Sunday was our final preview service! On the one hand, that really excites me because it means that months of preparation are finally coming to a culmination. On the other hand, it makes me nervous because now I can't hid behind the "We're still in preparation-mode" excuse. Also, I now have to get …
Answers to Prayer
So I was praying last week and asking God for a miracle or two to confirm that he was really in this church planting effort of ours, and then on Sunday I asked the people there to pray specifically about two things. First, we needed the school board to approve our usage and specifically, we needed …
TEAMM Pastor’s Prayer Summit
Here in Lafayette, there is an association of ministers that is far more significant than some "ministerium" that many communities have where pastors of various churches get together to try to demonstrate some unity but never really get anything done. TEAMM is the Tippecanoe Evangelical Association …
Preaching in Crown Point
I just wanted to post something quickly to say that our time in Crown Point went really well on Sunday. Jen, the kids, and I all went up there Sunday morning and had a good time at the service. Afterward, Pastor Tony and his wife treated us to lunch at Portillo’s. It was a great meal and a …
Reflections on Our Second Monthly Service
We had a great service this morning. It was our second monthly service and here is a brief rundown of how it all went: Marketing We really ramped up our marketing efforts this time. Here's what we did: We sent out our "New Movers" letters this week. (We send a letter welcoming them to their new …
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Indiana Snowstorm
I thought some of you might be interested to see some pictures from our house of the Indiana snowstorm that hit us yesterday, so I'm posting them in a little gallery here http://jeffnjen.mikels.cc/~jeff/snowstorm_2007/. You should have seen the huge pile of snow that the snowplow left at the end of …
Switch To Sunday Morning
Two weeks ago, we switched our weekly gatherings to Sunday morning instead of Sunday night. There was one major motivating reason for doing so. As we move toward our public launch, we need to feel a strong sense of building momentum, and we just weren't able to do that with the low attendance we had …
Update: Our First Preview Service
Last Sunday was our first sneak preview of "day one at southside church." Our Sunday morning service is based on the mindset that worship is what people should be doing with their lives throughout the week. As a result, we aren't calling our Sunday gatherings a "worship service." Instead, we call …
Hot Chocolate Day was a success!
Last Friday, we experienced a great success in ministry. We served people free mugs of hot chocolate and coffee in front of Wal-Mart. It was a great experience. It came to me on Black Friday The whole idea came to me last year on the day after Thanksgiving ("Black Friday" as it has been called) …
sharemytestimony.org
A new website has recently been created by Justin Carboneau called sharemytestimony.org with the primary purpose of giving people a place to share their personal testimonies online. It's an interesting concept, and his web design isn't half bad, but I'm personally unsure of the value such a site …
Tonight at the Skylight
All I can say is that God must like it when I'm working on the computer (sometimes) because tonight at the Skylight, I found out that one of the computers had a virus on it. I've worked on those computers before, so Kim told me I could take a look at it. …
Low Cost Print Houses: Postcards, Flyers, Business Cards
Online Print Companies (Updated in 2017) Here are some other online print companies that I have discovered and/or tried along with my brief comments. Personal Recommendations nextdayflyers.com (My number 1 choice) overnightprints.com (My number 2 choice) churchink.com (Was my number 1 …
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“Thanks for being obedient”
I was driving around today running an errand for the church, so I decided to make some phone calls to try to connect with some people. There's one fellow that I have been trying to get in touch with for a while, and as I was going through my address book, I saw that he was the next one on the …
Our Information Meeting
It has been a while since my last post here, but that's been for a good reason. For the past month, I've been working on getting ready for Southside Church's first public information meeting. We held it last Sunday evening at McCutcheon High School here in Lafayette. For the past month, we have …
Free Resources for Church Planters
I recently discovered this website that claims to "love church planters." To prove it, they have provided free resources, and all you have to do is send them an email. I've sent the email, but haven't downloaded my stuff yet. Here's the link for …
An incredible leadership training opportunity
This past week, Jen and I had the privilege to attend the Willow Creek Leadership Summit via satellite. Over the past five years, I have been able to attend four of these events live at the South Barrington campus, and they have been remarkably impacting for me. This year, though, it was a little …
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