Doors

Last weekend I shared 3 huge things. (If you were not here, you absolutely need to listen to the message on-line from our website. Click here.) Here are a few of the highlights…

In 1 Corinthians 16:9, Paul said that “A great door for effective work has opened” and I shared 3 great doors for effective work that are opening up for us at WCCC over the next few months.

Door #1 – A 4th weekend service.

Based on our rapidly growing attendance, we have a great problem at the 10:45 service. We are too crowded. Recently we had some people leave that service because they couldn’t find a seat! Several weekends ago at the 10:45 service we had 22 – 2 year olds in one room, and 24 – 4 year olds  in another room! We’ve had some success in getting some to switch from 10:45 to 9am and 5pm Saturday service, but this will not fix our problem long term. So in order to alleviate overcrowding throughout the building at the 10:45 service and to create space for new people to hear God’s word spoken on the weekends, our elders/staff have decided to add a third Sunday service to our menu! 8:30/ 10:00/ 11:30. Starting March 17/18 weekend!

All the adult services will be the same. There will also be children’s programming at all 4 services, 5/6 grade classes (Saturday 5:00, Sunday 10:00 & 11:30), teen classes (Sunday 10:00 & 11:30). This time is the same service schedule/ formula that has worked well for us in the past at Easter. This is a huge thing to pull off for all our teams (Worship, First Impressions, and others), but especially our children’s and student ministry and they need some help to do it! Please volunteer through the website this week (click here)

We realize that this is pretty short notice, but we believe that by delaying this decision until the fall, we would lose momentum and a critical opportunity. Adding and adjusting service times now also allows us to be prepared for a large post-Easter crowd on April 15. What we really love about adding the 4th service on weekends is that it is perfectly in line with the WCCC Vision that God has given us: To become a fully functioning authentic Biblical community, growing in size and quality of life as it reaches people for Christ. These 3 things also take specific action steps that correlate with the strategic goals we have identified that are critical for us to address.

While we are not sure if this additional service is the solution, we are very confident about WHY we need to try it. We must create open seats at optimum times. We must get all our services below 80% capacity in order to address growth restrictors and seize growth opportunities. We will evaluate things as they go, and plan to revisit this 4 service format at the end of 2012 to see how effective it is. We must offer God something empty so he can fill it!

Our prayer and hope is that the majority of our current 9am folks would attend 8:30 worship, and that our current 10:45 service attendees would evenly be split between 10 and 11:30 service. (That’s why those specific times were chosen.) Classes have already begun to talk about this, so see your teacher if you have questions about what time your class meets. If you currently attend at 5pm on Saturday – we want you to stay right where you are!! This weekend we will be polling you to find out which service you plan on attending so we can better prepare. (You can also indicate online now which service you/your family plan to attend. click here)

I know we are fast-tracking this, but we believe it is a risk worth taking. I read recently that Apple (company that the late Steven Jobs founded) originally had a 3rd partner, Ron Wayne, who got cold feet after 11 days. Didn’t think the company would make it. He was paid a buyout of $2,300. Had he stayed, his share would be worth $2.6 billion. Ouch! Let’s be Steven and not Ron. Better yet, let’s be Jesus!

Door # 2.  Our 2012 Easter service.

We did 5 services here last year on our campus for Easter and our attendance was a little over 2300. This year we were looking at doing 6 or 7 services and the max we would reach even doing 7 would be 3100-3300. So in order to be able to invite and reach even more than that, this Easter we are doing something REALLY out of the box! We started looking around for places that could accommodate 4000-5000, so we could have 1 giant service. There were none close to us that large, but there is one such place downtown. We decided to rent out US Bank Arena downtown on Sunday, April 8th and do one ginor-mous service at 10am! That’s right, US Bank arena. When we discussed and approved this at a recent elder’s meeting, one of our older elders said – ‘That’s bodacious!’

We have been offered an unbelievable price by US Bank Arena in order to pull this off and they have been very helpful. Only God could work something like this out. Going with our 2012 theme of the UNfactor, our Easter theme will be UNdefeated! There are a hundred more details to communicate about this and we’ll do that as we get closer, (where to park and/or ride a shuttle bus we’ll stage from WCCC, etc.) but we are very excited about this!

