Our initial launch team meeting went great tonight. I talked for a little too long. So long that we could have a had a break in between and still been squirmish in our seats...haha. Everyone stayed with me though. I basically unloaded the whole dream. For the few people that hadn't heard anything about it yet, it was good. The fact that Tina is going to be leading the kids is incredible. Some of the people with kids felt relieved when they found that out. There were a few people that said they were on board but that they didn't have time to commit to the launch team period. That's fine with me. It's looking like we are going to have around 7-9 couples to start with. In that group it looks like we will have almost all of the bases covered to get us started. The challenge will be finding volunteers to be a part of each section to make it work. It could mean that we just do it and hope the people come. Maybe we can find them before we start. We will hopefully have a team from our local Bible college coming to help out with the kids to make it awesome for the first year and to help us get off of our feet. That might free up some of the other launch team to help in other areas. I'm just excited to finally be moving ahead. We are going to start meeting weekly starting next Sunday night. It's going to be good.

I've been waiting for this time for two months now. The potential launch team is going to be getting together for a collective vision casting meeting. I'm excited cause everyone will hear the exact same thing. I've talked to most of these people prior to this evening but each time I'm sure the vision was less developed than it is now. I went and took some pictures of the theater to give people who haven't seen it a visual of how we're going to do things.

I just went out for breakfast with Dave (the lead worshipper) and he's stoked. I talked with Tina last night (the kids director) and she's excited. She's just working on getting a full year of curriculum developed that will be interactive and exciting. I talked with Charlene (The guest ministry coordinator) yesterday as well and confirmed that she will be in charge of organizing that and being innovative in the way we welcome guests. I have a year of messages mapped out in front of me and need to pull together a creative design team that meets every two months to plan in detail the next two months coming up. One person I would really like to find is a creative/production/gathering director that takes care of making sure sets/banners/props are being made, that interactive objects are purchased, that the ushers are in place to pass out guest cards,bibles, and interactive objects and the list goes on. The more I type the more I think that I need superman/woman to pull this off. Maybe it should be a position for two people. Feel free to drop me a line and give me your wisdom and advice. I admit I'm an amatuer and don't have it all figured out so the more help I can get, the better. Here are some questions I still have: How do we do kids ministry in a theater where there isn't a whole lot of open space, just seats? What kinds of advertising have you found to work the best? How much advertising/marketing do you do?

I'm just sitting here contemplating going to bed and thinking about how blessed I truly am. I have two amazing kids, a beautiful little girl and stud for a son. My son is two. He's incredible. He's counting like crazy and loves number. As well, he has an obsession with the alphabet. Everyday I see him growing up into a man. He copies everything Bek and I say, which at times can be quite freaky. We are finding we have to watch what we say cause at the moment when we think he isn't listening he'll blurt something out and take us by surprise. I couldn't imagine life without him and I'm so looking forward to growing old with him.
My little girl is a month old. At this point she just lays there and looks cute. She's starting to develop a personality of her own and we can see that her countenance is just like her mothers: pleasant. I can see myself turning into a mush ball as the days go by knowing that I have a little princess to raise up in the ways of Jesus.
On top of that, I blessed to have an incredibly beautiful, hot and georgous wife. For having two kids, she looks phenomenal. On top of that, she has stayed so constant in her attitudes and countenance that it makes it easy being a dad. She is an amazing mom and wife. I truly am blessed. I'm blessed to have a wife that is going to be an incredible lead pastor's wife. All she has to do is be herself and she will be perfect. If all of the ladies in our church took her as a model of how to be a true woman, they would be well off. I know I'm biased, but I do really think that she has more influence than she knows.
I was watching Ice Age 2 tonight. And of all the shows to see something that meant something to me, I didn't think it would be this one. But I was watching as Manny thought he was the only Mammoth left alive and the feelings he was going through. The thought crossed my mind that I'm glad I'm not alone. I'm glad I have an amazing family to come home to and to live life with. I have amazing parents who support me and champion my cause. I have a rad younger brother and sister in law who I enjoy hanging out with. I'm glad I don't have to live life alone. I'm glad I have people to love (even though I don't do that well at it lots of the time) and be loved by.
I am blessed.

Saturday can't come fast enough. It's our first "intro to the launch team" gathering. Basically I have 10-12 couples that are coming together to hear the detailed vision of The CrossCurrent (TXC). 4 of those couples are already in. Once this meeting takes place I'd like everyone to pray about it and see what they feel God say to them. Regardless of who chooses to go all in, we are going to be meeting every Sunday @ 6pm starting May 7. These will be times of vision clarification, walking through our core values, reading and working through the book "7 practices of effective ministry" and praying our guts out. We could end up with 5 couples initially. That's okay. We've got the worship, kids and speaking taken care of.

I should also mention that I've had a couple say that they would like to be a part of the church as well as give financially to the launch. This amount being thrown around is a substantial sum and would take care of our launch completely and then some. So I'm busy praying that the things they need to go through in order for this to happen...go through. And fast. 5 months is peanuts. The biggest thing on our plate is the sound system which is estimated around $25,000. We'll have to see what God has up his sleeve.

We are in the process of getting a website developed which I'm quite pleased with so far. It's a flash site and seeing we are using a movie theater as our meeting space, the site is the inside of a theater. Seeing websites are the new front door, I figure I'd like ours to accurate reflect who we are. I want people to have a theater church experience before they even step foot in our theater church.

