Vision Day at The Brook!

So today was Vision Day at The Brook. This is our one and only business meeting of the year and we vote on the budget for the coming year, new management team members, church officers, and this year, a few tweaks to the Bylaws and Constitution. Sounds boring you say? Well it's not, because the key word for today is not BUDGET but VISION! I think we presented our vision for 2009 pretty creatively today. Here's what we did:

Opened with worship:
1. You, You Are God - Gateway
2. Forever - Tomlin
3. For All You've Done - Hillsong

Opening Comments: Richard Buckley, Interim Pastor, explained and introduced the day

Management Team - Our two budget EXPERTS, Ray Bergman and Rex Wooten shared the budget info for the coming year, giving trends, needs, etc. One really encouraging piece of info is, although we've lost so many people the last 2 1/2 years, giving PER PERSON has dramatically increased. I thought that was wonderful.

Ministry Staff Share Their Vision:
 - Alison Fields- Life Group Minister - shared her heart and passion for Life Groups and the difference they can make in our spiritual growth. She shared pictures of our current groups and we set the video to "This is Home" by Switchfoot.
 - Mary Agalsoff - Children's Minister - very creatively shared about our childrens ministry. She brought in the puppets from Faith Factory, used some music that the children use every week, and also scrolled a list of all the children who have come to know Christ in the past four years. It was alot of fun.
 - Josh Britt - Student Minister - shared his vision for the coming year of Student Ministry at The Brook via video. He talked about raising up leaders, preparing for our mission trip to Guatemala, and finishing our student ministry room.
 - Jan Owen (me!) - Minister of Worship Arts - I was the boring one today :) I just shared my heart. No bells and whistles. I talked about what I felt like God was calling us to do in 2009 - taking worship outside the walls, equipping and building and growing our team, having quarterly nights of worship, establishing a prayer team for Sunday mornings, etc. But I mainly painted a picture of what it would be like if we really were awake to God. More than anything else, I'd love to see us enter 2009 as a church of passionate worshipers that encounters God and then lives out that encounter all week.....simple yet powerful.

Time of Prayer - Richard led us in a time of heartfelt prayer, urging us to get on our knees or on our faces and come before God for The Brook. It was a beautiful thing to see people kneeling in supplication for our church.

Worship
1. Salt and Light - Jamie Smith
2. Cover the Earth - Israel Houghton

Offering/Announcements - Johnny Sharp and Gregory Jones (clearly the most talented people in our church!) did a hysterical impromptu skit about our upcoming series on Advent Conspiracy and our offering to build wells for clean water in Sierra Leone.

I felt like the crowd was a little sedate today, but it revved up a bit by the end of the second service. I was reminded again today of God's call to us to remain faithful. Sometimes it's not the most glamorous thing, but it's the most needful thing - to remain faithful and to obey what God would have us to do today, despite circumstances. I know God is calling us to great things in 2009 so we need to get ready!

This post is a part of Sunday Setlists at FredMcKinnon.com.

How was your Sunday?

Comments

[Fred]

hey Jan,
checkout our version of "You, You Are God" at:
http://www.indieheaven.com/artist_main.php?id=72397

[Johnny]

Good service today. It was straightforward and real but not too serious. Vision Day is not a time to doom and gloom. Great job by all.

Actually, Gregory and I are just not "right" in the head. In a way, I wish I hadn't been in that sketch. I'd like to have seen what he was doing! He winged the whole thing. Gregory just takes off and doesn't come back down. Even Richard was tossing lots of stuff in that we hadn't rehearsed.

I love writing (when I get around to it) but I've never been one of our strongest improvisers. It goes against my natural controller impulse. I'm really not a fan of improvising physical humor in the background because it's potentially distracting and I have had actors take it too far. The audience always loves it (which encourages them to crank it up even more in the next service!) but the message can be overshadowed. It's a tough balance to find.

I have avoided redneck humor for 10 years for a reason. Usually the accents and phrases ("like a duck on a junebug", etc.) are all that's carrying it and the end product all sounds alike to me. (In real life, we use phrases like that a few times a day, not 30 times in a three minute conversation). I tried to write around that, let him talk like someone you could conceivably meet, and allow the content be funny on its own.

Doing it at the end really opened up the possibility of dismissing on a funny or uplifting skit once in a while. I really liked how it worked today.

[Jim Drake]

We did YOU YOU ARE GOD today too--I see a trend.

Looking forward to meeting you in February @ Create!

[Alison]

I hate that I missed it! As I was getting ready, I started blanking out and the room was spinning from exhaustion. I went 26 hours without sleep which was the longest I've ever gone without sleep - apparently I can't do it!

Needless to say, Garet made me eat and take a nap :).

I can't wait to see and hear the highlights and get back in the office this week. Although, everyone kept telling me I was planting a church in Hawaii now....???

[jan owen]

@Johnny - whatever your reservations, in Phil's words, "it was brilliant". I think people will remember it.

@Alison - you are NOT planting a church in Hawaii without me! Richard did make some comment about we were going multi-site and you were doing research.

@Jim - I'm looking forward to that too - meeting all my "virtual" friends in reality!

@Fred - I'll have to go check that out!

[steff]

"You, You are God" great song!