What Dave and Jon Will Never Tell You...

A True Driving Experience

I was having dinner a while back with a relative of mine - he's an atheist and loves to engage me in "religious" conversation any chance he gets.  At Christmas, he'll take a shot at me by saying something like, "So, how's business these days?  Raking it in are you?"  Other times, he'll keep the focus on money and go into a hysterical monologue where he plays the role of preacher and sounds something like "Open up your hearts!  Open up your minds!  Open up your wallets!"  Ha, ha, ha.  If my relative would ever step foot inside Community Christian Church, he'd be pleasantly surprised to know that Giving Back to God sounds nothing like that.

Don't get me wrong, I like my relative, I enjoy his company, and I'm praying for him daily to find his way back to God.  Two weeks ago he was over to my house for dinner and parked his brand new car (very, very expensive car) on my driveway.  I told him not to!  I said, "I think you should park it on the street so it doesn't get scratched."  Guess what?  He didn't listen (kinda like he doesn't listen when I talk God with him) and my oldest son accidentally ran his bike into the back panel.  Bummer!

Anyway, since we were on the subject of cars, he was fishing for information about our church, what our staff gets paid, what Dave gets paid and what kind of car Dave drives.  You see, he was figuring that Dave gets paid a ton of money (which he doesn't) and drives an expensive car like his.  And if he could verify that through me, then that would validate his belief about Pastors and Churches being only interested in people's money. What a great setup for me!  I smiled at my wife who was sitting at the table with us and I proceeded to answer his questions.  And I totally flustered him when I got to share that Dave drives a red, 1994 Toyota Paseo!  You should of seen the look of disbelief on his face!  But its true.  Check it out - quite a humbling driving experience!

But this week I got a bit nervous, I heard Dave was considering getting a different car.  I thought, "Oh great, he's probably gonna get some snazzy new car like Tim Sutherland or Eric Metcalf :). That's all I needed in light of my conversation with my relative.

But fortunately and staying true to his humble personality, Dave is considering a new set of wheels, but I've got nothing to worry about if he does.  Here's what Dave won't tell you - he's considering a downgrade to a 1992 Pontiac Grand Am - Green.  I love you Dave!  Thanks for leading by example!  Your choice in cars may just be the thing that helps my relative find his way back to God.

Drive on!

STOP THE HARASSMENT

About two years ago, CCC got into a rhythm of intentionally inviting as many of our friends, family and neighbors to attend a series strategically placed when most people are inclined to attend church -

• Back to school season in the fall and
• Just before Easter in the spring. 

And I must say, being intentional about inviting others to join us these two times a year has done wonders in terms of expanding God's Kingdom.  Each season, we've experienced an increase in our weekly attendance of 18-22% - that's about 600-1000 new attenders each season!  Wow!  And these are not just numbers for numbers sake, these are real people taking their first steps towards finding their way back to God.

This year, Ignite coincides with the grand opening of the addition to our Naperville Campus - the Yellow Box.  We spent the last year designing and building this space to accommodate an additional 1,000+ adults, students and children.  Kudos to Lee Messersmith and Janet Miller who worked many extended hours to get this building completed in time for Ignite.  As it stands, we have our temporary occupancy permit and we are set to welcome hundreds of new attenders on September 15th/16th!   

Today we had an All Staff meeting in the theater of this new space (it's really cool) and concluded by spending time praying that God will use this space to help even more people find their way back to Him.

The post card depicted on the right is one of 5 different cards mailed out to some 50,000 homes within a five mile radius of the Yellow Box.  In total, some 250,000 post cards will have been mailed announcing the grand opening of Box as well as promoting our Ignite series, Soul Cravings.

This mass mail marketing strategy still proves effective - it will likely draw some 500 people to the grand opening of the new facility.

OK, everything I just told you is what you'd expect to hear from Dave or Jon, so here's the dirt.  This mass mail marketing strategy also draws some negative responses from the community.  In fact, as I type, Sue Smith, our Administrative Catalyst and overseer of the office, just stopped by my desk and Dave's desk to share with us a call that just came in from an angry recipient of our third postcard.  Dave's response, "This is good news...it means it's working." 

I've come to learn that you should worry when you don't get any negative feedback (at least that's what Dave keeps telling me)...it likely means we haven't communicated enough.  If that's true, then we should be really pleased with the post card another resident hand-delivered to us last week with a handwritten note, "You can stop the mailings - you won't!  Please STOP the HARASSMENT!  Not interested. Thank you."

I hope you'll join me in prayer for the ones who says they are "not interested, thank you" because one thing I have learned is that the ones who are most vocally opposed are the same ones God is working on the most.