By unSeminary: Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jenn Clauser, the Director of Communications at Coker United Methodist Church in San Antonio, Texas. She’s with us today to dig deeper into online church and how to integrate it as a core part of our mission to reaching people who are far from God.

Optimize your website. // Before COVID, Coker felt led to make their online presence more robust. They partnered with Missional Marketing who rebuilt the church’s website for search engine optimization. By paying attention to what people are looking for in keyword searches online from month to month, a website can be made to do outreach for you. Coker layers these words into their website in an authentic way by using them in sermon series. Divorce, for example, is a high search term in the month of January, so Coker tends to lead into the year with a series about families. They might use phrases on their website such as: How do you avoid divorce? How do you care for someone who has been divorced? How do we strengthen marriage? By developing a strong online presence, you will be easily found by your community in their time of need.Create connections. // As online viewership increased during COVID, Coker began to ask how they could see the analytics as faces. These are real people looking for guidance and connections. Feed them where they are and offer them help and services online even if you can’t see them. Coker did this by connecting their online audience to meaningful community. A few steps they took included setting up a way where online guests could register their attendance and let you know their names and email addresses. They created a place for online prayer requests and a team responds to these requests in real time. Coker also offered people a free book in exchange for their email address, as well as one-off courses, like a simple marriage class. Have a connections expert who is in charge of reaching out to them see where their needs are.Launch classes online. // Within their online campus, Coker listed all of their courses online. Allowing all of your classes to be attended in that format opens the door to a new audience who may never have attended your church before. Coker has their classes set up similar to Google Classroom. People can get the class content, a Facebook group where they can connect during the week, the Zoom link, and other resources for attendees. Online classes provide a way to reach people that won’t walk through the doors of your church right away, but they feel comfortable being present in an online Zoom classroom. It gives them the chance to know others’ faces, and provides a bridge where they could feel comfortable attending church in person down the road. Don’t miss this mission field opportunity.Brainstorm new ideas. // Recognizing the opportunities that are provided by mixing online and in-person, Coker is brainstorming a lot of possible ideas right now. In the fall they are launching an intentional discipleship program where people take an online assessment, get their results, and then meet with a spiritual director who will guide their next steps. Depending on what the spiritual director recommends, people may then get involved in online classes to help them study the Bible better or dig deeper into prayer. Another new thing Coker is trying is assembling five community groups. Four of these will be in-person and one will be online. Each group will meet quarterly as a community gathering for things such as a BBQ, a study group, a monthly dinner, etc. Coker will see what organically grows from there.Listen well. // During this transitional phase it’s important for churches to be listening to what their community needs as well as how they want to connect with your church. Don’t be afraid to try new ideas and offer a mix of online and in-person services or events. Most of all, make space to listen to God. During the pandemic, God has shown Jenn that she needs to be intentional about her connection with Him. Pay particular attention to your sabbath, your time with God alone, and time with other people and how God might be speaking through them. Commit everything to prayer, and know who your Spirit-led experts are. Talk decisions out with other leaders at the church, but also don’t be afraid to use Google to research and learn!

You can learn more about Coker United Methodist Church at www.coker.org and visit their online campus at Coker.org/cokeronline.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Carey Nieuwhof

Leadership has felt pretty uncertain and divisive this past year. How do you make decisions when the future isn’t predictable and your team has different opinions?Download the FREE Pivot Ready Cheat Sheet to get help making progress and gaining clarity through rapid change and disruption. It will give you a framework that effective and resilient leaders use to make decisions and take action.

Source: Applying Pandemic Learnings from Church Online to Post-Pandemic Church with Jenn Clauser

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade you’ve probably heard about the growing sport of Crossfit. Started in 2000 by two fitness enthusiasts, Crossfit has blossomed from a single gym to 15,000 affiliated gyms spread all over the world. 

Articles like The Church of Crossfit and CrossFit Is My Church reveal the connections and similarities between this fitness movement and Jesus’ church. Due to all these connections it’s no surprise many followers of Jesus are using their love for fitness as an avenue to share the gospel with other fitness lovers. Even some of the biggest names in the sport leverage their passion for fitness to share their faith including Rich Froning, Dan Bailey, and Tasia Percevecz. 

