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Facebook - 800

Yesterday afternoon, the new facebook became the only facebook.  I am usually someone who loves change, but I find myself not enamored by the new look and feel.  Guess I am getting old.

Well as I was perusing facebook, I realized I had hit 800 friends.  Now that made me smile.  Back in July we did a service on "Choosing Friends Wisely" from Proverbs and as part of the message, I asked people to be my friend on facebook.  I had 291 at that point in time.  So thanks to everyone who has said yes to being my friend.  If you are part of Restore and haven't joined facebook yet, sign up and become a fan of Restore Community Church...Oh yeah, and become my friend too.

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Two Services ROCK!!!

Sunday was an amazing day.  We “officially” launched our second service.  It was a complete success.  We set two new records for Restore.  One for attendance and one for giving.  516 in attendance and $8,615 in offering.  What a God Thing!!!

The Creative Arts teams are totally rocking.  They executed the entire services to near perfection. We now have two video screens and our sound teams have made great adjustments.    Tommy and the band covered U2, "With or Without You" better than I have ever heard.  Tommy and Nate are leading the arts teams with passion and effectiveness. 

Our Kids’ City has grown by 50 in the past two weeks.  We have committed leaders for every age group.  Jessica has done an incredible job of recruiting and developing over 25 new leaders and contributors over the past three months. 

Our Student Community is cranking up the volume.  We have averaged 56 jr high and sr high students over the past two weeks.  Just last week, Josh had 4 high school students approach him to ask if they could be baptized. 

Our Guest Services take it over the top.  Hospitality is creating a great environment where literally everyone sticks around between and after services.  I consistently hear what a friendly place Restore is as a direct result of our usher/greeter teams.  Our setup and teardown teams are unstoppable.  Patrick and Brandon have created a place where people want to serve. 

Small groups are gaining serious momentum.  We have 14 adults groups today with 3 more being launched in the next month.  These are or will be full within the next two months.  We are planning on launching even more either later this fall or just after new year.  Janethas leaders truly leading and discipling and now coaches coaching. 

Over the past 12 years I have been a part of (either directly or indirectly) probably a dozen service launches.  This is the smoothest I have ever experienced and also the highest increase in contributors and attendance.   

I could not be more proud of the entire Restore team.   

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What if? Postcard 2

40,000 people in the Northland of Kansas City received the second of two postcards today in their mail.  Sunday is a big day for Restore when we officially launch our second service.

We are praying that God surprises us again.

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God Surprised Us

Last Sunday was our "preview" for going to two services at Restore.  We had prayed, planned and prepared for this day and for Sept 14th which is our official launch of two services.  Kids' City had leaders in place for two services.  Student Community had leaders in place for two services.  Guest services had leaders and contributors in place for two services.  The Creative Arts team was ready to go early. 

Our planned service was a bit different than usual.  Our theme was "What if".  We focused on stories.  God's story written on the lives of real people.  How since the beginning of time God was about reconciliation and transformation.  Here is a story of one person's life who had been changed by God and his experience at Restore.

As part of each service we had everyone walk over the aquatic center (pool) for a baptism service.  There were 9 people who took their faith public through baptisms.  There was a husband and wife baptized, and a brother and sister baptized, and a father and son baptized.  It was an amazing morning.  At the end of each service in the pool area, Tommy led everyone in singing "Amazing Love".  It was truly moving.   And God sent us 511 people,  88 more people than on launch Sunday.  We were surprised...and smiling.

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Leadership Community Open House

Saturday we had our monthly Leadership Community.  This month we opened this event up to everyone at Restore for an open house.  We had 54 people attend.  Thats about 15 more people than the month before. 

We have an incredible group of leaders at Restore who are consistently expanding their influence and developing others.  I am so proud of them. 

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What if?

Today the first of two "What if" postcards are hitting mailboxes in the Northland of Kansas City.  We are inviting 40,000 of our closest friends to join us at Restore as we reproduce from one service (10am) to two services (9:30am and 11:00am).  We are very excited about what God is doing and can't wait to see Him continue to change lives through real people.  Here is the card we are sending out.

