The Listening Ear

Saturday Night Light Begins In One Week

Our new Saturday evening service called Saturday Night Light begins a week from today. I am excited about this new opportunity that we will be offering. It will be held at 5:30 p.m. each Saturday.

I think this new service has lots of potential for us and for our community. It seems like God has been at work to make this happen.

For one thing, we were looking for some new worship resources that would help us blend contemporary and traditional elements together in a way that would create a more informal type of worship. We think that this style seems in keeping with what many people expect from Saturday evening worship. After doing some searching on the internet, Deb Schmidt, our worship coordinator found something that should fit our need quite well.

We’ve also said that we needed a solid core group of worshippers that would commit themselves to attending that service for the first two months. We asked people to sign up and I think we’ll have at least 50 people who’ll help us launch this new service.

We also knew that we needed a new team of musicians for this service. We put the word out in the larger community and God has sent us people to be on that team.

All of this makes me feel that God is going to bless this new service and that it will be a way for us to reach new people. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Facility Needs Team Continues Work

The new Facility Needs Team met again last night with Jim Nord. I am glad to see them set a quick pace to get things done.

There are a couple of things that seems to be emerging from the discussions. One is that if we don’t address our facility needs in the near future, it will affect our ministry. Don’t misunderstand me—I think there are lots of ways that we continue to move forward. Nevertheless the team seems to believe that if we don’t do something to improve and expand our facilities, it won’t be long before our ministries are held back.

At its last meeting the team reviewed the plans that had been drawn up by an architect in the early 90’s. As they looked at those plans and the needs we have, they have come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be wise to simply try to add on to and reconfigure the buildings we already have. They’ve come to the conclusion that the best course will involve building a new building to house some of our ministries.

Accordingly, they are looking into the possibility of purchasing land south of the property we presently own. They believe that it is important to explore that option.

I’ve tried to make my views clear to the team. Expanding to the south is certainly much better than doing nothing at all. It would give us an opportunity to continue to grow our ministry.

My reservations concerning that option is that we don’t gain any visibility by building next to our present site. It is dismaying to me that many of our members discount the impact that having a clearly visible church structure could have on our ministry. Its as if they freely admit that location can have a huge impact on the success or failure of a business, but somehow they deny that it can have any impact on the success of our ministry.

I often hear people say that all we need are high-quality programs and people will find us. There’s truth to that, for sure. Yet more people will find our congregation and do so more quickly if we have both quality programs and a highly visible site. Its not as if we are forced to choose one or the other. We could have both.

I’ve made it clear that the members of the congregation will have to live with whatever choices we make much longer than I will. What I am afraid of is that if we don’t chose a visible site for any new structure we build, the time will come when our church will wonder, why didn’t we begin the move to a more visible location when we had the chance.

A Contemplative In Us All

Here’s a quote for the day. I stumbled on it while using Celtic Daily Prayer today.

There is a contemplative
in all of us,
almost strangled
but still alive,
who craves quiet
enjoyment of the Now,
and longs to touch
the seamless
garment of silence
which
makes whole.
Alan P. Tory

For those who are unfamiliar with the word ‘contemplative’ it simply means someone who takes regular time for prayer, especially the type of prayer that simply spends time focusing on and enjoying the presence of God.

What Kind Of Service Will It Be

I received a question last week, asking what the new Saturday Night Light worship service will be like. The new service is scheduled to debut on September 12. It will take place at 5:30 p.m. each Saturday.

The worship planning team has put a great deal of thought into this service. Our goal for the service to be a blend of contemporary and traditional elements. It will also be more informal which seems to be the nature of most Saturday evening services.

In making our plans we drew upon survey data compiled by Percept, a company that specializes in demographic data. We were able to get data that is specific to Treynor and the surrounding area. It suggests that the kind of service we’ve planned should appeal to a wide variety of people in our area.

I am looking forward this new venture and am pleased that so many of our members have signed up to help get the new service off to a good start.

Whether or not you plan to attend Saturday Night Light, the next few weeks will be a prime time to invite someone to worship with us at any of our three services. It is an opportunity for us to be involved in mission right here in our own community.

Facility Needs Team Meets Again

The Facility Needs Team met again yesterday with Jim Nord, our congregational consultant. I think it is safe to say that the new team made greater progress than any of us expected coming to the meeting—so much so that they are planning to meet again this coming Thursday. At this point it seems that they should soon have something to report to the congregation.

That’s all to the good because we seem to be gaining momentum in our ministries in several areas.