The rise of CrossFit in our generation reminds us of how hungry people are for community and a sense of achievement. That’s why in 2013 Becky Conzelman started FaithRXD, an organization that exists to unite and strengthen the fitness community to live for Christ, share His love, and serve the world. Equipping, encouraging, and inspiring fitness instructors all over the world, FaithRXD is leading the way in equipping everyday Christians to use their time in the gym to grow spiritually and help others do the same. The rise of CrossFit has even inspired some church plants to use fitness as a method to connect with people in their community, serve them, and help them move closer to Jesus. One example of this is Move Daytona in Daytona Beach, FL. 

Several years ago Kelly and Polly Barcol felt God calling them to plant a church. Both were coaches and fitness enthusiasts, so instead of walking away from their gifts and passions, they leveraged them to start Move Daytona to move people toward health – mind, body and spirit. Move Daytona launched in November 2020, but even a world-wide pandemic couldn’t stop people from gathering on the beach for a workout and a message. Speaking of the beach, they will be having their first baptism celebration this Saturday, May 15th, so pray for many to find new life in Jesus through their ministry this weekend. 

Move Daytona isn’t the only church utilizing fitness to reach their community. Many have done it for years by building basketball courts and recreational facilities for their church to use as an outreach to their community. Organizations like Upward Sports and Victory Kids Sports help churches and church plants connect with their community through sports. Passion for Planting’s home church New Life Christian Church built the nZone sport complex several years ago as a way to serve the community and share the gospel with those who use the facilities. If you’re ever in the Chantilly, VA area, stop in for a visit. We’d love to give you a tour.

Whether you’re a gym rat or a couch potato, we hope you can see the opportunity that exists to think creatively about how to reach your community for Christ. People are hungry to be a part of something bigger than themselves and to be healthy. That’s why we challenge you to consider how your church can meet those needs and help people move closer to Jesus while caring for their physical well-being.

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Source: Getting Our Priorities Straight

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Source: Gospel Opportunities Right Outside Your Door

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By unSeminary: Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Chris Bell, from 3Circle Church in the Mobile, Alabama area.

When the pandemic started, all we heard about was new restrictions and what we couldn’t do. Chris was immediately challenged to focus on what the church CAN do each day. Listen in as Chris shares ways that churches can apply this as we minister locally, regionally and globally to complete our God-given mission.

What can you do right now? // This question was one that 3Circle Church daily asked and it became their north star, particularly in the early days of the pandemic. Locally this looked like reaching out to churches in the area who didn’t have the equipment or knowledge to stream sermons online and helping them record or get set-up on Facebook. Globally it meant providing resources to ministry partners when they couldn’t travel or do mission trips, and offering training materials online instead of in-person. Ask your staff: what can you do right now? Asking themselves that question gave 3Circle Church the guidance they needed in reaching out to the community around them and focusing on providing the help that they could.Take a local approach. // 3Circle believes all ministry is local and there isn’t a cookie cutter solution to what a community needs. The team at 3Circle is big and through the pandemic they were thankfully able to keep everyone on staff, but it required some positions to be moved around. Where people can’t serve in their normal job function, put them where there is the greatest need. 3Circle had each person on staff contribute towards calling each of the 5000-6000 people in their database to ask how they were doing and pray for them. By interacting with the people in your church family on such a personal level, you will quickly get a pulse on what the needs are locally in different areas and for different families. Options for connecting. // Even though in-person services are relaunching, 3Circle has learned a lot about online services and is going to continue to pursue excellence in this area. When people attend church online, we don’t have control over the variables such as reliable internet or distractions in the home. These factors mean that the online service needs to be more than just a broadcast of the in-person service. To address this, 3Circle started shooting these messages on location with different video cuts to create a more engaging experience that would hold a family’s attention. Though it was more video work, the result helped them to expand their reach and impact more people consistently. Recognize the online ministry opportunities even when you are returning to meeting in-person. Hire staff to support growth and development in the area of an online campus. Empower your campuses. // 3Circle Church takes a local approach with ministry when it comes to multisite too. Because each of their campuses is in a very different area, they each have a different feel and different needs, especially during the pandemic. To have local contextualization at your campuses, it’s important to have a great campus pastor and then support and empower them with the right team. The campus pastor role is one that’s a leader, a shepherd and a communicator. When a campus pastor has strengths in one of these areas, surround them with campus staff that will balance their gifts. For example, if the campus pastor is a grower, then make sure there is a strong shepherd at the campus as well to help them care for people in their community.

You can learn more about 3Circle Church at www.3circlechurch.com. You can reach Chris at his website www.chrisbelllive.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing

Great things happen when the right leadership is in place in a local church… lives are changed and churches thrive.

