Blaine

We don’t get a chance to talk about all the details of our next steps as a church on the weekends, so I thought I’d send a quick note to let you know what’s happening with our hopes to start sites in Blaine and Woodbury.

This last weekend was a Business meeting in which the purchase and development of the Blaine project was approved by the church.  There was also agreement by the members to purchase some land in Woodbury.  These opportunities are of course only possible because of your commitment to the “Not Without You” campaign.  So…sites 4 and 5, here we come.

Activity for the Blaine project is already in an accelerated gear.  We have hired a Campus Pastor (which will be announced later) and other staff are starting to be assigned to this location.  The Blaine staff and volunteers are going to begin leading 2 temporary Sunday evening services at the SLP campus at 4:05 and 6:05 beginning on February 28. Those who wish to serve as Blaine volunteers must complete a serving interest form <http://www.eaglebrookchurch.com/pages/page.asp?page_id=61943>  and check the box marked “Blaine.”  The Sunday evening services will be available until the Blaine campus opens (which we anticipate to be sometime in the fall of 2010).  The Sunday evening services will be a full Eagle Brook weekend experience with live worship, Café 5000, Beyond Books, Kid-O-Deo, Club K-Rock, and the current weekend message (recorded earlier that day).

We’re asking those who plan to attend Blaine when it opens, as well as a few hundred people who already attend SLP and plan to continue staying there, to make a Sunday evening service their primary choice for weekend worship. This will make seats available for SLP guests in the regularly scheduled weekend services.  For those of you who have never gotten to SLP, you might want to know that they are experiencing tremendous growth there with over 600-650 people coming reguarly to the 11:00AM service.  The SLP Worship Center seats 540, so they moved to using a small building that’s on their property called the “Corner House” which seats about 100 comfortably as an overflow.  Sometimes the teaching Pastor will reference the Corner House in the beginning of their message.

Pretty exciting to see what’s happening around the church.  Continue to pray for Blaine, Woodbury and other next steps as we seek to reach many for His sake.

See you this weekend, 

PS – This weekend is communion weekend so come prepared to spend some time at the Lord’s Table at the end of our hour together.

Some PCD pix for you

Every once in awhile we have a photographer stroll through our site and capture some images of life at WBL.  Here’s some shots from our Parent-Child Dedication services (primarily from the 9:05 service) taken a couple of weeks ago.  Enjoy!

Opportunities Abound @ WBL

Hey all,

I can’t believe how quickly our 10,000+ volunteer spots filled to pack meals for FMSC.  We’ve added many more spots to help make opportunities for everyone to get in on this.  I just looked at this link http://needs.eaglebrookchurch.com/february/the68project.php and there are still spots open at Lino and SLP.  I won’t mention the fact the WBL had twice as many spots to fill at this point   but we are jammed at our campus.  You guys are amazing!

However, there are numerous other volunteer spots that we could still use help that are not on the web.  For example on Feb 18 at 11:00 AM we need about 12 more people to help set this whole thing up.  Then on Feb 28th at 7:00 PM we need another 15 people to tear it down.  Also, every shift we have teams packing food requires many other volunteers to run the warehouse, greet people and usher people.  For many of our packing shifts we have 7 openings still available.  If you’d like to sign up for one of these, send an email to Dawn Hines at dawn.hines@eaglebrookchurch.com and she’ll get you set up.

Along with FMSC, we are also looking for some people to help us set-up and tear-down grouplink.  We need a team of people to help move all the chairs out of the worship center immediately after the 11:00 service this Sunday and we’ll need another team to help set it all back up on Monday night around 9:00pm.  Sue Lennartson assures me there will be pizza on Sunday and desserts for the volunteers on Monday. 

So…If you (and your small group) are still looking for a serving opportunity, please jump in.  Lots of great things happening this month.  As we all pull together we have the chance to meet each other and make a great difference to the many people taking next steps in their faith.  Way to go!

PS – I’m off this weekend to celebrate my mom’s 70th Bday.  Kenny will hold down the fort.  He really likes hugs so make sure to give him a big one for me when you see him. 

See you next week!

Haiti

Hello all,

What a difficult week of watching the stories unfold from the tragedy of Haiti.  I’m watching this evening’s frustrating updates as I type.  Together, we stand by watching with a great sense of helplessness yet knowing that we desire and need to do something.

I really want to encourage you to make your way to church this weekend.  We have a full agenda, but part of our time will be spent praying for and talking about ways that we as a church can respond.

In the meantime, here’s just a few of our great partners that you should know about.

