High Tech Flannel Board

I've been getting a lot of e-mails on how we plan out our services. To be real honest we are still trying to figure it out. FCC has doubled in size since I started working here about eight years ago. It seems like every time we find something that works, we have to change it all over again to accommodate the new growth in our services.

So far this has been the tool that has worked best. I actually stole this from a friend who leads worship for a church in a nearby town. I think he stole it from a church in KY... Its a flannel graph!



We print a title page for each week. It includes who is preaching, the date, the sermon title (which becomes the theme of the week) and the scripture reference for the sermon. PC usually has those done a few months in advance.



We set up the song order and any "special elements" in the service underneath the title page on little tabs with Velcro backing. We also include any regular service pieces that would be in every service such as communion and the message.

We color code everything. This helps us make sure we are considering not only how much we are trying to cram into one hour but also who is in our services. Part of worshiping in a church that has been around for 100+ years means there is a diverse group of ages participating in the AM services each week.
The green tabs represent fast songs, yellow for medium paced songs, red (obviously) for slow songs and the blue for hymns. The orange tabs are parts of the service that happen every week and pink (I was running out of colored paper)are for special elements such as drama, video or special music. Everything is laminated so we can write on the tabs with dry erase markers. we even have some blank (white) tabs to we can write in new things.

There it is...

How do you plan?

Tuesday Question Of the Week

Get ready, I'm going to bust a little theology on you. I had a friend ask me a question this week that provoked some serious thought and study. Hopefully it will do the same for you.

Tuesday Question of the Week #4

Is it ok to pray to Jesus?

Let's hear it...

Mad Prop's Friday (on Saturday) Week #3

I have spent all week camping with about 300 high school students at a youth event called Youth Quake. It is an amazing experience that I would recommend to anyone. Obviously there are some sacrifices you have to make when living the rustic, minimalist lifestyle for a full week and one of those sacrifices is the porcelain throne of satisfaction. Lets just say that I would be happy to never see a porta-potty ever again. So here is my Mad Prop for this Friday...errr Saturday:

Mad Prop's Friday (on Saturday) Week #3

MAD PROP'S TO THE PERSON WHO INVENTED THIS!!!
Well done... Well done.

More on YQ later!

Tuesday Question Of the Week

Tuesday Question of the Week #3

What is it that makes you feel closest to God?

The Chase

Hello from Breckenridge, CO! Andy, Nathan, Jacob and I are up in the Colorado mountains leading worship for 300 on fire High School students for an annual event called Youth Quake.

Jacob is finally back in the U.S. after his long mission trip to Asia. It has been awesome to reconnect with him and have him back in the worship band. This is the last go-round for us as a band. It's a bitter sweet ending since I love doing summer youth camps with these guys, especially Youth Quake. Please pray for the hearts of all the students who gave up so much to be a part of this week, for the sponsors who also sacrificed to help bring the word of God into the hearts of the kids, for Joe and Jarred and th other youth ministers who are leading this week and for us (Andy, Jacob, Nathan and I) as we try to bring the whole host of Youth Quakers to the throne of God. I have limited time so I will have to share some of the amazing stories we have already experienced in a future blog. Peace for now...

Pic's coming soon!

Tim

Mad Prop's Friday Week #2

Friday is Mad Prop's Day! This is the day I give my "Prop's" to someone who has done something outstanding during the week. Feel free to leave your own "prop's", "atta boy's", or whatever it is you happen say to let someone know they are friggin awesome.

Mad Prop's Friday Week #2
This week's "Mad Prop's" goes out my boy Jerry Barham and his sound team. JB as, I affectionately call him, is the lead sound tech for our congregation and has been for as long as I have been here. (eight, plus years) For a while he was the only sound tech and every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening he would show up for services and rehearsals ready go go and help the worship team give their best.
This past week Jerry pulled triple duty. Starting last Wednesday JB ran sound for our normal Wednesday evening rehearsals, helped tear down the Sunday morning set and re-set the FIGHT Night set only to come back and run a the FIGHT Night rehearsal on Thursday. Then he ran dress rehearsal on Saturday afternoon and evening only to move the FIGHT Night set again and re-set for Sunday morning. When our Sunday morning sound checks began I feared the worst. Mic's, instruments and cables had been plugged an unplugged so many times I thought for sure that we would spend all of our sound check and rehearsal time troubleshooting and running down cables. Or worse, we would have technical issues in first service because we would run out of time to fix everything. Thankfully my fears were wrong and JB and his boys had it all under control. We did not have one issue the whole morning. I should know by now to have more faith in those guys...
When services were over we had to tear down the Sunday morning set, re-set the FIGHT Night set, be ready for our last dress rehearsal at 4:00 and the the kick off at 7:00. Add to all that Jerry was the lead sound tech for FIGHT Night, a four night event lasting from Sunday night to Wednesday night. All of this as a volunteer!
So MAD PROPS to Jerry!! Thanks for being a great example of a Living Sacrifice!

Sooo Long!

FIGHT Night is over and we are on to the next event. At the end of each night we would sing this song titled, So Long. I have had the song stuck in the orchestra pit of my brain all day.