With all the craziness that has gone on in 2020, we know that many churches are beginning to ask hard questions about what their current team looks like and how ready they are to lead into our new reality. Download Chemistry Staffing’s Restructuring Playbook to develop clarity around where you need to be focusing your time, resources, and team.

Source: Lead with What Your Church CAN DO with Chris Bell

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By unSeminary: Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking to Mark Jobe, senior pastor at New Life Community Church (NLCC) in Chicago area and president of Moody Bible institute. New Life Community Church meets primarily in the city and has 28 locations with 40+ worship services. It’s a very multi-ethnic church with 60-70% of the attendees non-white, and most being first generation Christians.

Within cities the stress of this year has been more intense than anywhere else. The pandemic, racial tensions, social unrest, and the polarizing election created a very violent summer in terms of homicides and crime in Chicago. In the midst of everything, however, there have been amazing opportunities to minister to hurting people in the city. Mark is with us to share about how God is moving and how you can take advantage of these windows of opportunity in your area when a crisis hits.

Dreams are fulfilled in unlikely ways. // When God gives a church a dream or a vision for something, we can’t know what He will use to bring about its fulfillment. God gives Joseph a dream, but he doesn’t know how to handle the dream. And when Joseph is sold as a slave to Egypt and eventually throne in prison, it seems like his God-given dream is put on hold, or has disappeared entirely. But in reality, God leads Joseph into crisis to prepare him for the fulfillment of that dream. The same can be true for us. Ask God what the crises of this year could be preparing your church for.Identify the biggest need. // When the pandemic hit, New Life Community Church wanted to do more than have online services because of the need they saw in their community. In Chicago the biggest need was that people were food-deprived and without jobs, particularly in Mexican immigrant communities. This led to seven of the NLCC locations connecting with a secular organization to distribute food. At the height of the pandemic in the spring, they were distributing food to 25,000-30,000 people a week – about 1% of the city of Chicago! In the middle of COVID through their facility parking lots, NLCC was actually serving double the number of people that they would normally be ministering to on a Sunday morning. And the great majority of those people were unchurched. Think about the greatest needs in your community. How can your church touch people in a way that doesn’t involve your regular Sunday service?Don’t miss the window of opportunity. // National and local crises will come around again and again over the course of your lifetime. Whatever crisis your community might be facing now or in the future, there is a window of opportunity where people will be hurting. Once that experience of pain plateaus, people will get back to life as normal. Pay attention to the season where people are more open to spiritual things because their lives are shaken. When crisis comes our orientation as leaders should be: How can we help? What can we do?Build partnerships. // In order to be able to pivot and respond to crisis opportunities, churches need to partner with organizations where they could be mutual benefits. During the pandemic, the need for food has been so great that New Life Community Church approached the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) to offer their help. GCFD had food but didn’t know how to get it to people. Meanwhile New Life had a wealth of volunteers to offer. The partnership allowed GCFD to change their whole approach to distributing food in Chicago. See how you can reach out to secular organizations and city officials in your area to create mutually beneficial partnerships. Be clear that you are an organization of faith, but recognize that what you have in common with secular organizations is desiring the good of your community.Use crisis and disruption. // Crisis and disruption can be an incredible gift to accelerate needed change if we embrace it that way. At Moody Bible Institute they had often talked of doing virtual classes, but they were slow to take action. When the pandemic hit, it became the impetus to make this change. Within three weeks all of their classes were moved online. In the midst of a shake-up in your own life, ask God what lessons He’s teaching you and what He’s accelerating that needs to change. Healthy transition. // Disruption can help us move into our next chapter, but we need to do it in a healthy way. Mark has written a book called “What Now? How to Move Into Your Next Season” which is for people in the middle of transition. It walks you through how to process your transition in a healthy, God-centered and spiritual way while discerning the voice of God.

Learn more about New Life Community Church at newlifecommunity.church and about Mark Jobe and his ministry at pastormarkjobe.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries

Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge.

Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation.

Source: Inspiring Reflections on 2020 from Chicago with Mark Jobe

The post Inspiring Reflections on 2020 from Chicago with Mark Jobe appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By unSeminary: Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Kyle and Justeina Brownlee from Xperience Church in Ohio.

At Xperience Church, going beyond their walls to serve their community isn’t just something they do, it’s who they are. Listen in as Kyle and Justeina share about how to build a culture of meeting the needs of your community both practically and spiritually.

