Saturday was the big day – first service at Imago Christi! A timeline of the day:
7:30 am: Wake up after sleeping in. Feels good. Making mental lists of what I need to remember for the service.
9:45 am: Everyone is fed and dressed. Making a couple final tweaks to the bulletin.
9:55 am: Headed to Noelridge to print the bulletin and pick up the drums.
10:30 am: Setting out 2008 giving envelopes for Noelridge while the bulletins print.
10:50 am: Loading congas, microphones, mic stands, and a small podium into the van.
12:10 pm: Girls are taking a nap, Becky and I are watching Heroes. Almost done with Season One.
12:30 pm: Nate calls and wants to know when we can meet so he can drop off the sound equipment. Any time before 3:30 will work for him.
1:15 pm: Meet Nate at Imago. Set up speakers, amp, adjust the EQ.
1:45 pm: Heading back home.
3:15 pm: Leaving to pick up Andre and head to Imago for worship team practice.
3:30 pm: Made it to Imago, setting up microphones and the keyboard. How will we arrange all this stuff on the stage?
4:00 pm: Finally ready to practice the music. Getting a nasty hum from the passive pickup in Morgan’s guitar.
5:00 pm: We’re as practiced as we’re going to be. Plugging in the iPod. Andrew Peterson will provide background music until the service starts.
5:15 pm: Changing into my ilikeandy.com t-shirt and a jacket.
5:30 pm: Service starting. Must be about 50 people here.
5:35 pm: We’re up. Music starts. People are clapping on the first song. Woohoo!
5:39 pm: This second song is a mess. Timing is off, and I messed up the lyrics to the second verse. Not my A game. Grrrr.
5:50 pm: Music set is done. Still pondering what song to use as the musical meditation at the end of the service.
6:40 pm: Richard has finally wrapped up the sermon. Taking mental notes to give him a review later. I’ve decided on a song.
6:50 pm: First service is over, and we survived. Thank God. Heading down for a fellowship time.
7:15 pm: Tearing down sound equipment. Fortunately we have a closet where we can store it there at the church.
7:45 pm: Everything is torn down and put away. Now to lug those congas back out to the car so we can use ‘em at Noelridge in the morning.
8:10 pm: Home. Exhausted. Putting the girls to bed.
8:30 pm: Watching the last three episodes of Season One of Heroes. Pretty good ending.
A couple of weeks ago a reporter from Newsweek contacted an elder at Noelridge (the parent church of our church plant, and where I’m still attending until the plant starts up THIS WEEK), and wanted to know if she could come interview some of our folks to do an online piece on Iowans in preparation for the caucuses (also this week).
The end result is a three-minute video that most prominently features our pastor, Richard Marsceau. You can also hear me plunking away at the piano and singing through the last minute or so. Pretty cool stuff.
I’m convinced that picking a good Church Management Software (CMS from here on out) will be an important thing for Imago Christi. So for the past couple of days I’ve spent some time Googling various CMS options. There is no shortage of options; the Google search has multiple pages of primary sites that offer some sort of software, and those software packages seem to run the whole gamut. There are the amazingly cheap and out-of-date packages that are still being offered; there are more expensive packages available. One particular frustration is that a bunch of sites won’t even give you pricing information up front; they want your contact info so they can have someone call you. I hate talking to salesmen, and there’s no sense in them pitching a $1000 software package to me, no matter how good it is – we can’t afford it.
Being a geek and very internet-savvy, it boggles my mind how many really really poor websites there are for these programs. Seriously, the sites look like they were created in 1995 by a high-schooler who needed a weekend project. And like they haven’t been updated since then. I have to wonder how many copies of the software they’re selling if they can’t even afford a decent website.
There are a couple options I have found that have web-based solutions that are very attractive: PurposeWare and Church Community Builder. Both appear to be much more robust than the typical CMS, allowing church members to access the tool online to update information, sign up for mailing lists, etc. Of course, both of these places want me to leave my contact info so they can get back to me… but I think with these two it’ll be worth it. At least these two have websites that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have associated with my organization.
