Thursday, October 1, 2009

Touching Base! Part 56

Cram, Cram, Cram

Ever been guilty of saying too much, eating too much, or squeezing too much into a short period of time? I, like you, am guilty of shoehorning way too much into too small a space or time period. Sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach, my ambition is greater than time permitted or my “to do” list is greater than the strength left in my mortal body at the end of the day!

As Bethel grows, one of the issues against which the leadership is trying to guard is being guilty of shoehorning way too much into the church calendar. We realize that Bethel’s primary task is not to make people insanely busy, but rather for them to be radically transformed by the God of the universe who calls us out and into His transforming light.

One area where can be guilty of “cramming”, is our morning services. We believe that the essential elements of the morning services are worship, teaching, story (people sharing about what God is doing in their lives) and prayer. We want to make sure that we never compromise on those priorities as we believe that Sunday morning services can play a key role in helping people grow in intimacy with God.

As a result, we are going to start making a greater effort to limit (and at times, eliminate) announcements so that we can focus on the above priorities. We have found over recent weeks, months and years (even when Adam and Eve walked the face of the earth) that announcements can run wild, take up precious time and even make people look like deer caught in the headlights. So if you are a ministry leader or wanting to communicate important matters to the church let me encourage you to take advantage of the eight ways to communicate at Bethel:

- Website - Make sure your ministry information is always updated on our web page (once the new pages are up and running)
- Bulletin - Each week we hand out about 480 bulletins. Make sure you read it to stay informed and that you keep your ministry events posted as necessary.
- PowerPoint slide – Each week we will have one power point slide up featuring key announcements. The staff will decide each week what needs to be on the PowerPoint.
- Coffee and Conversation - Each week dozens of people sip the ancient brew in our gym between services. Feel free to set up a ministry booth highlighting your up and coming event. Contact Tara at the office for more information.
- Word of mouth - If you lead a ministry make sure your leaders are promoting your up and coming event.
- E-mail - One push of the button can be like magic.
- Facebook - Fred our youth director uses this for promoting events.
- Ministry Feature - There will be times where we can invite a ministry worker to the front and tell their story of what is going on in their ministry. This can be a great platform for promoting what is happening. This Sunday (Oct 4) Sandy will be doing this with the Bethel Houses.

If you would like to interact on this Touching Base feel free to contact Rhonda Kotchapaw (rhondakotch@gmail.com) Kathryn Vilela (kathryn.vilela@gmail.com) or myself (markkotchapaw@gmail.com). We are the team that looks at Sunday morning service design.

Mark

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