3 Week Recap
by Renovation Church on February 1, 2011
Since Renovation has officially launched weekly Sunday services, we've been invested in the mindset shift that happens when you transform from a launch team with the occasional preview service to adding a weekly event and week-ful existence as a church. It's a big change.
Whenever a high-impact, life-routine-altering event occurs, everything gets knocked off balance a bit. The leadership team at Renovation knew this, saw it coming, and tried to put guardrails in place to minimize the impact, but you never know how things will shake out till the event goes down.
Some things you can try to prep for, but there's always going to be an X-variable… like the weather.
First service we spent literally chipping a path through the ice left over from a winter storm that never hits Atlanta, but did, and in its wake shut down the city for 4 days. Atlanta schools were closed that entire week, and when we arrived at the school the Sunday morning of our first service, there was ½ inch of ice covering the 20+ stairs from the parking lot to our front doors. The team used hot water and shovels to clear a walkway so that guests wouldn't break any bones to worship God with us.
As a church plant that doesn't own a permanent worship space, all of our church equipment is in a storage facility, and despite being in a place that offers 24 hour access, that first Sunday we didn't have access to it until about 2 hours prior to start-time. It's not suffering for the sake of the gospel to load an entire church into a UHaul, drive it to a facility, unload it all and set it up, knowing you got to do it all in reverse in 3 hours; but as self-centered and lazy sinners, sometimes it feels like it. That's just real talk.
A lot of distractions pop up as you go official. Maybe the screen and the projector don't play nice or the sound mix isn't right, or there isn't enough help to move things efficiently for one reason or another—cleaning unusually frank and fresh graffiti off the walls for instance. Sometimes people just aren't "into it" because they're tired from carrying 50+ chairs by themselves. Batteries die, software crashes, timing gets off. A stolen car in a police chase hits a pole down the street and kills the power to the whole place just as the sermon starts. Microphones, lights, the screen and the coffee pot all turn off at once, to the exclamation of 28 kids who have now experienced a Sunday school blackout. It happens. Church planting is heavy lifting for the muscles AND the mind.
That's all the front-side, difficulties that any enterprise can experience. If this were some business startup, a sports event, something like that, we could complain, do what it takes to fix it, and get on with it. We might even pat ourselves on the back for the good job we did. In some sense a church can too, but the deal is, we're not in business with a product or creating a show. This is a church. It's a gathering of people who love God and each other, coming together to worship Jesus, inviting others and encouraging each other. These issues and troubles are minor and don't count for much unless we are indeed just a show or a product.
Keeping the main thing the main thing is what matters: Prayer, worship, and the gospel being preached are of first importance…the city being reached.
The evidences and rewards of that main-thing perspective in people is what drives and should drive the heavy lifters. Is God showing up and doing what He does? Is He blessing us and others by changing hearts and lives? Do we see evidence of the Grace of God in this ministry and mission?
We get a tangible “yes” each week when we look for it through the lens of God and the gospel as the main thing.
I can't tell you other people's stories without their permission, but I can tell you what we have seen and experienced in this short run.
Intense prayer and worship times where the roof just wants to come off. Not for noise or a spiritual Super-Bowl high from a good song, but because in prayer and worship something forced us down into an overwhelmed sense of love for God and humility that was shared by others if you looked around. People weeping for joy and sorrow. Prayer that runs over time because you can feel the Holy Spirit is moving and isn't done yet. People showing up whom we haven't seen in months and sitting quietly, visibly moved through it all. People that don't go to church, showing up at a church in a school auditorium. A crowd that looks like heaven: every tribe and tongue, skin color and wallet size, pedigree and no degree, side by side, hands in the air, heads bowed. Comments and encouragement. How can I help? What City Group meets near me? Will you pray for us? 30-some kids from the risky neighborhood coming to Renovation Kids minister, needing to be fed, needing to be loved, needing someone to walk with them, as Christ does for us, which we will do for them. Band members that just quit playing and drop to pray in thankfulness to God for what He has done, is doing, will do. Jesus as the main thing.