1. Healing Haiti – www.healinghaiti.org is a great organization that is started by and led by our faithful WB attenders.  You can send support through a link on their site

2. Worldwide Village - http://www.worldwidevillage.org/ is also an organization started by one of our EBC attenders.

3. Feed My Starving Children – www.fmsc.org is an organization that we are partnering with to pack 2 million meals in February.  I found out yesterday that the number one place that FMSC sends meals is to Haiti.  What great news.  Sign up to pack meals at http://needs.eaglebrookchurch.com/february/the68project.php.  A video you can learn more about the food-packing project is right here.  http://vimeo.com/8677815

4. World Vision – http://www.worldvision.org/ - is yet another partner that has been in Haiti for 30 years with 800 staff present.

Go to any of these sites to learn more about how you can help and stay updated on the latest news.

Again, we’ll talk about this more this weekend about what our plan is as a church.

Let’s stay faithful in our prayers for Haiti, for it’s leaders, for relief efforts, and for those in great crisis.

See you this weekend,

Word of the Day

Today’s word of the day = “warm.”  I know, many of you are thinking – cold, chilly, frosty or frigid might be more appropriate, but as I was thinking about it, warm is really a cool word.  Perhaps my brain is frozen to even think twice about any particular word, but just think about it.  Nothing overcomes a frigid day (week or month) then a warm cup of mocha, a fireplace, or, more importantly, warm people.  I think it’s pretty easy to get cranky in cold days like this, which is exactly why we need a warm conspiracy.  People of the WB campus – seek out opportunities to bring warmth to your homes, your workplaces and your schools.  As others gripe about the weather and this crazy state that we live in, bring some warmth.  Be quick to listen, be soft in your response, bring a warm smile to a cold room and commit to being a “warmth contributor” to every room you walk into.  When people ask you what’s wrong with you – just tell them, you follow the One who is the ultimate source of warmth. 

Ok – just a couple other notes for the week.  Baptism is coming up this Sunday and we still have some room for people to “jump in.”  I’ll be there with Kenny and Jason Anderson to lead through this and would love to have you join us, especially if you haven’t taken this step yet.

Lastly – if you’re new to EBC or to saying “Yes” to Christ, there’s a lot going on this month to help get you started at our church or in your relationship with Christ.  Don’t miss out on opportunities like the “Next Step” class for an intro to faith, our “Starting Point” class to learn more about why we do what we do and take the courage to join a small group at our Grouplink event on Jan 31/Feb 1.

Have a warm week everyone…and…we’ll see you at the Bear!

A Christmas Note

I hope you’ve all had a great Christmas and are all enjoying a slow Sunday morning…  It’s been a nice relaxing morning here waking up to the dog puking at the foot of our bed, the much-ignored todo list beckoning for attention and some significant final steps necessary to get ready for Tyler’s 9th Birthday party tomorrow. I wrote you all an email before I slipped out of the office for the Christmas “break.”  I hope you all got it, but if not, here’s a copy.  Also, I added one more picture of our staff below…perhaps a more representative picture of how things roll when our team gets together. Happy Sunday everyone… Hello to all of you WBLers, I just couldn’t let the season go by without sending a quick note to you. This next January, WBL will have been a video venue for four years.  I have been the Campus Pastor for three of those years, and I often reflect on how amazed I am at the time we’ve spent together.  Together, we’ve dedicated babies, gathered at the table of communion, gone into the waters of baptism, mourned the loss of loved ones and celebrated the gift of marriage.  We’ve come together regularly to worship God, learn more about Him, give our energy and our resources to Him as we pray that He will shape us, lead us, guide us and comfort us.  It’s been a great year and God has obviously worked in amazing ways at our location and at our church. In this season of great celebration, I just want you to know how thankful I am for you.  When I pray for you and think of you, I often find myself overwhelmed in the way God is at work. Here is a picture of (most of) our WBL staff.  On behalf of my family and our staff, I’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas! See you soon! Don

Top row – Aaron Steffen (Ground Zero), Kenny Bristol (Worship Leader) Dawn Dixon (Club K-Rock) 2nd row – Trent Anderson (Grace Pastor), Amy Carlson (Gifts Pastor), Michelle Domning (Exec. Asst), Jackie Kuntz (Kid-O-Deo), me and James Grewe (Facilities Mgr) On floor – Sue Lennartson (Groups Pastor) and her newfound elf gnome Missing – Alan Marshall (Campus Prod. Mgr), TJ Therrien (Producer), Solly Sammartino (Tech Dir)

 

PS – if you didn’t get the email you might want to make sure your email is updated with our church

Some Last Minute Christmas Prep

Boy if that title doesn’t sum it all up eh?

As much as I love December, I gotta admit, these last couple days have still proven to be frantic ones preparing for Christmas.  Fortunately, once we hit Christmas morn, our family is able to chill out and catch our breath as we eat our traditional “Green Eggs and Ham.”

Here’s some things to be aware of as we move toward Christmas eve.