I decided on a logo.



It's nothing too flashy but it gets across the message that we're trying to convey. The two things we will change is the arrows will be blue (symbolizing the currents) and the background will be a darker grey. We wanted the logo to communicate what our name is about, living in the crosscurrent that is created when the kingdom of God collides with kingdom of the world. All in all, things are moving ahead.

I'm still on staff at my current church as the youth pastor but I'm am quickly transitioning out and passing the baton to Eric, the guy we hired in January as an associate youth pastor. Little did I or he know at the time that this would be happening. Crazy God adventures. My senior pastor is awesome. He is being so gracious with everything. My salary for a year with a review at the end of that year. Permission to ask people from the church to come (I'm handpicking these people...no sign up lists) I'm looking forward to building a stronger relationship with him through this whole thing.

I think I’m gonna go ahead and buy the converge software.  There is so much stuff that is starting to build up that I don’t wanna lose track of what needs to be done.  I’m also looking into Fellowship One.  Is there anyone else that is using this system or possibly something like it that could give me some advice?  It’s a little pricey but I’m huge into organization and making sure that peoeple don’t fall through the cracks because I’m too busy with administration stuff.  Any suggestions would be much appreaciated!

I signed the contract for the theater yesterday...all in all they are being incredibly generous with us. Most times their digital projector needs to be rented out for an arm and a leg and they are giving it to us for free as well as giving us a smoking deal (from my perspective) on the rent.

Last night I had a talk with my sister in law about the kids side of things and she on board. She is phenomenal with kids so I'm stoked. The only pitfall could be that she has a full time job as a daycare director. I just have to be careful not to overwork her while we're still in the volunteer stage. Eventually, I'd love to pay all of the staff.

The Board from my current church approved the finance end of things last night. They are still up in the air as far as monthly support goes but when it comes to allowing the committed families to start tithing to TXC they were all in. They have also committed to support me with a generous salary until Next April which will help us out tremendously. When that time rolls around, we'll reassess the situation to see if we need further support or not.

I have about 13 couples that are going to be meeting next Saturday for an informational meeting regarding the launch team. These are all super quality people (some in their own way) so I'm excited. Even if half of them commit for right now I'll be happy. The ball is rolling.

I still can't believe how this is shaking down. This dream is turning into a reality so fast it scares me. And yet, I have this confidence that can't be communicated. I just know that God is behind all of this. This is going to be one crazy adventure. I know it's gonna be the hardest thing I've ever done. All I know is that I'm called and that God is behind the dream....

Well we made the big announcement today. I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction of the congregation. There were people coming up to me saying that they have been praying for Mission and that they felt like they were supposed to find a church to attend out there so their friends who aren't Christians could come to church with them. They had no idea that this was going to be God's answer to their prayer: our church planting out there. I'm so stoked about this. It just blows my mind when something is being led by God how everything just falls into place. People offering to help with the launch cost. People to help with the yearly support of getting us off the ground. I just can't believe it. Some people freak out hearing that I'm not really sure where the money is going to come from. This is proof to the fact that God is in this and he's gonna take care of it.

I'm just sitting here listening to the new United Cd and I realized that there is one thing I do know. I don't know everyone that is coming with us from our mother church but I do know that I have a very skilled lead worshipper coming along. He's worked with me for the last 5 years in the youth ministry that I'm currently the pastor of. Over time he has proven himself to be awesome. I can't wait to see how God is going to use him in this new adventure. One thing I know is that we are going to have amazing music and an amazing lead worshipper to lead us as we respond to God's initiation of salvation. Right now he doesn't have a venue to unleash. This will be his opportunity. I'm stoked.

I find I've been getting a little antsy lately. I've got all of these dreams pent up inside of me and yet I can't get people on board yet. We announce the church plant tomorrow (Easter) in church. Once that happens I intend on having a core team introduction on April 29. After that meeting I'm hoping to secure people to be on the team so we can get the wheels in motion. Until there are people in place to start making dreams reality, that all they are...dreams.

I've also got to be thinking about the finances of this church as well. For some reason I feel at total peace with the fact that we have 5 months to come up with $75,000. I just really believe that God controls money and that he can influence someone to let go of it. It's just a matter of getting the dream public and finding the people with the pockets. It's hard for some people to hear that I don't have all the money lined up and I wish I could come up with some answer that would help them relax. But I think that the uncertainty of it is all a part of the adventure and a lesson in learning how to rely on God instead of Dan.

Anyways, I'm sure there are going to be questions galore in the next few days...guess I should find some answers.

So...I've taken the first step. September 24, 2006 APA is starting a new church called The CrossCurrent. This is a dream that God birthed in my about a month ago and it has consumed me like a wildfire -- almost to the point of obsession. I've been try my hardest to process everything with a head that is level and been checking myself to see if this is a venture that is birthed out of pride or rebellion. Everyday I wake up and ask God to stop this thing in it's tracks if it's not from him. So far--that hasn't happened.

Last night I met with the board of APA. There were six out of seven members of the board present. Out of those six, all of them gave me their blessing to move ahead with the dream. In two weeks we are going to discuss what this could look like in terms of finances. I informed them that I'm not concerned about the money. I sure would love to be able to put food on my table without having to work 3 jobs and try and start a church, but I'm willing to do it if it means me being obedient to God.