MarkLove.tv

It's about vision

The idea of vision is so overused in many church circles today but still accurately reflects the driving force behind Journey. Perhaps the greatest example of vision in the Bible comes from the book of Nehemiah. He had one of the poshest jobs on the face of the planet, running the kings summer palace. He had it made, especially as a non-native outsider who controlled the day to day affairs of the, let me repeat, SUMMER PALACE.

Imagine how great a life it would be to set up shop and have full control in Club Med. However, he threw it all away. Nehemiah was a Jew and his home town, Jerusalem, was in ruins. A few people had returned to the city but were ultimately unable to rebuild their defenses or their city because of raiders.

Nehemiah had a vision that the city would be restored to its former glory. He believed completely in something that could be, should be so completely that he left his job to travel to a worn torn region to fight the raiders and rebuild a destroyed city. The incredible part of the story is that he did it and in only 52 DAYS!

Imagine what it would take to believe so tenaciously in something that you would sacrifice everything because of a vision that you couldn't live without seeing it come to completion. Who hard would you protect it, defend it, and guard it against people that would seek to turn your vision into something else. It seems all to common for something that started out being a passionate dream to become a hijacked nightmare.

We are passionate about reaching out to the disconnected and unchurched people of Chattanooga. We are dedicated to programming that is streamlined and effective. We believe in the need to impact our communities through service and sharing grace. We base everything we do on the Bible and the belief that it is God speaking to us, today. We live our lives in community with each other encouraging, supporting, and learning from each other. We believe in the power of a changed life reaching out to someone else to share the love of Jesus Christ.

There are a lot of negotiables in church, but none in vision. We believe this is the calling of the church and the calling of Journey. So we will passionately defend, protect, and live out that thing that we believe could be and should be in the lives of people in Chattanooga.

Decompression...

It's Sunday night and I'm sitting in my overstuffed chair icing my foot. It was a great day and our volunteers outdid themselves. We had setback after setback to contend with as we faced the issue that there is a villain the story God is telling. Some of the things we dealt with were...

-Of course my wreck which ended up being an incredible blessing. Still sore and unable to help with most of the setup but volunteers stepped up and did a great job. Mike and I had to make sure we didn't get our canes mixed up
-Our lead vocalist bailed at noon yesterday and we had to cancel the big opener we planned. Daniel and Don did a great job filling in.
-Josh got popped in the eye putting banners up, thankfully he was okay
-Steve did a great job on sound even though he was absolutely miserable from allergies
-David was still recovering from stuff he's been sick with for over a week.
-We blew a breaker during rehearsal, don't know where that came from
-Norris was sleeping between jobs from the crud he had, as least that's the story he's telling and he's sticking with it :)

But despite the setbacks, we had one of the best worship experiences yet. I'm convinced that all of these things were a direct result of the topic for the day. We were talking about the battles that we deal with because there is a villain in the story that is consistently attempting to draw our attention away from God. He is the father of lies and distractions but we saw through it, got to work, and supported each other. We could engage the enemy and be victorious with the power of God through Jesus Christ. Some of the great things that happened...

-The band was tight and sounded the best so far. Daniel and Don were able to learn the vocals for the set
-Kim and Don did a great job drawing our attention to the need to care for the world through supporting the poor and recycling our waste.
-Coffee was ready on time for the first time! Way to go Carol.
-The auditorium was set up in a record hour and a half. The crew is really getting it down
-The band pitched in and got everything moved into the theater from the trailers
-KidMo knocked it out of the park for the second week in a row I'm told. I may just ditch the message next week and go to KidMo, too.
-Kelly, Jason, Richard, and David (probably more that left before I got there) had all the trailers loaded in 45 minutes from the end of the worship experience....INCREDIBLE!
-I felt great about the message. After all, I've been living it for the last few months and apparently I'm not the only one.
-We had some new volunteers in Journey Kidz!
-Charlie did a great job with ProPresenter and is going to begin infusing us with creativity. Check out his blog at www.charliegann.com
-It becomes more evident every week that everyone who is part of Journey is stoked about our vision to love God and love people

I can't wait for next week when we talk about the hero entering the story. I'm beat tonight and will be taking it easy for the rest of the night and most of the week. I'll hopefully get the knee brace off this week but my stylish orthopedic boot will take a while longer. I am definitely getting used to this and wouldn't trade places with anyone, anywhere.