I know of no other church in the history of Greater Cincinnati who has attempted to do this! There may be a reason! In order for our children’s workers to be able to attend (since it’s only one service) this will be a family- friendly service event (similar to this past year’s Christmas Eve services), where families will be able to worship together as one church that day. This unique day will also be cool as we experience the size and power of our church worshipping the Resurrected Lord as 1 body at 1 time. There will be some logistical challenges, but we can absolutely reach more people THERE than we can here. That’s the ultimate goal and reason we are doing this! We are expecting our largest crowd ever to celebrate what Jesus Christ has done (and will do). I’m even asking you to delay/alter your Spring break/vacation plans in order to attend and volunteer.

Since that is opening weekend for the Reds and they have an afternoon game that day at 1:10pm, you might consider bundling the Easter service with the Reds game and just enjoying the afternoon downtown. They have offered us deeply discounted tickets that day (more info about that later too).

This will absolutely be one of the greatest outreach opportunities in your lifetime to invest/invite a person to the service. Invite 8 people as a matter of fact. We’ll have some invite cards for you to use. I’m calling it Easter Eight Hunt! A little cheesy I know, but you’ll remember it! Pick 8 people to hunt out and invite. Invite and bring your good and bad eggs!!

Obviously, to pull something off like this, we need all hands on deck! So click on the website volunteer tab (click here) to serve for this event too. What position will you play on the WCCC team this Easter? If you are attending here and not serving, this is absolutely your call and moment to jump in. You cannot be just an observer here, you gotta get in the 4th service/ Easter game. For us AND you! Let’s make Easter this year our gift to the city of Cincy! Let’s approach it as a huge church plant with all of us serving/greeting/giving/and inviting!

I got one more!!

Door #3 – Phase 1a.

In order to create additional building space right now, the ETF (Expansion Task Force) and Elders have approved what we call Phase 1a. It is a small addition (under $500,000) that will blend into the front of our building. It will create short term facility space essential for a large area that can accommodate 100 people for a class, choir, small funerals, and weddings. Phase 1a also provides renovating some existing space for offices for new staff we are hiring this year, storage/staging, and traffic flow by adding an additional hallway that will connect with the other hallways and wrap around the building.

The next step is for this to go back to our Design/Construction Team for more work and we will then start sharing floor plans and drawings with you so you can see this exciting addition. Our Finance Team has already seen it and is working on a plan to pay for it without doing another Capital Campaign or it adversely affecting our General Fund. We continue to think and talk about an eventual Phase 2 on the back of our property and believe that will be built 3-4 years from now once we decide exactly what we can (and should) build given the current economic environment.

I know these 3 things may seem like a lot (and fast!), and to be honest, this is not the safe thing to do. But we are not a play-it-safe kind of church. We didn’t get to where we are by playing it safe! We want to be like Jesus who boldly moved out of His comfort zone to reach us. We ask for your sacrifice, flexibility, hard work, prayer, and support. We are doing all these things because lost people matter to God and it’s worth it! I’ve learned that you miss 100% of the shots you never take. Like March Madness, we’re taking some big shots these days!

These 3 things will help us Counter Culture and Encounter Christ, which is our 2012 goal. Join us.

David

P.S. In order to prepare us for the doors listed above, this coming weekend we launch a brand new series called UNforgettable. We’ll study the last 24 hours of Jesus life. Can’t wait to see you and start. Do your SOAP each day this week and bring your Bible!

The shortest Direct from David in its 10 year history

Do whatever you have to do to be here this coming weekend for the three BIG announcements I plan to make!

That’s all I have to say.

David

THE Book

The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, important Word of God. In light of that, what is your plan to read it daily?

Several weeks ago, I asked folks to send me their practice to do this. Here are some of the things our folks are doing. Perhaps you might try one of their ideas to enrich your daily time with God.

One gal has been using a guide called, Know Your Bible, and it is perfect. It helps them know the Who, What, When, Where, and Why’s behind everything. They have a 90 day Bible plan and are on track to finish March 30th!

