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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Prayer

Just a quick post because it's all I have time for. We are less than 30 days from the launch of Story Church. There is so much going on I can't believe it. Here's the quick list of what this week entails: picking curriculum for kids ministry, establishing some kids ministry policies, planning for our 12/20 preview, preparing my message for Sunday, writing our Bylaws and Constitution, getting funding in place from our friends at the ARC, accounting, planning teaching for the new year, trips to Guitar Center, creating ads for Facebook, creating slides for Sunday, meeting with people regarding a potential new location for Story Church, keeping in touch with supporters, getting background checks done, working on our website, and the list goes on.

Pray for me this week. Pray for Story Church. We've been talking about really slowing down and trying to embrace Christmas and it's kind of hard when you are trying to launch a church at the same time.

In addition to my pastor/church planter hat there's the husband/dad hat which is really the most important to me. Last night we went to dinner which we haven't done in months as a family. That was nice. Today I went and sat in on my daughter's class just for fun. That was nice too.

Trying to keep our family number one during this time is a challenge. Not impossible, but a challenge. Pray for us!

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100 Days

Today marks the 100 day countdown to the launch of Story Church. Depending on your perspective, that can either seem like a long time, or not much time at all. For me, it's more of the latter. A couple of months ago the plan was to launch on September 13. I had a hard time giving up that date and pushing things back, but I am so glad that we did. I can't even imagine what things would have been like if we had tried to push it. We simply wouldn't have made it.

So what is there to do in the next 100 days? Here are some of the things we are trying to accomplish in no specific order:

1) 3 preview services - Oct. 11, Nov. 15, and Dec. 20. The previews serve two purposes - to allow people to see who we are and maybe get excited enough about our vision to join our team. And secondly, to let us practice and try and figure this thing out.

2) To grow our team to about 35 adults. It just takes a certain amount of people to be able to hold babies, serve people, etc.

3) To raise money. We are trying to be good steward of what we have, but it simply costs money to start a church that meets in a rented facility. There is sound equipment, kids ministry stuff, food, advertising, rent, insurance, graphic design and more to pay for.

4) Serve our community. We are trying to build into the DNA of Story Church that we are going to be a church that not only exists within our community but that we play a vital role in it. Our desire is to be a generous, life-giving church. That doesn't happen on Sunday mornings alone. So we are beginning to find our place in Durham and the ways that we can live out the gospel to all people.

I'm so excited for these next 100 days. They are vitally important days. They are days of faith, of great dependence upon God. Pray for us and for Story Church. And if you are in the Triangle area, let us share our heart and vision with you. Come out and visit us on October 11 for our next preview. All of the details are on our website here.

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