1. The weather is sounding like it might be a challenge.  Do your best to fight through it and let’s hope the roads stay safe and open.  The 8:05 service on Wed is still the most open, so slide that way if you’re going to adjust.
2. RSVP’s are still helpful at this time as it shows which services are really jamming up.  At this point, we should still have some room at all of our services, but a couple of them are starting to load up.  Take a look at http://needs.eaglebrookchurch.com/christmaseve/tickets.php. If weather or some other reason keeps you from hitting the service you RSVP’d, still come.  We’ll make it work!
3. Come early.  Allow yourself to linger, buy yourself a mint-mocha (my weakness), and be in your seat for the opening of the service.  Besides the fact that coming early allows you to settle in, there are some fun things at the top of the service that I think you’ll enjoy.

That’s it for today – looking forward to spending my Christmas Eve with you!

Don

In the News

Hey all – This week has brought about some interesting news and responses regarding EBC and the multi-site strategy.  Just so you’re all in the loop, there was a significant article that came out today in USAToday (I believe the cover) discussing the multi-site strategy.  Quite interesting and worth the read.

http://usat.me/?37050948

This last Sunday, the Pioneer Press put out an article that had a lot of good stuff in it, and a few misleading comments.  Bob (and a few others) put together a response to this article to clear up any misunderstanding.

  Here’s the link to the article –  

http://www.twincities.com/ci_13981765?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com

And here’s Bob’s response -

Dear Church Leader: You may have seen the recent article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press/Press Publications that focused on Eagle Brook’s plan to add a multi-site church in both Blaine and Woodbury. We were surprised and even disappointed that some of the information in this article was misleading and based on some faulty assumptions. We are uncomfortable with the attention this article has created because it grates against our desire to lead with humility and be a church that works with other churches. Our desire is to partner with all of you as we all try to accomplish the great commission of reaching people for Christ and growing them in their faith. We are not in some kind of contest to see how big we can get. Therefore we felt it necessary to clarify a few things: Eagle Brook is not poised to become the second-largest church in the nation. We’re embarrassed that this statement would even be made. The writer of the article made assumptions about our future growth that is not accurate or even realistic. We dream of reaching many people for Christ, but have no goal to see how big we can get. Our commitment to God is that we will remain willing and available to do whatever he asks of us. We humbly pray that God will use every church to reach people in the Twin Cities with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we consider you to be a partner in this great mission.    Though we have cleared the hurdle of city approval for our Blaine campus, we have many other hurdles yet to clear before construction can begin. The article gave the impression that the project is a done deal. It’s not. We continue to explore options for funding and design, none of which are finalized. We remain hopeful for a Fall 2010 opening – and the city approval was a major step forward – but we aren’t locked in yet. We had wanted to hold back on announcing anything until everything was finalized, but the paper beat us to the announcement. For that we apologize. Our great hope is for God to use all of our churches to effectively spread the Gospel throughout the Twin Cities and surrounding areas; none of us can do this alone. This article put the emphasis on the wrong things, and frankly it makes us uncomfortable. We apologize if this article created any mistrust between us. In Christ, Bob Merritt Senior Pastor Eagle Brook Church     Eagle Brook Church | Office: 7015 20th Ave., Centerville, MN 55038 (651) 429-9227 | www.eaglebrookchurch.com Let me know if you have any questions or comments. See you this weekend!

The “Multi-Site Church Roadtrip” Blog Tour

Hey WB folks,

I’ve recently been asked by Zondervan Publishing Company to be part of a “Blog Tour.”  Yup, “Blog tour.”  I’m not sure about you, but I’ve never heard of a “Blog Tour” much less been a part of one.  Here’s how it works (if I understand this right).  I read a new book called “Multi-Site Road Trip.”  Submit a question to the authors and they respond (via email).  I post my question and their answer to my blog (I was supposed to have this done earlier today…sorry).  You, the faithful readers of this blog, give comments and add to the discussion.  The authors “tour” around and help answer questions if the dialogue warrants response.  About 15 other blogs are on the tour and you can follow learn more at www.multisiteroadtrip.com.  If you’d like to join in on the tour, it would be great.  Here we go.

First – a review of the book.  

I feel this is a great book for churches and leaders who are considering moving into a multi-site strategy.  The examples throughout the “Road Trip” emphasize unique questions that all churches must wrestle with as they consider really embracing this strategy.

 We’ve been a multi-site church for 4 years now (I’ve been the Campus Pastor for 3).  We have learned a lot of what this book has taught on our own through a lot of good days and a few bad days.  Churches and leaders moving in this direction will definitely increase the “good days” if they are able to learn from the lessons of others (as referenced in this book) rather than their own.

