The Launch of a Saturday Evening Contemporary Service Part III

It's been almost 9 weeks since the "soft" launch of our Saturday Evening Contemporary Service here at Castleton UMC and so far, so good. The worship band continues to get better as the weeks go by, especially in regards to transitions. They have been introducing new worship songs for our congregation and they seem to enjoy most of them.

The inconsistency of our schedule has certainly hurt us a little over the past few weeks. Due to a previously scheduled wedding, the service started an hour later that weekend at 7pm. We have another late start coming up on the 31st due to another wedding that has been on the books for awhile. There is no Saturday Service this Saturday due to the "Celebrate Our Church" service happening at 10am Sunday. We are combining all 6 of our weekend services from 2 campuses into this 1 service on Sunday morning. I am looking forward to the consistency the Fall calendar will provide in a few weeks.

As we prepare for a consistent Fall schedule, we are working on a marketing strategy for the "hard" launch set for August 14th. Part of this marketing plan involves developing a name for the service, which is proving harder than I had anticipated (any suggestions let me know). Once we settle on a name, we will begin designing a logo and tagline. This will be followed with targeted mailers, online advertising, radio spots, visiting local college campuses, and large banners in front of the church. I'm anticipating the initial marketing cost being roughly $3k-$5k.

One other aspect I have been working on is our online presence via live streaming of the service and podcasts. Neither are great right now but I don't think we're too far from making these happen on a consistent, quality basis.

After meeting for 8 weeks we are averaging 68 in attendance.

The Launch of a Saturday Evening Contemporary Service Part II

It's been almost a week since the launch of our new Saturday Evening Contemporary Service, with tomorrow night being week two. The feedback I received from the launch has been overwhelmingly positive, especially in regards to the music and band.

I know for some of you, the thought of launching a new service on Memorial Day weekend sounds absurd but let me give you a little context. Castleton UMC is located in Indianapolis, IN which happens to be the home of the Indianapolis 500. The race takes place on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, which draws tens of thousands of people, including people from our congregation. So every year, on this weekend, we have held a Saturday night worship service as an option for racegoers but this year, we used that time as the launching point for our new Saturday service that will continue throughout the year. For us, the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend made sense and the numbers spoke to this. We had 130 in attendance for our first Saturday Evening Contemporary Service, which ended up being more than our 8:30 & 11am services the following Sunday morning. This is the impact of the Indy 500.

Overall, I was really happy with the launch as I had no idea what to expect. I believe weeks 2, 3 and 4 will be telling but regardless of how many attend or what happens, we are excited to see how God will use this service on Saturday nights.

I will be posting my sermons here on my blog, podcasts are available here and the services will be streamed live online here on Saturday evenings at 6pm. All sorts of different ways to check it out and connect.

The Launch of a Saturday Evening Contemporary Service Part I

The church that I am currently appointed to, Castleton UMC, is getting ready to launch a contemporary worship service that will take place on Saturday nights at 6pm in the sanctuary on our Castleton campus. I have been given the opportunity to be the lead pastor for this service which I have been working toward making happen for over 3yrs now. With plenty of prayer and dreaming, I got the word to launch on Saturday, May 29th about 5 weeks ago.

A little background info on our church...We have 2 campuses with a total average Sunday morning attendance of around 750. We have 3 services (8:30 & 9:40 traditional, 11 blended/contemporary) on the Castleton campus and 2 services (9 traditional, 10:30 contemporary) on the Sunrise campus. We have not had a consistent evening service option and as a result, it will be interesting to see the response to a Saturday evening service that happens each week.

I've received plenty of support along the way from fellow staff, members of the congregation and especially Joe Garrison (@JoeGGarrison). In the past 5 weeks, here's what we've done so far:

*Solely through social media we were able to find a solid worship leader (@matthewedilley), drummer (@jdcogswell) and strong female vocalist (@zanbone) to accompany 3 of our own musicians.

*The only promotion of this service has been through in-house publications (church bulletin, newsletter, e-bulletin, website), word of mouth and social media.

*We have most of our volunteer positions filled (greeters, welcome center, ushers) but have a few A/V spots (sound, lights, video, slides) that are still open.

*I decided on Saturdays at 6pm because I believe this time will lend itself to reaching a wide range of individuals for various reasons. I also believe it will provide countless opportunities for fellowship (and eventually study & small groups) to take place after the service.

*We will be podcasting & video archiving the sermons and live streaming the entire service online (find that stuff here) each week.

Needless to say this is going to be a work-in-progress as we move forward but should be fun to witness how it all comes together, as so much of it has already. I look forward to hearing any questions or thoughts you have about launching a new service and sharing this experience with you.

