Sunday #1
Worship at New Life North
We had our share of excitement on Sunday! It felt a little bit surreal to be officially one church in two locations.
I had the opportunity to connect with a bunch of new people. It was fun to talk to individuals and couples who enjoyed themselves in the service, who were looking for a meaningful experience with God, and who might actually come back next weekend.
My family went to lunch with the Irions and my old friend Becky Passie and her husband Andy. We knew each other from my table-waiting days at Cheddar’s in Peoria, and I don’t think we’d seen each other in 14 years. They liked what they experienced, and for the time being they’re planning to be back.
As the site planning team sorted through prayer requests from the weekend, I realized that each person who came through the doors on Sunday came with needs and a desire to see God work in their lives. It’s awesome to let Jesus touch people through us. And for each person who’s stepping up and playing a role at New Life – North, your part is significant! Read the rest of this entry
Go Time
It’s been a long time coming, but the weekend is finally here. Tell your neighbors, friends, coworkers and total strangers. Post in on facebook. Send mass emails. Text everyone in your phone.
It’s time to go to church at New Life – North. The PAC at ICC. 9:45 a.m. starting this Sunday morning!
And by the way, who cares if it’s snowing? Tell your people to come anyway! Do we live in Illinois or not?!? It’s part of life!
See you in a couple of days!
Counting down to Sunday
Hi folks. We’re just days away from our first practice service and things are ramping up. This Sunday a whole bunch of you have roles to play, so we all need to be prepared for the reality that the auditorium will probably have about 10 people in it for the actual service. But hey, this is practice and the idea is that we can make mistakes and have problems without displaying them for all the world to see.
If you’ve got a part to play this weekend, show up ready to go like it’s for real. And hopefully we’ll get the sense of what a “normal” Sunday will feel like a month from now. I’m looking forward to doing this new thing with all of you!
Jason
About December 4th…
The 4th of December is two weeks away and up until this week it was slated to be our first practice service at ICC. It was also the same day we were doing the financial appeal to the entire New Life body. Our plan was to roll with this and run some kind of video of site-goers for the Mortonites on that day.
Given the current mood at our church, it seemed to make more sense for the site folks to stick around in Morton on the 4th and be commissioned in the services. That will cut our practice dates down from three to two, but I’m personally hoping it will bring some finality to the fact that the site launch is real, it’s happening, and there’s a group of people who believe in its future. We also need money to launch New Life – North, so the idea of all of us just suddenly being gone on the day we were raising funds didn’t seem to make a lot of sense in the end, particularly with some of the wounded-ness that out there at New Life right now.
So here’s what we need from you. If you’re going to New Life – North, it would be great if you could show up for both services on December 4th and be ready to come forward for a commissioning moment. I can give you details about when it’s happening in the service as we get a little closer, but if we could get the majority of site-goers there both services, it would help our cause greatly. Think of it kind of like a missions team that’s about to be sent on a trip… we see them, we pray for them, we support them… same idea.
The plan is also to have a lunch after church on the 4th as kind of a last rallying of the troops, so if you’re going to New Life – North, leave space for lunch at church on the 4th and let’s eat!
One Month
Should we be excited or scared? I admit that I’m both. 
In four Sundays we’ll be at ICC doing our first practice service for New Life – North. We’ve worked a ton behind the scenes but there’s still much to be completed. It feels like crunch time to me. Actually it’s been crunch time for months, but there’s something about getting within a month that heightens all of the pressure.
We’re running down all kinds of stuff – a lot of it related to tech and KidsLife – and I’ve started planning out the details of the December 4th service. I’m guessing that on that day we’ll find a number of wrinkles to iron out before our second practice service on December 18th, but we’re attempting to head off as much of the unknown as possible in advance.