Tommy and Nate and the creative arts team put together this stirring music video about "What If"...enjoy.

What if? from Restore Community Church on Vimeo.

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Repay Again

Beginning last December we kicked off using our Repay Cards.  It was basically a simple way for Restore people to tangibly show kindness to others around them. Now 8 months later it has taken on a life of its own.  Just this past weekend, I was on my way to a wedding reception from a wedding I had performed in Liberty MO (20 minutes from where we meet for Sunday services).  I decided to stop by McDonald's for a Diet Coke and some fries.  I had some Repay cards in my car and felt prompted to pay for the car behind me and left a Repay card for them.  As the cashier grabbed the card, he looked at it and said, "Somebody else used one of these tonight."  Who knew? 

We have also started handing these out monthly with Cokes at a busy intersection.  Just last month we gave out a Coke to someone with a Repay card and later they put the card back into action.  Also the next day, someone who received a card showed up at Restore for the first time.  Here is a video we did to tell the story of the experience. 

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The Vision of a Leader

Today at Restore, we continued with our series through the book of Nehemiah called, The Leader Within.  From Nehemiah 2 we discovered that the vision within a leader comes to life when the heartbreak of a leader shifts its focus to the way things should be.  We shared the story of Zach Hunter, a 15 year old young man who created Loose Change to Loosen Chains focused on eradicating modern day slavery.  His heart broke for children in slavery and he had to so something about it.

The highlight was sharing a video of my dear friend Lane Hunter, who is dying of a rare intestinal disease, who through his passion to share Jesus with everyone he can, touched the life of Jan Boothe who now attends Restore.  Thanks COMMUNITY and TJ Friesen for putting the video together.  Enjoy....

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Reproducing

This week I had the opportunity to speak to the launch team for the Lockport Campus of Parkview Christian Churchin Chicagoland.  This is an amazing church who are doing great things to reach people who are far from God.  They are passionate about reproducing their mission.

Last Sunday at Restore, I announced our plans to reproduce.  Beginning September 14th, Restore will launch its second Sunday morning Celebration service.  From a space perspective, we don’t need 2 services.   So why should we do this and why is this the right time.  Great question.

Our mission at Restore is

1. Helping people find their way back to God.
2. Mobilizing Christ Followers to change the world.
3. Reproducing leaders, artists, and churches.

 

So as our staff prayed and talked together these past couple of months we discovered a few things.

 

1. Some of our most dedicated contributors weren't able to fully experience what it meant to be 3C Christ Followers.  Theses dedicated small group leaders in Kids' City and Student Community have been contributing nearly every week since launch with no chance to celebrate together with the Restore family
2. We also realized that God has brought us dozens of new people who need to find a place to contribute by using their time and talents.  Jon Ferguson, one of my friends and mentors, has always told me that for people to feel "a part of it" they need a relationship and a responsibility.
3. The last thing we realized is that one of our mission statements is to reproduce and one of our values (spirit-led, missional, reproducing) is to reproduce, so we need to be about reproducing.

So beginning September 14th, Restore will have two services one at 9:30am and one at 11am.  Between now and then, we will be recruiting and developing new contributors and leaders to fill the expanded roles.

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A Journey Through Nehemiah

Restore is taking a journey together through the book of Nehemiah.  Over the next 13 days we are reading through this incredible book of the Bible to discover how God has placed a leader within each of us.

Sunday we kicked off the series looking at where Nehemiah found his motivation to lead... 

• on the ground,
• weeping,
• mourning,
• fasting, and
• praying before the God of heaven.

Does my heart break for my city like Nehemiah's did for his?  Sometimes, but not often enough.  We challenged everyone to begin to pray for 3 people in their lives...neighbor, coworker, family member or friend and watch for God to create opportunities to invite and include. 

And we are all planning on fasting at least one day before we launch our second service on September 14th.

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