SE042609
RE: VISION
2. Alignment
REVIEW
This month we’ve unveiled the results of almost 2 years of prayer, research, feedback and polling of our church and community. So this series RE:VISION is exposing all of us to AC3’s 5 year strategic plan, “Getting Warmer” complete with 4 key initiatives.
The 4 key initiatives can be remembered with ONE WORD each:
- Compassion
- Alignment
- Relationship
- Legacy
Last week, we covered COMPASSION. We said, in the next 5 years we will increasingly take the “church” to Allen Creek Allen, before we expect Allen to be taken to church. Our specific goals with this initiative are:
o ONE: to encourage vast amounts of relationship building with our unchurched neighbors through hospitality and acts of compassion.
o TWO: Help facilitate this through establishing a Community Center. The centerpiece would be a Coffeehouse where relationships grow, negative stereotypes are broken down and the mature Christian can serve others in practical ways.
Now this week we’re covering initiative 2, ALIGNMENT:
This is about redesigning our weekend services.
THE MOST SENSITIVE INITIATIVE
Now, I know that this may be of greatest interest to all of you, because ALL of us, from casual attenders to deeply committed members of AC3 feel a great attachment to specific parts of our services. So while you applauded the vision for a community center last week because it was adding something cool, you may fear this initiative could take something cool away.
And of course, unlike other churches that have just one kind of service, we have two kinds of services, so there’s DOUBLE the number of pet elements that are sacred to different people!
In other words, you’re all going to hate me after today!
My hope is that at the end of the day, when we see this played out, you’ll all agree that this is going to make us more effective at reaching and teaching – our marching orders from Christ.
1. OVERALL GOAL: SERVICE REDESIGN
So with that disclaimer, let me just do 4 things with the rest of our time:
- Present to you the big picture of initiative two: ALIGNMENT.
- Then I’ll back up and explain the whys behind it and
- Then I’ll give you details of what this will practically look like.
- Then we’ll take questions from you which you can text up here.
The ALIGNMENT initiative has the following big Goals:
o To Simplify AC3’s programs, by teaching ONE topic, one BIG IDEA in all environments every week, everywhere at AC3, from KK, to service to S.G.
o To Simplify to one Main church service that will present basic Christianity that applies to believers but that will also be easily accessible for seekers who are looking to see how God's truth applies to their lives.
o To create an intentional, informal social time that allows people to mix more and build friendships during the weekend service times.
o To build an intensive worship/training environment designed to go in-depth on the same topic, with a chance for participation in singing, communion, and interactive teaching.
2. THE WHYS BEHIND THE INITIATIVE
Now, let me give you the inside scoop on how we came to this plan. There were 4 key insights that our direction team garnered in the last year that lead to the 4 initiatives:
- INSIGHT ONE: there are no radically irreligious people attending AC3. This is not to say AC3 has never attracted non-Christians to our ministry, we have. But increasingly, that person who truly self identifies as a non-Christian and is skeptical or jaded toward church or Christianity, is not at AC3 services.
To understand how significant this insight is, we have to understand the different stages of spiritual development before and after a person commits to Christ. Inside the non-believer camp are many kinds of people:
- …those farthest away from faith in Christ, are either hostile to faith or jaded about Christianity. They’re SKEPTICAL. Let’s put them at -3 representing where they fall on a spiritual continuum.
- Second, are those who are spiritually sensitive and could be labeled SEEKING, let’s put them at -2.
- Third, there’s those who are almost convinced and open to becoming a Christian. Let’s call OPEN and put them at -1.
Then there’s also different stages of spiritual growth for Christians after they make a profession of faith (BULLET the right side of the cross):
- FIRST, you have a NEW or BEGINNER Christian. Let’s put them at +1.
- SECOND you have a GROWING Christian. Let’s put them at +2 on the spiritual continuum.
- THIRD you have a Christian who is MATURE. This is our goal. Let’s call this person +3. (Our goal is to get people here)
If you’re curious here’s the statistical breakdown of where people at AC3 fall in this continuum of spiritual growth:
- -3 – 0%.
- -2 – 3.5%.
- -1 – 2%.
- +1 – 24.6%
- +2 – 57.9%.
- +3 – 12.3%
So, there are very few skeptical outsiders here. It’s not that you’re not inviting them. You are. 60% of AC3rs invite a friend to church 1 to 3 times a year. It’s not even that there are no outsiders here at all… it’s just that, by the time they get here, they’re already spiritually open…
Which leads to…
- INSIGHT Two, many at AC3 who identify as Christians are probably not. We found that many of us have been acculturated into Christianity or are comfortable with being “spiritual” but have unclear expectations or immature understandings of what real Christianity is all about.
