Here to Lead

Last year, we announced that we were starting our first campus in the nearby town of Canton.  For the past several months, our team has been meeting and planning and praying, and the grand opening of the Canton Campus was last Sunday.  And after three practice services and a grand opening, I’m happy to announce that….we’re moving!

We signed a three-year lease on part of The Old Ford Building in Downtown Canton.  We will have this space 24-7, and it’s even more cost effective than renting the theater for a few hours on Sunday.  The real win is that this will provide us some space to serve the community and build a presence in Canton.  The team already has some great ideas.  We’re refocusing on serving the community, not just setting up the stuff to pull off a service.  In fact, being a presence in the community and inviting people to church is a major focus of the Canton team this fall.

Will Goodwin, who has been our Creative Arts pastor for the last couple of years is moving to Canton to be the Worship Pastor.  In fact, he and Jamie are literally moving to Canton – they are that committed to this campus.  This is a huge deal, and Will and Tim (our Campus Pastor) are both doing a great job getting involved in the community.

I’d also like to say a huge thanks to two churches in Canton who really rolled out the welcome mat for us.  Revolution Church and Jason Gerdes have been huge friends to us.  WatermarkeChurch  and Gavin Adams have also been a big help.  Andy Jones, who is on staff at Watermarke even joined our team one Saturday to help put out doorhangers!  I’m so encouraged by these kingdom minded churches, and it’s nice to know that we’re not alone.

I’d love your help in spreading the work.  Oak Leaf Canton meets every Sunday at 10am at 151 East Marietta Street in downtown Canton.

This year, we are focusing on growing our church, and part of that focus is being much more intentional welcoming guests.  Every week is someone’s first time at Oak Leaf Church, and we don’t want to take that for granted.  That’s one of the reasons we looked to improve our gift for first time guests.  After a lot of discussion, we settled on this.

This is a simple 4″ mailing tube (we purchased from Uline), wrapped in a full-size label sheet (11×17, cut down to size).  We ordered the tubes and printed the labels ourselves, and a team of volunteers stuck them all on the tube. You can experiment with different tube and label sizes.

Inside the tube is a rolled up t-shirt, a bunch of invite cards, a card for a free drink at our coffee shop, a kids invite card complete with a custom Oak Leaf silly band, and some candy.  Of course, we can change things up and add different things whenever we want.  If we had the money, we’d love to include a USB drive with some audio and video content.  The entire gift costs us about $7, but we think this is a great investment and a cool way to appreciate first time guests.

During our welcome video, we thank all our first time guests for attending and let them know that we have a special gift for them in the lobby.  We’re introducing this weekend, and I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

I’m excited to kick off a brand new series this weekend called “The Wall.”  We’re going to spend six weeks going through the book of Nehemiah, a great story from the Old Testament.  We’re going talk about how a vision becomes reality, and how you can build something important with your life.  I believe this series will be inspiring and faith building.  And beginning this weekend, you have FOUR services on TWO days in TWO cities.

• 6pm on Saturday in Cartersville
• 10am and 11:30 am on Sunday in Cartersville
• 10am on Sunday in Canton!

Church family…I really want you to go out of your way to invite people to church for this series.  In fact, you should stop what you’re doing and send a text or an email or update your facebook status right now.  Inviting people to church is not scary – you can do it!

We’ve dubbed 2010-2011 as “The Year of Growth” at Oak Leaf Church, so I wanted to let you know how Oak Leaf Kids is planning on making that happen.  I’m really, really proud of Bekah and Emily and our whole Oak Leaf Kids team, and excited about what’s in store for this coming school year.

The biggest change is that elementary child is getting a specific small group leader.  While small groups have always been a part of “The City,” we’re making the groups consistent and training group leaders to pastor and shepherd a specific group of children.  I really don’t know of anything more influential you could do at Oak Leaf Church than intentionally shepherd children to follow Jesus with their lives.

By placing every child in a small group, we’re looking to increase the level of care and teaching that we provide.  We’re looking to be even more intentional about helping children view their schools as mission fields, invite their friends, serve the community, and trust Jesus more and more every day.  If you’re a parent, it’s so important to have another adult speaking God’s truth into the life of your child on a consistent basis, and your child’s small group leader can be that person.

Children and parents will meet their new small group leaders at a Family Ministry Open House on September 12.  This is for all preschoolers, elementary children and teenagers (and their families).  In addition to meeting group leaders at this event, you’ll get the calendar for the events and hear more about the vision.

I’m really excited about the direction and vision for Oak Leaf Kids.

As we move into a year of growth, I’m really excited about the direction of our Student Ministry.  Russon is building a team and laying a solid foundation, and I believe this will be a pivotal year.

Like all elementary children, every student at Oak Leaf Church is getting a set small group leader this year.  Small groups are going to be an important time of our weekly student service on Wednesday night.  This service now includes worship (with the Fuel band), large-group teaching, and small groups.

We’re training small group leaders in the same way that we train adults, and these small group leaders are going to be the backbone of this ministry.  Parents, if it hasn’t happened already, then there will come a time when you want a Godly adult saying the same thing you’re saying at home.  For this reason, small groups and small group leaders are crucial.

We’re also adding several events – a weekend event (with another local church), a mission trip, and a summer camp – to the calendar. You’ll get information on all these events, plus meet your small group leader, at the Family Ministry Open House on September 12.

This year, we are placing a huge emphasis on groups throughout our church.  Elementary children and teenagers are all being placed in small groups, and we’re emphasizing adult groups throughout our organization.