It’s weird to imagine a world where each Sunday I drive to ICC instead of to Morton. It doesn’t feel like reality yet. I run into people regularly who are thinking about coming to New Life – North or have already decided that it’s a done deal. It’s fun when that happens, but it’s also a lot of pressure to deliver a high quality, Jesus-encountering experience for these people who are assuming that they’re going to love their new church – not that I’d ever want it to be schlocky, of course. It’s just that everyone has their pre-conceived notions of what their Sunday morning experience ought to be, and I have a feeling that we’re not going to meet all the expectations across the board.
I do know that we’re going to do our best with what we’ve got, that we believe that God is in this thing, and we’re going to honor him using the gifts and talents that he’s given each of us. My hope is that all these people who walk through the doors to try us out come away thinking something like this: “That wasn’t exactly what I expected, but wow, I really feel like I encountered Jesus this morning.” If they can sense a touch from God, or can be challenged to know him in a way they hadn’t before, or they can see a new facet of his character… I’ll be elated.
It’s go time.
A Practice Before the Practice
Hi everyone. The first practice service for New Life – North is coming up on Sunday December 4th. But FIRST we’re going to have a practice set-up on October 23rd (which is a week from Sunday) from 2-5 p.m. at ICC. You are all invited to attend this set-up. The plan is really to see what it’s going to take to get all the KidsLife equipment in the door and in place. This is a big deal and would be a great opportunity for you, as a New Life – North member, to see the facility and get a sense of what it’s all going to be like. You can walk around, hang out, maybe we’ll even bring some snacks you can eat.
We’d like to video tape the action at the set up on October 23rd, so the more New Life – Northers (that’s the first time I’ve used that phrase) who are there, the better. We’re going to run this video in services at Morton on December 4th, which is the day we do our capital campaign appeal.
So mark your calendar for the 23rd at 2:00 p.m. and come over the PAC at ICC for a taste of the future.
First Practice Service
Hi Folks.
We had been using the term “preview services” for a while, but after some reflection, they really aren’t for anyone to preview. They’re like rehearsals. We’ve got kids rooms, coffee, stage stuff, tech stuff, signs out front… all kinds of set-up in a new environment, and we want to have as few surprises as possible on our start date of January 15th. So we’ve got to practice, people!
Chris Gray, the Dean of Fine Arts at ICC, told us that there would probably be 6 weeks a year when a play would be going on in the studio, the room where most of our children’s ministry will be happening. These 6 weeks will happen in two three-week chunks: once in the spring and once in the fall, and we figured we’d have all the kids in services with us except for nursery and maybe pre-schoolers… we’ll call it “March Madness” and “Nutty November” or something.
We didn’t have the dates on these plays, so we scheduled our first practice for November 13th. Unfortunately that date is right in the middle of the fall play.
So, not wanting to do our first practice service WITHOUT KidsLife, we decided to move the date. Nov. 6 and Nov 20 were both booked with play related issues, and October 30 was too soon to be ready. Nov. 27 is the Sunday after Thanksgiving and people are just not around, so we’re going with December 4th for our first one. We met with Paul Schreiner, the Tech Director at the PAC, and he confirmed this date with us yesterday.
In the meantime, we’re starting to buy stuff: kids equipment, storage containers, tech equipment… it’s all about to become reality. The plan is to get a big trailer to store everything in and haul it over to ICC every Sunday for load-out. Then we load it back up when we’re done and take it… somewhere…
If you’re going to New Life – North, you can expect to be asked for some specific help in the next few weeks, so get you’re mind in the zone. We’re moving ahead!
NEW LIFE – NORTH
In case you haven’t heard, the official name is New Life – North. Start using it, and you can abbreviate it in writing like this: NL-N.
If you type just NLN without the dash, to me that’s internal office shorthand for “New Lifer News.”
Also, if you didn’t see the video in church two weeks ago, click here:
Name It
You should have gotten an email from Dick Stinson asking you for site name suggestions, so if you haven’t replied and you have some ideas, get to it! The deadline is Tuesday at 2:00 but if you get a submission in late, I promise to read it!