Ready, Set, Launch...

It's hard to believe that our launch day has come and gone. The months of prep time and years of development to plan for a day that we thought would never get here finally arrived. When we were getting the trailers out of the warehouse, I looked back at them and it finally hit me....this is it. We've been in this same position 3 times before with our preview services but it wasn't the same. Two trucks, two trailers, ready to start on a Journey. What imagery!

We had a great day kicking off "Epic". It was Easter, which is always fantastic, everything was in place. Deidra and Christina launched KidMo in our kid's theater and had a blast! Land of a Thousand Hills coffee was fantastic, and Sound Method nailed the songs we put together.

Josh put together an amazing set of graphics for the series that will be unveiled each week and they looked great on screen. Gene put together another incredible video for us. I couldn't believe the music, the video, and the images of Jesus on the cross. He knocked it out of the park after putting in over 20 hours on the project. If we can, we'll post it on our site.

One of the most exciting things to me was the interaction we're having with each other. It's our goal to become a community doing life together. At first we are all strangers, but now we are in the room talking to each other. Very cool. But the best part? We get to do this again in 1 week! I love it!

It's Like Hanging Windows

I spent the day, today, helping my father-in-law hang windows in the log house they're building.  Let me say first, that I've hung windows before but it's been a while and never before in a log home where chainsaws are needed for adjustments :( .  We started around 8:30 this morning with the first one.  Around 10:30 we realized that something just wasn't right.  A seasoned carpenter would have noticed that around 8:32, but for us it was 10:30.  We worked and shifted, retried and tried again, cut and hammered, figured and measured, and finally got out the sawsall.  Another hour went by and the solution to our problem just appeared.  The window was in and we started on the second.  An hour later, it was in.  On to the third.  30 minutes and it was in, too.  Now that we had hit our groove, it was quitin' time. 

I've been working in churches for the last 18 years and pastored for the last 8.  Until now, every church I had worked in had systems, staff, and volunteers already in place.  They may not be the most effective or efficient, but they kept the church running.  When we started planning for Journey's launch nine months ago, we started with no money, no staff, no volunteers, and no systems.  Marketing was completely on us as well as graphic design.  Everything seemed to take forever to get down.  In fact, our first business cards took a month to finish.

The first wave of planning always took an immense amount of time and work.  Then things began to work faster.  We started putting systems in place that made things run smoother.  People started plugging into volunteer positions working hard and working smart.  I won't say we're on to the third window yet, but the second is about finished. 

I hope we don't ever hit a such a groove that everything runs itself.  Part of the adventure is figuring out what to do and how to do it.  We haven't copied any other churches or followed a plan from a church planting book.  Everything is custom made to our church and our community.  And even though it may take us some time to get in a groove, it will be the groove God designed us for. 

Thanks to everyone making Journey the adventure of a lifetime.  Loving God, Loving People...Period

Launch is almost here!

Nine months ago, I thought the official launch for Journey would never come. Journey has been over four years in the making. The last nine months have been a blur. I said goodbye to a steady paycheck almost three months ago to pursue a passion for people and to do the thing God had been preparing me to do. But, it's been worth it to put all of the pieces together to create a safe place where you could experience true community with others and true intimacy with God. I don't know if we're smart enough, talented enough, or prepared enough. I do know that the time has come and I can't wait to get started. The movement is moving, the revolution is beginning, the vision is growing. Let's go on this journey together!

Fit for a King

We believe in only the best here at Journey.  So when we visited the Evolve Conference a few weeks ago, we rented a hotel room that had to be fit for a king.  Where else could you feel the comfort of knowing there was a fire sprinkler hanging out of the middle of the ceiling.  And to ensure the high quality experience, there was a sticker warning you not to hang your clothes from it.  I was left asking the question, did Andy Stanley start like this?

Great Day, Today

Today, we finished our third preview service and I can't believe Easter is just 2 weeks away.  We've learned a lot about the process of holding portable worship experiences and still have some work to do.  We could definitely use another couple of tries to work out the kinks before Launch Sunday on Easter but I have to admit, I'm ready to jump in.  We have so many people getting involved because they believe in the vision of being the authentic church and reaching out to disconnected people.  We absolutely couldn't do the enormous task of setting up, putting on a service, and tearing down without dedicated people that are willing to work for a cause.  I love you guys and am honored to do life with you.  Easter, here we come!