Another says that right before they leave for work, they get their Bible, sit down at the breakfast table, close their eyes, take a deep breath and relax. Then they say the Lord’s Prayer using the words “me” and “my” instead of “us” to make it more personal. Then they pray for those on the prayer list sent out each week, the prayer list from the bulletin, and those on their personal prayer list. Then they read the Bible passage that corresponds to the Our Daily Bread devotional for the day. (These are available at the Ministry Center counter.)

Last year a guy in our church used a website to get daily emails of the Bible  (www.biblegateway.com). They did an Old and New Testament reading each day, and read the entire Bible during the year. They made a decision to read it each day when they got to work in the morning. The program they used is a daily email service that kept the Bible in their inbox and their head.

Another guy gets up early (5 am!) to start his alone time with God. He reads scripture, proclaims God’s blessing, and asks the Holy Spirit to help his actions and reactions that day. He also made scripture/prayer cards that have family, friends, neighbors, WCCC, and America on it. Sometimes he sings a song!

One of our members shared that they use a concordance to look up specific words. For example, there are many ideas about what LOVE is. After checking the concordance, she found many, many references to LOVE in the Bible. Their task became to look up these references in their Bible. It was a fun and yet time consuming way for God to reveal His truth about LOVE. They have done similar searches with words like “the Holy Spirit,” fear, joy, peace and other situations that captured their attention. “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105

One more from south of the Border! Our missionary partner from Mexico, Teri Hancock shared that they spoke of this topic several weeks ago in their worship time and the gentleman who was leading, Valentin, said that He always finds time in the morning to pray. ‘We are necios (neisios = nerds, fools) if we don’t. Life is too important not to take time to pray. He said, “No one needs to think while they are showering and getting ready for your day….Use that time to pray!! There really is no excuse not to.’  WELL SAID!

This coming weekend in our services we will introduce you to a Bible reading tool that can also help. It is a S.O.A.P. guide. It will be available (for any kind of donation) at the Ministry Center after services. Our Elders/Staff have been test driving these since January 1st with great feedback, and we encourage you to try one. Titus Chapman will return this weekend to lead us in a workshop too! I have missed Titus! You will be blessed.

If any men getting this are interested in being a better leader and man of God, we are starting another round of Proverbs 27:17 men’s groups over the next month. You may get a call from a leader to see if you are interested in being sharpened. Say yes. You won’t regret it. If you want to participate, email back and we’ll make sure you are assigned to a group on a night that works for you.

See you this weekend for more Biblical and practical teaching from THE Book!

David

P.S. I will be making a huge announcement on Feb. 18/19 weekend regarding two God-sized initiatives we are going ‘all in’ for this spring. One has to do with Easter. Can’t say too much right now, but let me say this – it’s so big that you will absolutely not want to miss Easter service on April 8. It will be worth altering your vacation or spring break plans in order to be in town to invite and attend.

The Bible

Our journey to Unpack the Bible as a church continues. I have obtained a copy of a recently discovered document from the 1st century. It’s from a potential first publisher of the Bible. Way before Zondervan and Tyndale publishing existed! It’s a letter from them to the Bible’s original author:

Dear Sir,

While we appreciate that the writing of Your manuscript has involved the work of some 40 authors and taken over 1500 years to complete, as with all writers, we feel it is important to present to You some editorial suggestions for the sake of Your book’s marketability. Please understand that these are presented with Your interests in mind, as well as the necessity of this book paying for itself as we fulfill our contract with You. At first, our review board thought it would be best to leave out some of the less-believable material – talking donkeys, floating ax heads, parting of the sea, bread from heaven, and things like that. However we are willing to leave those in. We’re just concerned that You not undermine Your work’s credibility.

However, there are still some certain elements that we deem best left out, even though they are factual. Clearly You haven’t included everything that ever happened, so why not omit a few features that might otherwise harm Your book’s sales? – for instance, the inclusion in Joshua of the story of a prostitute named Rahab. It seems the account of the spies in her home is just as easily left out without altering the story of the conquest of Jericho. Why make such a character a key figure in your main story line? To bring her name up again in the New Testament as an illustration of good living seems to be using poor judgment too. (If you look in Hebrews 11:31, she’s one of only 2 women mentioned there – people who had faith – along with Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and others. Then James mentions her in 2:25 as a person who was “considered righteous” for what she did.)  Worst of all is her name appearing in the genealogy of Jesus along with 2 other women of questionable background. As Your publisher, we should point out that it isn’t even considered customary to include the names of women in such lists. Our suggestion is that they simply be omitted, as in most genealogies.