New vs. Renew

I know this is a question that has been around for a long time. Is it better to start something new or attempt to renew something that has been going for a while? Whether it's a brand, a business, a ministry...it's a tough call to know when to scrap something and start over or when there is enough of a foundation in place that renewal is the way to go.

I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately as I hear about more and more new churches that are starting when there are a large number of churches that currently exist but are dieing. Hence the question, is it better to start something new or attempt to renew it? I can see value in both but I wonder when is one approach better than the other especially when it takes so many resources to build and start something from scratch. Where is the line between fulfilling the mission of the Church and filling our egos? Is the reason that it is "easier" to start a new church/ministry rather than renew an already existing one enough?

I certainly do not claim to have the answers as I can clearly see how both options could be viable but I do believe we need to be checking our motives as we ask ourselves this very basic question. I also understand that each situation/church/ministry is different and can be unique but it seems like the general philosophy of people (church leaders) is to opt for the 'new' option over the 'renew' one. I'm not saying this is necessarily wrong but I'm not convinced it is necessarily right either.

So, what do you think...whether you are a church leader, pastor, someone who attends church regularly or not at all, what makes the decision for you to go New or Renew?

6 Questions for The United Methodist Church

A large group of young clergy (under 35) have begun a campaign to ask 6 questions of the UMC in order to raise important issues about the next steps of the denomination, provide guidance for the future and shape the denomination (www.umcyoungclergy.com/6qumc, Twitter hash tag #6qumc). These questions are not just to be asked or answered by young clergy but rather is an attempt to generate conversation around the fact that the UMC denomination desperately needs young clergy if it is going to survive.

There is an online forum where you can vote on the questions being asked or even submit your own question to be voted on. A couple of the questions that I have liked so far are:

-In the Pastor of a Local Church section: "Does the gospel you preach naturally lead others to follow Jesus?"

-In the Pastor of a Local Church section: "Do you, as pastor, lead the church or just seek to maintain it?"

-In the District Superintendent section: "When recommending an appointment do you consider the non-ordained staff in the church profile? Why or Why not?"

-In the District Superintendent section: "In what ways are you using technology to communicate and be in community with the pastors in your district?"

-In the Board of Ordained Ministry: "What are we doing to help local churches and district boards better discern whether a candidate has the gifts for ordained ministry within the United Methodist Church before that candidate has made a significant investment of time and treasure?"

So I'm working on a couple questions of my own to ask but I'll let you know how that goes. If you have any questions you want to ask or think I should ask or want to ask me just let me know.

Indiana Annual Conference

So last week I had the opportunity to experience my first annual conference as a clergy member of the United Methodist Church. To be honest, this was the first annual conference I have ever experienced, clergy or otherwise. This also happened to be the very first annual conference of the new Indiana Conference of the UMC. It lasted four days from Thursday morning until concluding on Sunday morning with the Ordination and Sending into Ministry service. Besides being kind of long, the service was pretty cool.

One thing I found interesting was that the demographics were largely the same across the almost 3000 people that were in attendance and I'll just leave it at that...

My favorite part of the four days was listening to Adam Hamilton speak at the three opening sessions. I knew very little about this guy or his church and was expecting him to be a giant dork but he actually seemed to be pretty cool. I think he had some good things to say in regards to leadership, preaching and what is going to happen to the UMC if things don't change. He shared some statistics that provided a much needed slap in the face or hopefully a wake-up call at least. I think I would be safe in saying that a number of churches, denominational and non-denominational, need to take a step back and evaluate how "church" is being done.

While I Was Away...

I know it has been over a week and for those of you who keep coming back expecting something new, my sincerest apologies but rest easy, I'm back. In the past 10 days I:

-Finished up and turned in my 5 essays that were due today for the Church History 1 class I took down at Asbury last week.
-Annual Conference for the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church began yesterday on the campus of Ball State Univ. in Muncie, IN. The conference lasts 4 days and involves lots of sitting and bald dudes.
-We continue to work on our house in hopes that some day this summer we might actually be able to paint it.
-The office move is still in progress. This is literally the 5th time I have moved from one office to another while on staff at Castleton.
-Ended up buying a new car. Well, when I say "new" I really mean a 2007. Ended up getting a Saturn VUE...never saw that one coming.

I know you don't really care about all of that but you might care about some of the things that have happened over the past week or so. A couple thoughts I had on some of those things in no particular order...

1. Gov. Sanford...really?!? You're not serious? You have got to be kidding me, this continues to be absolutely ridiculous. I had just posted a blog talking about this very issue of horrible "leaders" in regards to a fellow politician of yours. At what point are leaders going to learn from the mistakes of other "leaders" and actually step up to the plate and lead? Quit causing people to be suspicious and untrusting of those of us who are attempting to legit leaders.