Question for the authors:

Chapter 8 hit most directly to where we are as a church.  We currently run with a centrally-driven model (page 122 – that describes that employees report to “specialists” and Campus Pastors lead by “influence”) and have 3 sites (8000, 2000 & 2000 attenders).  I have a staff of 11 people assigned to my site and “influence”.  We are looking to add 2 sites in the next 2 years and have been strongly considering making a matrix flip where staff would report to me, instead of to a centralized “specialist.” 

A. If we stay centrally driven – it seems like we’d be one of the last large churches sticking to this model.  Is that true? 

B. One of the real benefits to the centrally-driven model is that “specialists” are the supervisors for each position.  In other words, the CP is not an expert for lights, sound, production, etc.  Doesn’t reporting to a “specialist” have some real benefits rather than reporting to a leader who isn’t knowledgeable of the skills necessary to excel in a given position? 

C. One of the other benefits of staying centrally focused is that Campus Pastors can spend more time pastoring rather than managing a staff.  Isn’t this a win for the site, the staff and the attenders?

 Authors Reply:

In our experience a centrally-driven structure works well in a church with one to three sites (in addition to the original site), but generally begins to break down when a fourth or fifth site is added. There are several reasons for this. First, it is very difficult for a central staff to be aware of and stay on top of the challenges and nuances of each individual site beyond two or three locations. Second, ministries can become very siloed when they are controlled from a central location rather than as a team on a campus. Finally Campus Pastors soon feel out of the loop as to what is happening on their own campus because they are not in on the conversations with children’s ministry, student ministry or worship ministry.

 Because of these factors most churches begin their multi-site journey with a centrally-controlled structure and gradually morph to a more campus based model. Both models, however, require extraordinary attention to effective communication. The biggest challenge for all multi-site structures is keeping everyone on the same page, regardless of who is in charge.

Now – your turn to respond…

WBLer’s – If you have input on the above discussion – jump in.

Do you see benefits of staff assigned to our sites reporting to the Campus Pastor or to a specialist?

What benefits have you experienced being a part of a multi-site church?

Thanks for reading, thinking and any input…

For further dialog, see more Q&A at the authors’ blog www.multisiteroadtrip.com or contact them via Twitter: @geoffsurratt, @gregligon or @warrenbird. To order Multi-Site Church Roadtrip, click here http://bit.ly/7pmFZQ, and to order Multi-Site Church Revolution, click here http://bit.ly/5q5AaD.  I have also created a quick “cheat-sheet” of this book and if you’d like to see it, let me know.

Getting it Right…

Hey WB,

December is a great month isn’t it?  We’re not sick of snow yet, there’s feeling of closure on another year, hockey season is ramping up and football season is moving toward playoffs.  More importantly, we are in a season called Advent (comes from a Latin word that means “coming”).  While I appreciate phrases like, ”Jesus is the reason for the season.” phrases like this just don’t help me.  While true, they just don’t get me “there.”

While I was in Chicago over Thanksgiving weekend we had the chance to take in a service at Willow Creek Community Church (the church I attended in High School).  While we were there, they used this phrase, which seemed to help me more.  “What are you doing this year to get it right?”  They hit that question from a couple of angles and it left my wife and I stirring.  We talked about it more in the car and have talked about it numerous times since.  How can we get it “right” this year?

One of the more exciting things we are doing is looking to get much more intentional in our gift-giving.  Instead of just giving plastic things that will lose their luster within 24 hours, give something that has a meaning to it (and give less of it).  I’d tell you more about it, but I’m not sure if our kids will be as excited about our “purpose-driven gifts” as we are. 

Anyway – what are you doing to “get it right” this year?  If you have ideas, email them to me, or hit the comment tab on this page, share them.  We could all use a new look on this season.

Here’s a couple other things that my wife and I have stumbled on that we’ve been discussing.

- Willow Creek is offering a devotional for every day during the Advent season.  I’ve been reading through these and they are good at re-focusing me on a daily basis.  You can sign up to get them sent to your inbox – which is what I like.  http://www.willowcreek.org/justchristmas/calendar.aspx

- You want a real challenge?  Go to this site, www.adventconspiracy.org.  My friend sent it to me last year and it’s really interesting…and challenging.  Learn more at your own risk.

- From the web page I just mentioned, there’s a link to this site about finding creative gifts that cost less and have more meaning.  Give this a perusal as you have time.  http://www.rethinkingchristmas.com/

Okay – before I unplug…if you’re still reading I have 2 more quick things.  This last weekend we had record-breaking attendance at WB.  Over 2500 folks there with just shy of 1000 adults at our 11:05 service.! If you’re an 11:05er, please consider Saturdays.  We’re running out of seats – what a great thing!

One last thing.  Plan to turn in your RSVP’s for Christmas services this weekend.  This will help us make sure everyone’s got a place to park during our great Chtms Eve services.

See you soon!