People make all the difference!

Starting Journey is by far the most difficult project I've ever undertaken. There's no glamour, it doesn't pay, and the work is never done, but the rewards for being a part of a dynamic group of people willing to sacrifice for a greater vision is the best reward possible. We are meeting people that are willing to give time, money, and talents to reach out to a community of people in Chattanooga that really don't care to have anything to do with God or a church.

Knowing people that are willing to give without expecting anything in return is the key ingredient to what makes Journey different from most churches out there. We are trusting God to provide for our needs, believing that God wants to have an intimate relationship with everyone on the planet to be our driving vision, and giving everything we have to be able to look back on our lives and be able to say we made a difference and wouldn't change a thing.

I am so impressed with our volunteers and supporters and am honored to be on this Journey with you. You guys rock and we are making a difference in our city for a God who is bigger than anything we could ever dream of or imagine. The music and venue don't make Journey different, the people making it happen does. Thanks for your heart, your passion, and your willingness to give to others.

Things I've Learned from "Previews"

One of the first decisions we made in preparing for our official "launch" was to hold 3 preview services to work out all of the kinks in being a portable church with all new equipment.  After 2 of these services, I thought I would share some things I've learned, in no certain order.

1.  Everyone needs to do some kind of trial.  We blew breakers 4 times in our first service, found out we were running an 18,000 watt sound system and lighting from 1 circuit, and lost 2 wireless mics during the message. 

2.  People don't understand what a preview service is...either you are having a service or you're not.  Still, everyone needs a trial.

3.  You can't predict who is going to show up.  We decided not to heavily advertise the previews because we wanted to get our act together before a crowd of people we didn't know came.  I just hoped we had somebody for our band to play for.  Ends up 150 people showed up (of course about 130 were either family members or paid to come :) )

4.  Previews show you where your weakest link is.  After the first service, we completely overloaded the trailer and had to buy a 2nd one to relieve the load.  After the second, we realized that our volunteer system needed a major overhaul.  A lot of people wanted to help, we just didn't organize them well.

5.  It is incredibly difficult to build interpersonal relationships between attenders when they only see each other once or twice a month.

6.  Finances are a draw.  We saved money by meeting only once a month but also only had one offering a month for expenses.

7.  This is probably the most important...Never, Ever, Ever skimp on your sermon in lieu of prep time for your environments.  It was so easy to spend time on things that would make a visual impact but people are affected by an inspirational impact.  The message is the hook...no matter how good the bait is, if the hook is missing you'll lose the catch.  That sounds like a book title, I think...

8.  Previews show you who is really excited about what you are doing.  Being a portable church has incredible opportunities but it is still a huuuuuuuge amount of work.  People who are willing to show up 6-7 in the morning to help set up more than once are my heroes! You guys are awesome!

9.  Meeting once a month is a golden opportunity to refine your systems so you are ready to put on a dynamic worship experience every week.  Especially if the entire staff has day jobs! In a few weeks, I'll share what I've learned from going week to week.

When you only get one chance to make a good first impression, it is an absolute gamble to try a launch without some kind of test run.  Even if you don't invite a single person to come, make sure everything works the way it is supposed to before you get started.  At least that is my "less than expert" opinion after a whopping 2 worship experiences under our belt. 

Just another pretty face...

Well, It's been about a week and a half since our first Worship Experience and am just getting a chance to start blogging again. We had an incredible turn out and a great service (with a few technical exceptions:)). I've been thinking about the service and visiting some other churches lately and have been asking myself the question how cool should a church be.

I don't hear it much anymore, but when I was growing up people used to say someone was "just another pretty face" when a person was attractive but didn't have much substance to them. I think we had a very cool experience with Sound Method and the theater environment but unlike a lot of new churches sprouting up, we want Journey to be more than just cool.

Next month we are going to be talking about the vision behind the environments because we believe the church should be the most influential organization to demonstrate God's love to the world. Impacting our community and the world is the driving force behind Journey and not just to be a cool service (though we think it definitely is). We want to give to others because everything we have was given to us by God. Check us out to hear more about the future of this new church in Chattanooga.