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.

Comments

[Kristine Knight-Holzwarth]

Two'sha ;-)

[a]

going gray doesn't save energy on LCD screens

and the guy who's blog that is? his blog is in color

[dylan higgins]

Hey John,
good seeing this past weekend...hope all is well with the fam...surprised Amy is letting do this...hahahahha
like the blog though..putting you in my favorites to visit from time to time...
btw...i rarely if ever read dave, or jon's blog, about the only regularly read blog is my daughter's ...it's pretty good, and generally very honest..
not into internet advertising...
always' liked the real thing...
dylan