2. Piggybacking off of that one, I wish people would STOP CHEATING! Seriously, stop cheating on your spouse, your family, your faith, yourself. Stop cheating at work, at school, in church, at home, online, wherever. JUST STOP IT!! Take a minute to stop and realize that regardless of how good cheating might make you feel or how sneaky you think you are it will only leave you empty. When we cheat, we make it all about you and me and eventually that will really suck. We will never find true fulfillment or satisfaction in ourselves and until we realize that, the empty feeling we feel after endulging ourselves will become all too familiar.

3. RIP Michael Jackson. Talk about random, on my levels than one. I was sad to hear that he passed away, despite the fact that his personal life got a little strange. I'm not going to lie, I've been jamming to some of his classics as a sort of tribute. A couple of my favorites of his are: Billie Jean, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', The Way You Make Me Feel and of course Thriller. Whether you liked his music or not you can't deny the boy could sing back in the day of the Jackson 5. Now that is some classic Motown.

4. RIP Farrah Fawcett. Bummer that she passed away. I know little to nothing about her or her career other than she was on Charlie's Angels. I will say that I feel bad that her death was completely overshadowed by that of MJ's.

That's about all for now. If I missed something over the past week let me know. It's good to be back.

Another One Bites the Dust

I am sick of hearing about "leaders" that keep getting caught in extramarital affairs. Seriously, it's gotten to the point where it is just ridiculous. Regardless of political affiliation or profession, these individuals who find themselves in positions of leadership, prominence and popularity and proceed to make choices that disgrace, hurt and deceive the people they love and lead is shameful. We read of another example of this, a GOP Senator from Nevada admitted to having an extramarital affair with one of his staff members (who also happened to be married) for a number of months while she worked for him. Mr. Ensign is certainly not the first on this long list of "leaders" who have failed to actually lead.

Now, I may be coming across as harsh but to be honest, I am intending to be and here's why:

1. As someone who is studying leadership at the graduate level and is attempting to be an effective leader to those I lead...I am frustrated at how little respect these "leaders" have for the positions of leadership they find themselves in. The more I study leadership I realize it has more to do with the people being lead than the one doing the leading. In my opinion, the self-centeredness of these individuals excludes them as true leaders.

2. I completely understand that no one is perfect or without sin. I understand that we all face a variety of temptations on a daily basis, some of which we cave to. I also understand that a leader is called to higher expectations, that's what makes him or her a leader. If leaders lived and worked without these higher expectations than what would make them leaders? One of the reasons that you and I are willing to follow people who lead is because we expect more from them. I want to follow someone who is trying to do it better than me, not worse or really even the same. When you and I decide to take positions of leadership, we must understand that we are agreeing to live and work with a set of expectations that are higher than those we lead. That is part of the responsibility of being an effective leader.

3. I'm not naive enough to think that extramarital affairs don't happen everyday in this country. Sure, it might not be a new one that starts but I can guarantee there are plenty that keep going. That is NOT COOL! Regardless of whether you are in a position of leadership, prominence or popularity it is flat out wrong. What comes up HUGE in situations like that is the grace and forgiveness that is available through Jesus Christ, for both the leader and non-leader. However, in my humble opinion, when a "leader" decides to be involved in an extramarital affair they effectively stop leading. They have forfeited the privilege and responsibility of leading others. Grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ is equally available to them as well and I also believe that we as followers of Jesus are commanded to forgive them BUT that does not mean they should be allowed to continue in their position of "leadership". I have to forgive as Jesus forgives but I don't have to let you lead, possibly ever again.

My last point, I promise...
4. As I've read a little about this recent fallen "leader" and saw something about that Jon dude from the TV show Jon & Kate + 8 I came across this article by Wendy Atterberry entitled "Is cheating ever deserved?" and just had to comment. As someone who sits down with couples in the pre-marital process, I can't even fathom coming to the conclusion that our friend Ms. Atterberry does when she says, "Cheating isn't right, but neither is emotional abuse and neglect. The bottom line is: If you push someone enough, it shouldn't be any surprise when you push him into the arms of someone else." I'm sorry Ms. Atterberry but are you serious?!? Cheating is never, ever deserved, along with any kind of abuse or neglect so why then provide this kind of 'out' for people? The rationale of, "Well, you have been neglecting me so I guess I am going to have to fill my needs with someone else." is not only lame but a cop-out and garbage! I tell couples there is this crazy thing called communication that can really make a difference in their relationship if they are willing to try it with each other. Why would you have not suggested that as an option prior to or instead of cheating? Well, at least the commenters of your article thought of it...