If we have somehow failed to catch the spirit of Your work, our apologies. We are, of course, simply interested in Your work being polished in a way that it will be most widely read and accepted. Thank You for working with us to make Your book the best we can make it!

Aren’t you glad that that the only editor needed for the Bible was God Himself! This coming weekend will be a very unique opportunity to learn about the Bible. It will almost be a crash course from seminary (without the tuition!). We’ll discuss the way it was formed, preserved, and translated.  We’ll answer questions like – What about the so called ‘lost books’ of the Bible? Why do some Bibles have books I’ve never heard of? Why doesn’t WCCC use those books? Don’t miss this one! And it will presented in an out-of-the-box way.

I am so glad that WCCC is a congregation that thinks out-of-the box. That we are a body that risks, dares, and dreams. When prompted by God we are not afraid to move out and take hills that are daunting. Author Mark Batterson makes an interesting observation about a danger associated with aging. “Neuroimaging has shown that as we age, the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. And this neurological tendency presents a grave spiritual danger. At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past. Instead of living by faith, we live by logic. Instead of going after our dreams, we stop circling Jericho. So the date of organizational death is the day we strop dreaming. The day we stop dreaming is the day we start dying.”

Batterson concludes, “We lose faith in the God who gave us the big dream and settle for a small dream that we can accomplish without His help. We go after dreams that don’t require prayer. And the God who is able to do immeasurably more than all our right brain can imagine is supplanted by a god – lowercase g – who fits within the logical constraints of our left brain.”

Well said by Mark. So WCCC – Hang on to your hat. I’ve got some things to share very soon that our leaders have been discussing and dreaming about. They will require right brain thinking!

See you this weekend!

David

An UNsilent God

This coming weekend school will be in session as we give a primer on the greatest book ever written by God and man – the Bible. He is not silent when it comes to communicating with us. The Bible truly is God’s Strategic Plan for our lives!

Ever wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?

What if we flipped through it several times a day?

What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?

What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?

What if we gave it to kids as gifts?

What if we used it when we traveled?

Oh, and UNlike our cell phone, we don’t have to worry about our Bible being disconnected, because Jesus already paid the bill. And there are no dropped calls!

Another great way for you to learn even more about the Bible is to participate in the next new cycle of our Experiencing Christ class which starts this Sunday at 10:45 in room H over at Building 2:42. Check it out.

Two weekends ago, Tyler McKenzie preached a great message that ended with a very moving video. If you want to see a great follow-up music video to that message, click here.

God has a strategic plan for everyone. I read about a woman named Pam, who knows the pain of considering abortion. More than 24 years ago, she and her husband Bob were serving as missionaries to the Philippines and praying for a fifth child. Pam contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in contaminated food or drink. She went into a coma and was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered she was pregnant.

Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby. She refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians predicted. Pam said the doctors didn’t think of it as a life; they thought of it as a mass of fetal tissue.

While pregnant, Pam nearly lost their baby four times but refused to consider abortion. She recalled making a pledge to God with her husband: If you will give us a son, we’ll name him Timothy and we’ll make him a preacher.

Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy on August 14, 1987. Pam’s youngest son is indeed a preacher. He preaches in prisons, makes hospital visits, and serves with his father’s ministry in the Philippines. He also plays football. Pam’s son is Tim Tebow.

The University of Florida’s star quarterback became the first sophomore in history to win college football’s highest award, the Heisman Trophy. His current role as quarterback of the Denver Broncos has provided an incredible platform for Christian witness. What is God’s strategic plan for you?

See you this weekend (hopefully without ice!) to Unpack God’s plan for your life.

David

How you doing with those resolutions!?