I’ll do some more evaluation in the next week and try to come up with a recommendation. Then we just need to justify it in the budget…
Alex Strauch provides some practical guidance for becoming a church that truly cares for people (from the Summer 2007 edition of Emmaus Bible College’s Journey magazine):
- Organize a Benevolence Fund. Caring for the poor and needy cannot be done in a willy-nilly fashion… it’s amazing when we put our money together what we can do!
- Establish a Father Program. Many children in our churches today come without a father… over the years my four daughters would bring children, mainly girls, from school to the table to eat with us. For many of these girls it was the first time they were at a table with the father present.
- Provide language training for new immigrants. A number of our women had professional training and detrees in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), and they said we should do this. We were wondering, “Where are these people going to come from? We haven’t seen any immigrants in the neighborhood.” Nevertheless, we put up a sign reading “English as a Second Language.” Within one day we filled the whole program.
- Provide hospitality to poor and needy members. People love it when they come to your table for a meal. And the Lord Jesus instructs His people to invite certain kinds of people for a meal: “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (Luke 14:13).
- Provide the poor with cars, furniture, and household goods. How often we’re getting rid of a car, selling a car. Don’t sell it – give it to someone!
- Raise awareness of poverty both local and global. Even if your assembly is middle class or upper middle class, there are bound to be people who are suffering financially. But you must have your eyes open to see it.
- Acknowledge the reality of the AIDS epidemic. One of the greatest tragedies in world history is right here before us…
- Leaders must set a vision before the congregation. We need to set a vision before our people that pulls us out of our self-centeredness. Our people need to be stirred to a compassionate care for our congregation, and a compassionate awareness of a world situation that is almost unspeakable.
Yes, the title is overly-long Google linkbait. But one thing I have been astonished with is just how many details there are that need remembered to plan for the first (or for that matter, any) worship service at a church plant. So, without any further ado, here’s my running list. I’ll update it as I remember more things.
Music-related
- Worship leader & musicians
- Sound equipment
- Sound technician
- Recording gear to record sermon
- CD for playing before/after service
- Words for the songs (either song sheets, hymnals, or overhead projection)
- Lapel/wireless microphone for pastor
Giving-related
- Collection plates/buckets/box/whatever
- Ushers
- Counters
- Treasurer
- Budget
- Receipts (donors will want receipts!)
Service-related
- Bulletin
- Communion service
Children’s ministries
- Nursery workers
- Children’s church workers (if you have it)
- Sunday school teachers (ditto)
Etc
- Security
- Clean-up crew
- Set-up crew (if you’re packing in/out)
What items do you have to add?
We’re going to have our first worship team practice for Imago tonight, which means I need to have music selected for our first service. Selecting church music is normally a bit of a challenge, but selecting music to kick off a whole new church? Intimidating. I’ll need to pick a mix of old hymns and some more modern stuff; I’m thinking of some Chris Tomlin and maybe Praise to the Lord, the Almighty. Any ideas? Feel free to leave them in the comments. I’ll post the list when I get it finalized.
One of my big initial tasks for Imago Christi is to figure out the worship team situation. Music is going to be an important part of our church “feel”. I had to select a word carefully there. Music won’t be the most important part of the church, not by a long shot. Nor will it be the most important part of the worship service. But music sets the tone, the “feel”, for the service and the congregation. Our music at Imago needs to draw from both ancient and modern, to be current musically while capturing the richness of two millenia of church tradition, wisdom, and teaching.
With that mental framework in place I start to look for musicians and vocalists. In the end I picture a small band; drums, a guitar or two, keyboard, bass, and a few vocals. But we’ll start smaller than that. It looks like our inaugural service will be keys, (conga) drums, and maybe an acoustic guitar. Three of us on vocals. We’ll see where it goes from there. I’m a lousy recruiter. I hate asking people to do things. I want people who are self-motivated and want to participate on the team. When God brings them, we’ll add them in. Am I being naive about this?
First practice is Thursday night. I can’t wait.