Look beyond the walls. // Kyle and Justeina worked to plant Xperience Church back in 2012 with the help of the Association of Related Churches. They ended up in the rural community of Defiance, OH and didn’t realize community service would become such a big part of their church’s culture. When a church is just starting to get established and grow, it’s easy to get focused on what’s going on inside the walls and forget about going beyond the walls. At the same time, Kyle says that if we have encountered God’s love—a love that never fails—it’s part of our calling to go share that love with others. Focus on actual needs. // Xperience Church didn’t want to wait for people to come to them; they wanted to be intentional about going to people who needed reaching. And that began with identifying needs in their community. Do your homework and be very intentional about going out into the community and asking what are the needs. Reach out to government officials, schools, city parks and other nonprofits. Rather than doing what’s easiest to serve people in your city, do what is really needed. Each community has different needs, environments, and cultural focuses so take a look at the specific needs around you.Partner with others. // Most cities have organizations that meet needs within their communities. Check in your area to find what nonprofits already exist and what’s working. Ask how you can join and support them rather than creating something new to compete with them. The church grows more rapidly when we learn to partner and support. Xperience Church reached out to another church in a rougher part of town to support work that they were already doing and it turned into a beautiful partnership where the churches would adopt certain neighborhoods and serve them with meals. Adopt a Block was so successful that the Chief of Police contacted them and told them that crime had actually gone down in the neighborhood.Hand-up instead of handout. // Early on Kyle admits that serving the community was also part of marketing their church plant to attract people to it. But as time went on and they engaged in more service opportunities, he realized it didn’t matter. If people got plugged into another church in the area, the Kingdom was winning. Outreaches became about not just giving people a handout, but about giving people a hand-up so they would never go back to that place they were in. Focus on loving people and connecting them to God, even if they don’t start attending your church. Meeting the physical needs in your community will open the door to meeting spiritual needs.Start serving. // The first few years after their establishment, Xperience Church would gather their church and volunteers once a year for a big Serve Day to work on multiple projects around the city. This event began to plant the seeds for future opportunities at the church. They learned that some projects went over great while others didn’t bear fruit because they weren’t serving actual needs in the community. Over time the city took notice and expressed needing more from the church and so they started doing outreaches more regularly. This became the foundation for their current serve culture – they taught people within the church how to get outside the walls and also facilitated opportunities.Creating a base camp. // The Dream Center in Defiance grew out of these cumulative opportunities. Now the Dream Center is their base camp for addressing needs in the community. Some of the unique issues they address include a workforce program where high school students can come and learn about trades to prepare for a job. They also have a car program where volunteers service cars for single moms and widows. Additionally they have first Saturday serves and tackle different projects each month. To discern what sort of projects you could tackle, ask yourself what resources and skills God has placed in your congregation, and how can those things be paired with the needs of your community.Create a culture of community outreach. // If you want your church to move more in this direction, but aren’t sure where to begin, start by praying and asking God what He’s leading you toward. Plant seeds in your congregation by talking about serving in sermon series. Lastly, ask God for open doors and contacts so that you can start reaching out whether it’s to other nonprofits, school systems, or the city.

You can learn more about Xperience Church at www.xchurch.tv.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries

Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge.

Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation.

Source: Connection Between Community Service & Church Growth with Kyle & Justeina Brownlee

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By unSeminary: Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Bob Riedy from the Church of the Open Door (COD) in York, Pennsylvania. COD was started in the early 50s after breaking off of a mainline denomination. They experienced rapid growth for about 30 years, but then plateaued for the next 30 years. Today COD has made a comeback and is one of the fastest growing churches in the country.

Bob is with us to talk about how a stuck church can honor its roots while becoming revitalized and reach its community again. It all begins with knowing your church’s DNA.