This is the time of year when those new resolutions are already starting to get tough. Am I right?  Just 18 days later! I’ve become quite the student of why people make promises (and needed resolutions) to do something and then forsake them. Might be reading the Bible, praying, losing weight, saving money, or exercising. Anything you know that needs to change. Most of my learning has come from me! I’ve found 3 things so far in my quest.

The key to yearly resolutions (and long term change) is found in breaking them down to monthly resolutions, weekly resolutions, and daily resolutions. Things change little by little. One small action or new habit then leads to another one. Inch by inch, change is a cinch. The key is to make your change a daily commitment rather than an annual resolution. Daily discipline is the secret to success.

You will travel farther, last longer, and enjoy it more if you have a partner who does it with you and holds you accountable. Someone who you know will be there at the gym waiting for you when it is snowing outside, you have 10 other pressing things to do, and you’d rather make an excuse not to go. By the way, any excuse works when you don’t want to do something. Sometimes I will say wryly to someone – “It’s your lie, tell it how you want to!”

Become a student and master of willpower. That’s right. Willpower. Christian Author John Ortberg writes about a man named Roy Baumeister who is cranking out remarkable work these days. He’s likely the world’s top experimental social psychologist, and he is almost single-handedly bringing the concept of “will” back to psychology. (He’s got a book out now called Willpower.) Read some excerpts from John below:
Ever wonder why it’s hard to keep New Years’ resolutions? One of Baumeister’s early experiments was to investigate the nature of willpower. In this experiment, one group of people had to resist the temptation to eat delicious fresh chocolate chip cookies, while another group had to resist eating radishes. Then both groups were given (secretly) insoluble math problems to solve. It turns out that the subjects who had been resisting chocolate chip cookies gave up on trying to solve math problems much more quickly than the subjects who only had to resist eating radishes.

In other words, Baumeister has found, willpower is real, and able to make a difference, but it is a finite commodity. It’s a lot like a muscle – if you do as many push-ups as you can and then immediately try to see how much you can bench press, it won’t be much. Willpower, like a muscle, can be built up over time. But in the short term it’s easily fatigued. It’s a finite commodity.

Baumeister discovered that you have a finite amount of willpower that gets depleted as you use it. He also found that you use the same stock of willpower for all manner of tasks. You don’t get separate stockpiles for different areas like relationships vs. physical activities. That’s why a long list of New Year’s resolutions is almost certainly doomed. It takes a whole lot of willpower to get on an exercise and diet program to lose weight. You will not have a great deal left over. If you add on the list: get on a budget, start keeping your office clean, and read every week, you set yourself up for failure.

For most of us, our wills get depleted far more quickly, more often and more seriously than our bodies do. So how do I manage willpower well?

Know when it is at its freshest and strongest. For many people that’s in the morning before it’s been drained by the day. In fact, one remarkable study showed that prisoners have a much better chance of receiving parole if their case is heard in the morning versus the evening, since the judge has a high reserve of willpower then and thus is more willing to take the chance of release. (If you’re ever in jail, go for the morning release hearing!) Schedule your most critical tasks accordingly.

Spend it wisely. Don’t take on too many life-improvement tasks all at once, even if you pray on them. God works through your will, generally; he rarely gives people a free pass to ignore the laws of finitude he created in the first place.

Use the tiny bits of willpower you have for the cultivation of right habits. Alcoholics Anonymous is a great example of this; the idea behind it is not to stop drinking through willpower, but to enter into a way of life (the 12 steps) that lead to new habits of thinking and desiring that bring power for sobriety that the will never could.

Set goals, but not too many. Goals are the first step toward self-regulation. Without a few, we drift. But too many goals always weaken willpower: we worry about them, we get less done, and we suffer emotionally as well as physically. You have to experiment to figure out the right number of goals for you: enough to get things done without stressing out.

Perhaps this email will assist you in keeping promises made to God and yourself this New Year. It seems to be working for me. So far!!

One more thing – I will be doing a message soon on exactly how to do a devotional time with God each day. (I know that is one of those resolutions many of you made). I am looking for creative, effective,  and powerful ways to do this. If you have one that is working for you, could you email me back today and let me know what it is? I might use it in my message to inspire others.