3 weeks in. There's more to tell. More to do.
Since Renovation has officially launched weekly Sunday services, we've been invested in the mindset shift that happens when you transform from a launch team with the occasional preview service to adding a weekly event and week-ful existence as a church. It's a big change.
Whenever a high-impact, life-routine-altering event occurs, everything gets knocked off balance a bit. The leadership team at Renovation knew this, saw it coming, and tried to put guardrails in place to minimize the impact, but you never know how things will shake out till the event goes down.
Some things you can try to prep for, but there's always going to be an X-factor… like the weather. First service we spent literally chipping a path through the ice left over from a winter storm that never hits Atlanta, but did, and in its wake shut down the city for 4 days. Atlanta schools were closed that entire week, and when we arrived at the school the Sunday morning of our first service, there was ½ inch of ice covering the 20+ stairs from the parking lot to our front doors. The team used hot water and shovels to clear a walkway so that guests wouldn't break any bones to worship God with us.
As a church plant that doesn't own a permanent worship space, all of our church equipment is in a storage facility, and despite being in a place that offers 24 hour access, that first Sunday we didn't have access to it until about 2 hours prior to start-time. It's not suffering for the sake of the gospel to load an entire church into a UHaul, drive it to a facility, unload it all and set it up, knowing you got to do it all in reverse in 3 hours; but as self-centered and lazy sinners, sometimes it feels like it. That's just real talk.
A lot of distractions pop up as you go official. Maybe the screen and the projector don't play nice or the sound mix isn't right, or there isn't enough help to move things efficiently for one reason or another—cleaning unusually frank and fresh graffiti off the walls for instance. Sometimes people just aren't "into it" because they're tired from carrying 50+ chairs by themselves. Batteries die, software crashes, timing gets off. A stolen car in a police chase hits a pole down the street and kills the power to the whole place just as the sermon starts. Microphones, lights, the screen and the coffee pot all turn off at once, to the exclamation of 28 kids who have now experienced a Sunday school blackout. It happens. Church planting is heavy lifting for the muscles AND the mind.
That's all the front-side, difficulties that any enterprise can experience. If this were some business startup, a sports event, something like that, we could complain, do what it takes to fix it, and get on with it. We might even pat ourselves on the back for the good job we did. In some sense a church can too, but the deal is, we're not in business with a product or creating a show. This is a church. It's a gathering of people who love God and each other, coming together to worship Jesus, inviting others and encouraging each other. These issues and troubles are minor and don't count for much unless we are indeed just a show or a product.
Keeping the main thing the main thing is what matters: Prayer, worship, and the gospel being preached are of first importance…the city being reached.
The evidences and rewards of that main-thing perspective in people is what drives and should drive the heavy lifters. Is God showing up and doing what He does? Is He blessing us and others by changing hearts and lives? Do we see evidence of the Grace of God in this ministry and mission?
We get a tangible “yes” each week when we look for it through the lens of God and the gospel as the main thing.
I can't tell you other people's stories without their permission, but I can tell you what we have seen and experienced in this short run.
Intense prayer and worship times where the roof just wants to come off. Not for noise or a spiritual Super-Bowl high from a good song, but because in prayer and worship something forced us down into an overwhelmed sense of love for God and humility that was shared by others if you looked around. People weeping for joy and sorrow. Prayer that runs over time because you can feel the Holy Spirit is moving and isn't done yet. People showing up whom we haven't seen in months and sitting quietly, visibly moved through it all. People that don't go to church, showing up at a church in a school auditorium.
A crowd that looks like heaven: every tribe and tongue, skin color and wallet size, pedigree and no degree, side by side, hands in the air, heads bowed. Comments and encouragement. How can I help? What City Group meets near me? Will you pray for us? 30-some kids from the risky neighborhood coming to Renovation Kids minister, needing to be fed, needing to be loved, needing someone to walk with them, as Christ does for us, which we will do for them. Band members that just quit playing and drop to pray in thankfulness to God for what He has done, is doing, will do. Jesus as the main thing.
3 weeks in. There's more to tell. More to do.