Examine the DNA. // About 85-90% of churches in America find themselves either plateaued or losing ground against the growth of their communities. Prior to Bob’s arrival at Church of the Open Door, there was a difficult pastoral transition that did a lot of damage to the church. It wasn’t until Bob and his family came in 2006 when the church was ready to try to reach the community and grow again. The first thing Bob did was to figure out what the DNA of the church was. Every church has a unique DNA and you can’t violate that as you try to bring change. Understanding your church’s DNA is key to helping you know how to structure growth. Every church is unique. // Church of the Open Door began to ask, what is the unique mission that this church has in the community and in the world? This began a process of the the church praying, seeking God, and Bob reading a lot of books about why churches become unhealthy. A key book that helped Bob with figuring out the church’s DNA was Transforming Church: Bringing Out the Good to Get to Great by Kevin Ford. Bob learned there are a lot of factors that go into a church’s DNA. It’s shaped by the history of the church, the tradition of the church, the heroes of the church’s past, and also by God’s word. If you can, interview and listen to some of the original church members about how the church was formed. As you consider these different factors, identify what makes up your church’s DNA.What factors make up your church’s DNA? // Church of the Open Door identified seven or eight different pieces that define their unique DNA. A few of these are a steadfast commitment to the word of God, a passion for the gospel and missions, as well as being prayer-dependent. COD also has a shared leadership between the pastor, ministry leaders, and elders. Lay leaders have a real stake in what is happening within the church. This is especially important because the difficult pastoral transition prior to Bob’s coming on board drove a wedge between some of the leaders of the church and healing was needed there.Revitalizing local outreach. // Church of the Open Door’s passion for global missions led to a revitalization of local outreach initiatives. In the more recent past, COD didn’t have a heart for impacting their city and that needed to change. Bob first addressed this from the pulpit and then brought the focus and budget for local outreach to a place where it was equal with their global missions. When working through change at your church, first identify what should never change and preserve that. But also figure out what needs to change and then shepherd your people through it.Structure growth around your DNA. // Once COD defined their unique DNA, they began to make changes to move toward health. In addition to revitalizing local outreach initiatives, they transitioned to more contemporary worship, built a Family Life Center to serve the community, expanded their prayer meetings and sought to equip people in their personal prayer lives and taught the church how to pray. The church leaders also actively pursued healing and learned to work together according to what the Bible teaches. Bob notes when the church saw the leaders working together, loving each other, and enjoying each other, that really permeated the rest of the church in a positive way. All of these steps led to the renewed growth and health in the church.Use your DNA to cast vision for the future. // What are your values and mission and vision? Each year Bob evaluates what happened in the life of COD over the past year. Try to work through all the events of the last year and put them into major categories. Evaluate finances, outreaches, and small groups within the context of your DNA. Assess what should be done in the future. What are the plans and goals for your mission and vision moving forward?

You can learn more about the Church of the Open Door at their website www.codyork.org  and find their Vision and Direction from Fall 2019 here.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries

Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge.

Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation.

Source: From Plateaued for 30 Years to One of the Fastest Growing Churches in the Country with Bob Riedy

The post From Plateaued for 30 Years to One of the Fastest Growing Churches in the Country with Bob Riedy appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: Find the Evangelism Style That Excites You

The post Find the Evangelism Style That Excites You appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By: The Church.Digital

At North Circle, we’ve said this phrase long before Pop-Up Church became a thing for us. And to clarify, we don’t mean “doing the Sunday church thing but just in a neighborhood.”

We mean loving the people who live closest to you every single day. We mean showing up for the hard times and the fun times. We mean backyard bonfires, borrowing the pressure washer, dog-sitting, making sure all the kids get home safe, noticing someone may need help with the yard work, dropping off an extra batch of cookies, and sharing our lives with each other.

That being said–when we’re in the middle of a global pandemic and our church family misses in-person connection, worshiping together, and hearing God’s Word through our leaders in a live setting–it’s time to get creative. We’ve all spent the last five months finding creative ways to continue church during the time of COVID-19, and I’m thinking that’s not going to end anytime soon. I wrote a blog post for Stadia during Indiana’s Shelter-In-Place order about our team’s creative process for solving problems using our five senses as a guideline, and I want to show you how we used that for Pop-Up Church. But first, let’s talk about what Pop-Up Church means and how we decided to pursue that in the first place.

Before anything else, we reminded ourselves of the mission of North Circle Church. “Together, we are chasing a new way of life in Jesus.” As we looked to examples of what other churches were doing (and doing so well!), we realized that–for us–the goal was to pursue a “new way” of gathering. Rather than spending our energy attempting to remake our “normal” Sundays in the midst of a world of unknowns, we wanted to get creative with gathering in a new way, and we took that challenge seriously. We knew we wanted our people to feel safe, to support our local community, and to continue sharing the beauty of the gospel with the people who are literally closest to us–our neighbors. So this became our plan: to gather every Sunday morning in a different outdoor space each week for Pop-Up Church and to continue our At-Home Studies that are sent to our app/our people’s inboxes every Saturday evening for those who cannot attend in-person. We encourage our church to attend whenever and wherever they feel comfortable and give our Pop-Up hosts the resources to invite their neighbors. Each Sunday, we highlight a local non-profit organization by giving them time to share their vision before matching all financial giving from that day up to $1,000. We spend time in worship, teaching, raising/matching donations, and just being with each other for roughly 45-minutes.