See you later. I gotta go exercise my will (and body!)

David

P.S. If you missed the recent Vision Nite, my comments are now posted on the website. You can also watch the 2011 recap video we showed that night too on our Vimeo page.

Exciting problems and opportunities ahead

Hi Friends.

How’s your New Year going?

We are off and rolling with exciting UNfactor things. If you were not able to hear the message last weekend on Daniel – The UNfactor, listen to it on our website. (All three Q & A sessions from New Year’s weekend are posted there.) The Vision Night talk I gave last Sunday night at the Woodlands will also be posted there soon. We had a great evening.

I shared several thoughts (I call them learnings) that night. One big one is that we must find a way to create seats and spaces at the 10:45 Sunday service! We were maxed out last Sunday and had to bring out overflow chairs and there were -0- parking spaces left. That’s right. 0. While this is very exciting, without creating space, we have now maxed out our ability to grow anymore at this service. If you attend this service, you know what I mean! Could I sincerely ask you to consider attending the 9am service or the Saturday night service? The Saturday service grew 20% last year, but there is still plenty of room there. We are researching all possibilities to address this great problem, including adding an additional service on Sunday this fall, but until that time I need some help. I’m not asking because it’s convenient, but because we need it to reach more people for Christ. It will assist us greatly in creating maximum space at this optimum time. I know some of you have a class at an hour that prohibits you from switching, but many of you could do this. Thanks.

I shared several staff items for 2012 too. Terri Beth Faust has been brought on full-time in 2012 in Children’s Ministry, (you probably didn’t know she was part-time, huh!?). We have also approved bringing on two new additional part-time staff in 2012 (a Director of Communications and a Director of Small Groups) which will greatly assist us in getting to new levels of excellence. We hope to bring the Communication person on line in March and the Small Groups person in July. We are currently accepting resumes for the Director of Communications, and will begin interviewing candidates over the next several weeks. If you are interested, please send your resume and cover letter to the church office (attn: Phil Coleman). For more information (i.e., job qualifications/ description), contact Phil at pcoleman@whitewatercrossing.org.

Look for many other Unbelievable plans we have for outreach and discipleship this year. I can’t wait for you to hear what we’re cooking on for Easter on April 8! We’re chasing something UNprecedented!  Some of those things will be publicized on a new permanent sign installed out on Rt. 128 that will display our large banners. This was provided by a very generous donor.

Our Men’s Ministry is launching the monthly Men’s Breakfast in a big way on January 21st.   Former Bengals kicker Jim Breech will be here to share. Dave Nash says that here is your chance to do some heavy inviting and enjoy some KICKIN FOOD as usual. Due to an expected large crowd, you need to sign up at the Ministry Center, email the church office, or online. Please do so by Jan 16th. They have also removed the 16-year-old age restriction, so sons can come as well. Child Care is now available too upon request, but must be requested/ reserved. Men’s Breakfast is always the 3rd Saturday of each month, 8am to 9:30am in the Student Center.

For all our new members (300 this past year!), take advantage of the benefits of the next Experiencing Christ Class. We always get very positive feedback from those who go through it. You have two ways to catch it. Join in a one day Experiencing Christ class on Saturday, January 21, from 9:00 to 2:00, or take it over the course of six weeks on Sunday mornings at 10:45 beginning on January 29. Experiencing Christ is WCCC’s foundational class presenting core beliefs and information about the Bible, salvation and the church. All adults are invited and encouraged to participate. To attend one of these classes, please sign-up online at www.whitewatercrossing.org.

Speaking of communicating things at WCCC, please note that last weekend we made a change in the Connection Card. Members and regular attenders no longer need to fill out a Connection Card each weekend to register attendance. Please continue to use the card, however, to share prayer requests, messages to the church staff, desire for information on membership/ baptism, and volunteering for ministries. We also encourage all first time guests to fill out a card so we can communicate in various ways going forward.

A brand New Year of opportunities (cleverly disguised as problems) lies before us in the next 12 months.  What will you do with it? Mark Twain once said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do, than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” I agree!

See you this weekend for the first lesson in Unpacking God’s Strategic Plan. School will be in session!

David