The "Farewell Tour" is finally coming to an end. We leave for Youth Quake on Friday. YQ is one of my favorite events of all time. We bust out the tents and camp in the mountains of Colorado for a week with 300 high school students. Each night is like a major worship event and every day we get to do something cool like climb a mountain and whitewater rafting. This year I get to go with a group to the Royal Gorge! I am also going to try and meet up with my long time friend and former vocal coach Chris Beatty. Check out his blog here

This will officially be the last major event I get to play with my youth worship band 3rd String Jesus. (Yes there is a story behind the name... that's another post) Jacob, Andy and Nathan are like brothers to me. I have really enjoyed getting to know them, mentor them, and learn from each one of them. Each of them give up a lot to travel with me to all these camps and youth events to help inspire worship in students from all over the Midwest every summer and for that I will be forever grateful. Please pray for us on our last trip as we head out to CO for one last "hoorah". As we sing at FIGHT Night...

We wont say good-bye but for now we'll say
"So long, we're gonna miss you when you're gone
With His love you can't go wrong
We'll be here to help you along
So long, you can thank your dad and mom
Clap your hands and sing this song
But until next time we'll say 'So Long'! "

Stacy's Back!!

Jarad and I had to lead FIGHT Night worship without Stacy last night... It was less than perfect but we managed to get through without destroying the program. So needless to say it was good to have her back tonight. I am totally diggin' working with Jarad and Stacy. They are totally gifted worship leaders and their love for God comes through not just on stage but in every area of life, the true definition of living sacrifices.

Tuesday's Question of the Week #2

A lot of my favorite blogs are talking about Worship Leader tendencies today so here is my question of the week.

Tuesday's Question Of The Week Vol. 2
What is it that worship leaders do that just drives you crazy?

All comments are fair game... Bring it!

P.S. Look for PC to comment something about his Worship guy not wearing a helmet when he rides his scoot... :)

FIGHT Night Worship Team

Here are some of the amazing kids I get to work with at FIGHT Night. They have put in hours of rehearsals and the event itself has been awesome! Great job... two more nights to go!!!

Two Weeks To Go!

I'm down to may last two weeks of summer worship events. Tonight our family production begins. I along with Stacey and Jared and a team of really cool pre-teen dancers will be leading the worship for over 100 families. It's going to be incredible.

If you have kids under the age of 12 you need to bring them.
Click the pic or here for more info.

Hope to see you all there!!

Mad Props Friday!

Since I am feeling the "themes" this week we are going to call Friday Mad Prop's Day. This will be the day I give my "Prop's" to someone who has done something outstanding during the week. Feel free to leave your own "prop's", "atta boy's", or whatever it is you happen say to let someone know they are friggin awesome.

Mad Prop's Friday #1
This week's "Mad Prop" goes out to my boy Aaron. "Double A" (as I refer to him) is the Children's Minister in our budding congregation. He was hired shortly after I came on board to be the assistant CM and a couple years ago took on the lead role for the Children's Ministry. This year AA has stepped it up a notch and it is all going down this week.

For years our congregation has put a massive amount of effort and resources into a VBS program every summer. I know what you are thinking... "VBS? Is your church stuck in the 1980's Tim?" but this was the VBS of all VBS's. Every year we would see 500- 600 kids along with 200 volunteers come together to educate the children of our community on the value of God in their lives. With full production, music, story rooms (that literally made you feel like you were "there") and hundreds of kids our VBS program set the standard. For a 100 year old church like the one we are a part of, VBS was a jewel in our crown. Surely God was going to give us a bigger mansion because our VBS program was "bigger" and "badder" than any other VBS out there.

Of course AA, in the back of his mind, wondered if we were actually meeting the spiritual needs of our community or simply meeting a cheep babysitting need for the white collar, suburban driving, stay at home mom, ecosystem that is Owasso. So Aaron took a risk. A BIG risk. Aaron decided to kill VBS and create a tool to help parents and kids learn and grow together.

On paper this looks like a great idea. More and more we are finding that parents don't know how to teach their kids about God and the Bible. Part of that is due to our congregation making a concerted effort to reach more non-Christians (good job church) and part of it is due to our failure to educate parents how to teach their kids moral truths and Godly decision making (boooo church). So setting out to solve this dilemma sounds great... unless you work of a hundred year old church that has "always done VBS".

So MAD PROPS to AARON! Come Wednesday night he will either be the guy who took our children's ministry to the next level or the guy who sends you an e-mail to ask if your church has an open Children's Minister position. Either way he is doing what he feels like God is leading him to do and is willing to risk it all to do it.

Tuesday's Question of the Week #1

OK, so I am dubbing Tuesdays as Q & A day. It is a day when I will post a question and you cam comment with your best answer. You can also send questions that you would like to see posted in the future. This should be a fun social experiment so everyone play along and lets see what happens.

Tuesday Question of the Week #1

In leadership, is it better to do the right thing or do what keeps the peace?

Your turn...

Independence Day 2008

Happy Independence day! We hung a flag on our new house today to celebrate.


I hope you all have an incredible day celebrating our freedom both as Americans and as Christians.
Galatians 5:1

What did you do to celebrate the 4th of July?

Peace,
T.

CAMP!

I am back at camp this week, this time with 4th -6th graders. Its a short camp so I will be back in the office on Wednesday. Tonight will be our last worship time before they leave tomorrow morning. Pic's coming soon!!