Obviously, it’s not all about numbers, but we’re a church plant so we tend to pay way too much attention to those. In the four weeks before our lockdown, we ministered to 66 individual people through our Sunday gatherings. In the first four weeks of Pop-Up Church, 85 people have been reached, and we have seen a 125% return ratio. This isn’t including all of the digital connections we have fostered and the individual meetings that we have continued safely–it’s important to note that not every person in our church will feel comfortable gathering anytime soon, and those completely valid concerns just mean we need to be intentional about connecting with them in other ways! God is moving in our people in the middle of an unpredictable world. There’s something miraculous about this “new way” of life we are pursuing.

So what does our Pop-Up Church experience actually look like? Let me break it down by using our trusty old five senses as a guide (this concept is explained in that first Stadia blog post that I mentioned!):

SIGHT

We want to make sure that all of our branding, hospitality, merch, and social media point first and foremost to our goal of chasing a new way of life in Jesus and being the church in our neighborhoods. We want it to be obvious for people who happen to catch us out in the wild that we are North Circle Church, and that this is our mission.

Speaking of sight, it’s important to us that anyone who attends Pop-Up Church sees our leadership practicing the courtesy of social distancing and mask-wearing. We trust experts, and we believe that adhering to safety measures in the midst of a pandemic is a tangible way to actually love our neighbors.

SMELL

I’ll use this category to rave about our host homes. The smell of newly cut grass and fresh air reminds us that people have taken great care to invite others into their space, and they’ve prepared their lawns, driveways, and front porches to accommodate this wild idea of ours. Some of these hosts consider themselves a part of North Circle, and some just love their neighbors. We’re thankful for them all. We’ve also been attuned to how our people have felt the past few months, and the choice to be outdoors rather than inside a building has been appreciated by those who feel more comfortable.

And can we talk about the smell of after-it-rains? That petrichor? Or the distinct pre-storm scent? Weather in Indy can be a little unpredictable in the summers, but our Gathering Guide on our app and website gives people live-updates on any changes as well as all information anyone could possibly want about our gatherings.

TASTE

We. Love. Coffee. It’s just a part of who we are. So when we determined that, in accordance with our governor’s recommendations, having our usual self-serve coffee station may not be the smartest decision, we may have panicked a little. Enter Indie Coffee Roasters, one of our favorite local shops. During lockdown, they began bottling their cold brew for their customers, and this became the perfect solution. Pre-packaged cold brew in the summer heat that supports a local business? Sign us up. Well, we already signed up. We’re doing it.

Also, we have snacks.

TOUCH

HAND SANITIZER HAND SANITIZER HAND SANITIZER. We continue to support small businesses, down to the last detail. 1205 Distillery in Westfield came through with their locally-made hand sanitizer, and our health thanks them.

Now is a good time to remind you of the children. Our North Circle Kids are an integral part of our neighborhoods, and we want them to feel thought of at our Pop-Ups. Our activity bags are the perfect thing to keep anyone entertained, complete with a coloring sheet of our favorite local businesses and some free Chick-Fil-A! Our host homes have also provided sidewalk chalk, basketballs, and their backyard swing sets for all the fun.

HEARING

I made this playlist that I personally refer to as “lo-fi worship,” and honestly it simultaneously gets people hype and makes everything feel like a chill party. We’ve also missed live worship SO MUCH. Maybe it’s because we no longer have to sing along to a video in our living rooms with our families who can’t carry a tune (even though that span of time will definitely be missed), or maybe it’s because there really is something beautiful about gathering with God’s people and experiencing a little taste of Heaven in that way. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

And on a final note, it really is just incredible to hear the voices of our community again. To talk to people and not hear them talk back through a laptop speaker? It’s amazing the things we take for granted. Our Pop-Up Churches have been a safe yet extraordinary space to reconnect with our neighbors, and we are seeing God work in unexplainable ways through our people’s lives.

Source: The Church In Your Neighborhood

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