The name is something we’re all going to have to live with, so we want to choose it carefully. I’ll make no secret about the fact that I like the simple name, “New Life North.” And yes I know that we could start a future site in Metamora or Lacon or Chicago or Toronto or the North Pole, but we can call those, “New Life Lacon” or “New Life North Pole.”
I also like the name NLCC@PAC@ICC in EP. Not really, but I had to type it. Honestly, I’m feeling rather non-creative about the name right now, so I’m looking forward to your suggestions.
The site planning team is going to review your submissions on Tuesday at our afternoon meeting and we’ll try to narrow it down. In the meantime, can you do me a favor and NOT get too married to your name suggestion? I’m trying not to be too in love with mine!
It’s Time for a Small Group Reassessment
I liked this pic because it’s like my small group… I’m the darker complected one (my dream of thick hair is coming true here), Dwayne Carr is the black one (for obvious reasons), and I think that’s another version of Tony Hopp between Dwayne and I. You can tell by the hair. Unfortunately his arms look kind of girly, which in real life they most definitely are not. Jen Hopp is the long hair and glasses girl (though Jen’s glasses are much more stylin’) and the girl on the right represents everyone else.
We always hold hands and pray intensely, so I thought this was a good representation of the holy level of our awesome group.
Actually, I’ve known most of the people in my small group for over 15 years, which is kind of aweseome because we have a foundational understanding of each others’ history of joy, pain, struggle, and fear. It’s cool that way. We’ve been making plans for starting up in the fall, but I’m feeling the need to do a reassessment of what my role in small group ought to be. Don’t get me wrong, you small group friends who are reading this, I love hanging out with you guys… but I’m trying to find out if I need to open myself up to something new or different, come site launch time.
I think part of my hopes with the new location at ICC is that there will be a real community interest among people who have been open to things of God in the past but haven’t really felt like darkening the door of a church. I’m hoping that the community-friendly setting of the Performing Arts Center will drop that barrier for at least some spiritually-interested-but-hesitant people. If my hopes are realized and a group of newish people come through the doors at ICC, my next hope is that they’ll find friends. Community, if you will, and I think you will. If they find friends and they gain a sense of belonging quickly, my next hope (yes, I think this is hope #3) is that they’ll be agreeable to join a small group. This brings us to the crux of this post.
If they want to join a small group, there need to be small groups for them to join. This seems obvious, right? Well my small group is pushing the boundaries of largeness as it is. We’ve got a good 10-12 adults consistently, so maybe there’s room for another couple or two, but that would be about it. ”Well you stinkin’, sorry, exclusive, stuck in the mud small group. Are you saying you wouldn’t let new people join because you have to be with all your little friends from way back when?” No. That’s not what I’m saying. ”Well Jesus didn’t put a limit of 14 people on a small group!” True.
I just know that there are certain dynamics among long standing friendships that make it difficult for newbies to break in and connect in a meaningful way, particuarly in a group setting. Also, if you get up over 15 adults, I dare you to try to have a group that goes deep and shares life. A few will always stay silent and keep their issues to themselves while the rest of us dominators pour out all our junk. Unless of course you schedule your group to last five hours, and we have kids that need their sleep. Heck, I need MY sleep. You also will have less consistent attendance, because if you don’t show up to a group of 20, it’s just not as big of a deal as not showing up to a group of 8.
So I’m asking God: What do you want me and Tina to do when site launch hits? Do we need to reopen our home and invite some brand spankin’ new families over that we’ve never met before? We just wiggled our way out of hosting two months ago! I’ll have to clean. Again and again. Do I need to lead a group at someone’s house? Does Tina? Come on, I’ve already got weekend stuff to worry about… do I really want to lead? Nobody wants us to come over anyway… we’ve got too many kids. We’re like our own small group.
My challenge to myself has to be: it’s not about me. It’s not about what I want. It’s about what God wants – so I’d better ask him and find out. And if he wants us to have a new racially diverse group that holds hands and prays intensely, well by all means, sign me up.