Why do we think that? Because, of many of our +2 responses to what they understood about God and the Christian faith. It showed:
- they do not seem to have embraced their own fallenness, or the centrality of God’s grace,
- Instead they see the Christian life as a set of good morals and God as a helper for their problems. (Leaves out huge things)
This special kind of seeker is a nominal or notional Christian. Meaning, they have a notion of Christianity, but lack true conversion. This happens when people get a little educated about church or Jesus as children or adults and they think of themselves as Christians, when in fact there has never been a full hearted commitment to Christ or understanding of what that means.
This person exhibits many of the traits of a -3, maybe because of negative church experiences, but they are open to faith because they still think of themselves as “spiritual” or even as “Christians”. So we still have a significant population of non-Christians here, but in this notional Christian camp.
- INSIGHT Three, many Christians who attend our church feel spiritually uneducated and have an unrealistic expectation of the church’s role in their spiritual feeding.
Very solid research from our direction team found that around the country, and at AC3, once a person gets to the +2 place, they start to feel increasing dissatisfied with church. Before that church satisfaction is high! Eventually thought, they get disappointed that the church doesn’t feed them. They’re hungry for the next step, but frustrated that service attendance isn’t helping them get unstuck.
The church sometimes feeds the problem by setting an expectation that Church is here to do all the work FOR YOU of growing you up. This whole problem denies a fundamental truth: as a Christian matures, two changes ought to occur in their relationship to spiritual food, just like a baby as it matures.
- One, is the food changes. From milk to solid food. But
- Two is, you change the delivery vehicle. From others feeding me, to me feeding myself. (Heb 5: solid food, mature, trained themselves.)
We’ll discuss insight four in the following weeks… but these three all started to converge into tweaks we needed to make to weekend service structure.
3. WHAT WILL IT LOOK LIKE
So what will this mean practically? Right now, about 4 or 5 times a year, we pour a ton of volunteer and staff blood, sweat and tears into special Connection services targeted at -3’s where we want to say one thing and one thing only to them:
- it’s safe here.
- We’re just trying to get them to come back next week.
- Church doesn’t have to hurt.
- We won’t overwhelm you with content…
Those are all laudable goals, and worth every bit of effort – IF there’s a lot of -3’s in that environment. But as we found out, they’re not here in large numbers – like a hospital without patients. So all this effort will be transferred toward the SAME goals, just not in -3 services… but into our Community Center.
So our main services then, will no longer target -3’s. But who will they target? They will target -2 through +2, the seeker or notional Christian through to the growing Christian.
Still a place to invite outsiders. Bump in challenge,
Practically what will they look like? We’ll still have a main service held at the prime inviting hours, 6 PM Saturday and 10 AM Sunday. We’re calling it ENCOUNTER. It will be a lot like our typical Connection services which will present God's truth in relevant and creative ways.
- Last week one of you came up to me and said, “I thot I was a Christian when I came to AC3, but I wasn’t. But I wouldn’t have stayed to find out what real Christianity was if AC3 hadn’t bee safe, if it wasn’t creative and authentic and relevant. I hope that’s not changing.” It’s not!
- So we’re going to deepen the content, because we’re not worried about overwhelming hard core skeptics, but we’re going to keep it high energy, high creativity, high authenticity with excellence.
o It will include drama, music, dance, video and other arts and I’ll be teaching on topics that apply to the lives of believers but will also be easily accessible for seekers who are looking to see how God's truth applies to their lives.
o Here’s a another change: Encounter will end with an intentional social time where we can interact over coffee or snacks that allow us to build or deepen our relationships with one another.
Then, instead of Community, we’re going to create an environment that takes the same topic for the week, and goes into great depth at a +3 level. We’re calling this environment EXTENDED.
- EXTENDED will begin with a longer, deeper worship time to allow people to respond to what God is doing in their lives.
- It will then move into a more interactive teaching time, designed to be more like a class than a sermon so that questions can be addressed.
o The emphasis in EXTENDED will be on self feeding and application…
So here’s a breakdown:
|
Old
|
Time |
Target |
New |
Time |
Target |
| Community |
9-10 |
(+1 thru +3) |
Encounter |
10 |
(-2 thru +2) |
| Auditorium Emptied, Packed Lobby, No Lobby, No intentional interactions. |
10-10:30 |
|
ENCOUNTER Interaction Time Expanded lobby, Coffee Service, Relationship |
11-11:30 |
All AC3 |
| Connection |
10:30-11:30 |
(-3 thru -1) |
Extended Worship time |
11:30-noon |
(-1 thru +3) |
| |
|
|
Extended Teaching time |
12:00 - 12:30 |
(+2 thru +3) |
Some things you should note about this new format:
- We want ENCOUNTER to be the service everyone starts with. It’s “OUR” service now. All of us together, it’s not just for believers and not just for seekers.
o We’ll start it later to keep it at a prime inviting hour.
- The environments will flow better one into the other, but there will be breaks where people can come and go as they wish.
- The topic will be aligned so it’s easier to learn and to go deep.
- It will be easier on our volunteers