For us, a small group is like a little church.  Everything that our church does on a macro scale, our groups are doing on a small scale.  This means that groups will make a concerted effort to get people to church, to serve the community, and to reach out to others.  Community, fellowship and teaching will happen in groups as well.  Think of groups like colonies or outposts – they have the same DNA as the church, but they are smaller, and in many ways, more meaningful.  Imagine…

• Group leaders acting like “little pastors,” really providing spiritual care for their members
• Groups deciding to go on a mission trip together
• Groups organizing and serving somewhere together – building community and helping people at the same time
• A group of people truly praying for each other
• Groups of people studying the Bible, knowing the Gospel more and more

We want every adult in our church to be connected to a small group.  In order to make this happen, we’re starting by training leaders.  I am personally leading three weeks of group leader training, and the first session is tonight at 6pm.  This same training applies to those leading preschool, elementary, student and adult small groups at Oak Leaf Church.  Here’s the PDF of the material that we’ll be covering, and hard copies will be available tonight.

Two years ago, after a lot of thought, counsel and prayer, we created a pro-kids policy built on the belief that our weekend services were most appropriate for adults and teenagers and the kids environments were most appropriate for children.

There were two basic arguments that led to the creation of our policy.

1. Distractions.  We want nearby adults to be able to focus on the worship and teaching without distraction, and parents to be able to focus on the worship and teaching without trying to keep their child quiet.
2. Environments.  A forty-minute sermon may not be the best environment for a child to learn about Jesus, however a creative lesson filled with Bible stories and crafts is.

From time to time, we evaluate everything in our church to make sure it’s effective and accomplishing goals.  Our Lead Team recently re-evaluated this pro-kids policy, and after a lot of thought, prayer and counsel…it’s time for a change. We still believe that our kids environments are the best place for children, but we’re going to leave this decision up to parents.  We’re no longer going to keep elementary children out of our weekend services.

We recognize that a first time guest may not feel entirely comfortable leaving their children. Of course, we want to show them the environments and help them feel comfortable, but we don’t want to turn away people who want to worship either.  In the end, we feel like our policy was too much of a barrier and prevented too many people from visiting our church.  The payoff just wasn’t worth the price.

In regards to distraction, I have to be honest.  The House of Rock is about 200 feet from train tracks, and no child is more distracting than a passing train on the weekend.  Teenagers taking and cell phones are probably more distracting than children.  In the rare circumstance that a child is being too much of a disruption, our ushers can appropriately handle the situation.

I still believe that our kid’s environments are the best environments for children – I have three children and they all learn about Jesus at our church.  We’re also teaching them at home, so this is a great partnership.  For this reason, our ushers and greeters are going to do their best to show parents all that happens in our kid’s environments and make sure they are aware of all that is offered.

We want every child in our church to get involved in their appropriate environment, under the leadership of a committed and caring small group leader who will shepherd that child.  But should parents want to bring their child into worship, we’re going to trust and support the parent.

Just a quick reminder, that we’re only having ONE SERVICE this weekend.  10am at Cartersville High School.  If you have kids, drop them off at the House of Rock between 9:15 and 9:45 – they have special things planned for all the kids.

We’re celebrating our 4 year anniversary as a church, honoring the original launch team, commissioning the Canton launch team…don’t miss it!

Last year, we made a concerted effort to get more involved in the community and do much more in the area of service.  We launched a program called Second Saturday, basically inviting anyone and everyone to show up on the second Saturday of the month and head to pre-arranged ministry opportunities.  We’ve averaged about 40 people at each event, and we’ve had the opportunity to help many of our community partners.

This program has not been as successful as we would have liked and after much discussion, I made the decision to pull the plug.  In the end, we realized that limiting service to one day of the month made it too difficult for many to participate.  We also centralized something that should probably be decentralized throughout our church.

This does not mean that we’re no longer serving.  In fact, we believe the alternative will be much more effective.  Here’s what we’re doing.

• Every small group is acting like a little church, and a big part of that is serving the community.  Groups will meet specific needs, and because they are smaller and more nimble, they will be able to respond better.
• Everyone in a group, and every group, will have a community service component.  It’s a non-negotiable.
• Because of this, serving isn’t limited to one day a month – groups can arrange to serve at a variety of times.
• Not all of our community partners had needs that could be met on the second Saturday.  This allows us to communicate needs whenever they occur.
• We’re going to work on a website where all the needs of the community can be posted and made available to all – inside and outside of our church.  Organizations and people will be able to submit their needs, and people will be able to meet them.  We won’t need to organize or set up anything – the site will simply connect people to needs.

Thank you to everyone who came to one of the Second Saturday events.  A solid foundation was laid and some good work was done.  I’m confident that we’ll be able to do even more as we move into this new era of ministry to our community.

When the “little guy” becomes the “big guy” he often forgets that he was once the “little guy.”  So the comedian who makes it big bolts from his town for the big stage, never to return. The artist who signs the record deal doesn’t have time for the local church show.  The preacher doesn’t have time to meet with regulars in the church.

While some of this is the natural evolution of advancement, it doesn’t mean we have to like or accept it.  It may be common, but that doesn’t mean it’s best.  Maybe that’s why the Bible tells us not to despise humble or small beginnings.  Maybe that’s why mamma always tells us don’t forget where you came from.

I remember when Oak Leaf Church was 15 people in a living room, and I’m thankful for those days.  In some ways, I miss those days.