STORYCHURCH Launch

Yesterday, after four and a half years of dreaming, we finally launched Story Church. It was one of the greatest days of my life - to see a vision become reality. I was so proud of our team and so amazed at our God. There are seriously so many highlights, but I'll try and name some of them here.

- Our team did a tremendous job. I am amazed at the people God has assembled here at Story Church and the gifts they have.
- Final attendance was 96 people. More than double what we had at our preview services.
- We learned a lot about what works in getting our name out around here. We did a smaller (5,000 piece) direct mail campaign, yard signs, and facebook ads. By far the facebook ads were the most successful in getting people to our site, and ultimately to the service. The combination of yard signs and mailer did well (when people got a mailer and saw a sign). However, for other church planters - for the cost, I can't recommend Facebook ads more highly.
- Our band, led by @alastairvance did amazingly well.
- Our setup was different this time. We added a significant amount of pipe and drape, and moved our sound board and media off to the side as opposed to the back center of the room. The pipe and drape really gave the elementary school gym a much better feel and created an intimate space. It's a little more labor intensive than I like in a mobile church environment, but I'm sure we can develop a better system for that.
- We had a new sound board and a new projector - both of which worked out really well.
- Just saying, there can't be a better spread of food anywhere in the kingdom of God.
- Our kids ministry rocked it - I heard nothing but great things from parents.
- When I finally got up to preach, I was pretty amped up but also quite emotional. It took a few deep breaths and a prayer to get me calmed down enough to speak my heart. In the end, I think it went really well.
- We gave away John Eldredge's book Epic to everyone there - a great book for a church named STORYCHURCH!
- Overheard "Is this going to be every week?!"
- Met a girl who recently moved here from AZ. Found out she went to the church of my former youth pastor, mentor and friend Linn Winters at Cornerstone Chandler. We were all amazed at the connection.
- Met several young couples looking for a church home. Lots of PhD students. Not sure I'm smart enough for this crowd.
- Got so many emails, texts, and twitter messages from friends and other pastors that encouraged the heck out of me.
- Jesus was lifted high!
- We get to do it all over again in 6 days!!

You can hear this week's message here, and see more pictures here.

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Story Church - Our third preview

Yesterday, November 15 was the third preview service for Story Church. It was the first time we attempted this in the morning, going with a 10am service as opposed to the previous two which were at 6pm. We felt it was important to do at least one of the previews in the morning so that we could figure out timing, lighting, and everything else. Overall it was a good morning. We added some signage this time with some banners out front. We further streamlined our setup and adding some light trees to the auditorium.

I taught on the parable of the Good Samaritan and tried to teach it in such a way that we heard the story in the same way the original audience heard it. I think we were able to accomplish that for the most part. We also tied it in to a movement we are embracing as a church called the Advent Conspiracy. It's a movement that focuses on fighting consumerism at Christmas by giving of ourselves more to each other and by giving to the poor. One of our goals is to deliver a life-giving message every week. I think that this particular message could have used more life. I could have done a better job of connecting the freedom and life that come from loving people as neighbor instead of focusing as much as I did on the ways in which our hearts are closed off to certain people. Both are valid, but one without the other isn't complete. I was trying to get there with our emphasis on Advent Conspiracy, but I'm not sure it got there.

For me, I am still getting back into the swing of preaching. My preparation is getting better, but I am definitely still rusty at times. As a church planter, and the only staff person, it's sometimes tough to find the balance between everything that needs to get done, and the things that only I can do. In other words, I'm trying to learn how to use our team more and more and to focus my own energies on the things that only I can do.

Anyway, as for this preview here are a few things we learned this week:

- Moving our kids registration into the hallway instead of the main room was a good idea.
- Get people involved as soon as possible. We had people serving as greeters who had never been to one of our services. How cool is that?
- We continue to be amazed that people show up. Haha. It's the thing I hear from lots of church planters, but the fact that people actually show up is pretty awesome. They see signs, they find us online, all of it is really cool.
- We're beginning to make the school feel like it's ours. The banners out front and at the entrance really helped.
- We still need more signage inside. We need our kids registration area better marked - though it feels like that is kind of a moving table right now.
- We still need musicians. We had our fearless leader Alastair and we added Jon on electric guitar. But we had no drummer or bass player. I think we missed the energy a full band provides.
- We need a sound guy.
- We need someone who can design our slides each week. I spent a few hours on that this week and it was hard.
- Our clean up seemed to take a long time. Not sure why. I know that more of us were enjoying talking to new people, but we need to figure out how to get cleaned up before noon on Sundays.
- The new sound equipment was awesome. I am excited that we are getting that part of our setup nailed down.
- We need more kids workers.
- I'm still not thrilled with the lighting in the room - I wish we had more control over that.
- It still feels like an elementary school at times. I think we need to invest in some pipe and drape or something like it to cover up some of the realities of where we meet.
- The stage could still use a backdrop as well.
- Offerings still aren't covering the cost of meeting there. At some point that will need to change.

I haven't yet got feedback from our team about their thoughts on the preview. I'll try and post their thoughts this week. We're definitely still figuring things out.

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