EASTER SUNDAY!

Wow! There are so many exciting things happening at our church. God is really doing some new and great things around and through us!

I have VERY important information to share with you. Please keep reading.

1. EASTER SUNDAY is THIS SUNDAY!

a) If you are flexible in your schedule, we need some folks to shift to the early (9:00am) service. Last week, we almost ran out of seats at 11. That's going to happen again this week. Come at 9 if you can.

b) PCC's WESTCHESTER CAMPUS LAUNCHES THIS SUNDAY!! Last Week's preview service went extremely well, and we got very positive feedback. But next week is the critical moment! We need to make sure there are enough people there to achieve critical mass. So, we’re asking folks – especially folks who live on the eastern side of Powhatan and into Chesterfield – to consider going to Westchester, especially on Easter Sunday. This will help us have some open seats at the Powhatan Campus and it would help the Westchester Campus, too. I'm only asking you to consider it, that's all. If you would prefer to come to the Powhatan Campus, of course you can.

c) At the Powhatan Campus, PLEASE TAKE THE SHUTTLE! Last Sunday, we ran out of parking spaces at the 11am service. EVERY PCC Insider needs to take the Shuttle so our guests can have a parking spot on site.

2. PARKING LOT LONG TERM: Within 2 weeks, we should have our parking lot straightened out and completely finished, dressed with gravel, and with a capacity of significantly more spaces than we have today.

Thanks for being flexible. Isn't it awesome that we have these kinds of 'challenges'?!

Something I learned last week

I learned something that was a complete surprise that happened last weekend. The people who manage Westchester Commons organized a community Easter Egg Hunt. The Westchester Campus team asked the management group if we could put up a table and promote PCC and they agreed. We had a little game for the little kids and gave away bags of popcorn with our logo, pens and brochures. We had lots of very good conversations with many people who seemed genuinely interested in our church.

There were two surprises for me:

1) The number of people. There were probably 300 kids and at least as many adults. I just never would have guessed that many people would have come, especially on such a cold morning. It was a lot of people.

2) The biggest surprise came from Dennis Green’s informal survey. Everyone he talked to (and there were many), he would ask how and when they learned about the event. Most heard about it through the Powhatan Today. People really read the PT! But overwhelmingly, they said they heard about it either the day before or the day of! The event had been advertised for weeks. But most folks seemed to base their plans on a much shorter range schedule than I would have imagined. That’s a total shock to me.

I love learning about how our culture works, how people think, and what would get people to want to come to church!

Introducing the Campus Pastor

Recently, the Steering Team gave their final approval (they also had the proposal and worked through it for several weeks), and I want to make it official today and then give you some idea of what this role looks like.

Dennis Green will be the Campus Pastor at the PCC Westchester Campus!

Chauncey Starkey will be the campus pastor at the PCC Powhatan Campus!

What is a Campus Pastor?

Glad you asked. The role of the campus pastor is as follows:

1) Logistics. At the campus where they serve, the Campus Pastor’s role is to ensure that everyone has everything they need at each weekend service. I personally served in this role for a long time at PCC. The CP makes sure the doors get opened, the trailer arrives, the equipment gets set up, there are greeters in place, children are safe, the room gets put back like we found it, the coffee gets served and the door gets locked on our way out. The CP doesn’t have to DO the logistics, but is responsible for ensuring that everything gets done. Chauncey largely already does this in Powhatan. Dennis will do this at Westchester.

2) Follow Up. The CP will be the one who follows up with first time guests and others who are ready for various levels of contact after the weekend services experience.

3) "Weekend Shift Manager". We'll probably never use this language, but it's the best I have to describe this aspect of the role. What this means is that, once church is underway, the CP is the final authority for everything that happens at that campus. As we plan, schedule and rehearse, authority is a blending of centralization and decentralization. Beth, for instance, has the authority on creative arts for all of PCC. But when the service happens, if the CP needs to pull a drama, he can do it. (there are creative coordinators who also have input, so this is muti-layered.) Publications and money management will also be centralized. Other things, like guest services, will largely be site specific and decentralized. But when we’re ‘on’, the CP is the final authority.

4) Pastoral Care. The CP is the pastor. He’ll certainly need the help of the Care team (and we’re still figuring out how the care team will work in a 2 or 3 campus model), but when someone needs the pastor to go to the hospital, they’ll see the CP. Of course, there will be the same coordination we’ve always done, where Angie might be the pastor who visits a student, Susan a child, etc. But when someone wants the pastor, the CP will be it. And I’ll jump in at those moments when it’s appropriate.

5) The 'face with the place'. Everyone who is new wants to know 2 things: 1) who’s in charge, and 2) who can help me. The CP fills both of those roles, so he has to have some face time welcoming folks to the church. Beth and I will be working with Chauncey and Dennis to help them get better and better at this.

So, 5 things: Logistics, Follow Up, On-site Leadership, Pastoral care, and the face with the place. After that, both of these guys will also be involved with some coordinated planning for services and strategy when it comes to churchwide themes, like coordinating with the care team, leadership development, volunteerism, etc.

FYI: Both Chauncey and Dennis have other roles (Dennis is still the Executive Pastor and Chauncey is still the Administrator). All of our full-time staff and many of our part-time staff wear multiple hats. There is simply to much to do for us to only do one thing.

Tomorrow, I'll blog about my role and what the Senior Pastor does. But today, please join me in welcoming Dennis and Chauncey into their new roles as Campus Pastors at PCC!

Building and Book

Building. Please pray for PCC today. We have a series of final inspections over the next couple of days and a TON of work being finished up. We have to pass these inspections in order for us to move in and have our first service on March 14. Pray for Dennis, Chris, and all of the workers who are going the extra mile to make it happen!

Book. If you want to know more about the ins and outs of a multi-site church, I urge you to read 2 books: The Multi-Site Church Revolution and Multi-Site Church Road Trip. Both can be easily found on Amazon.

Why Multi-Site?

We are about to move to a multi-campus model for doing church. This is a foreign concept for most of us. It was for me, too, until I did a lot of research and reading, questioning and investigating. I know it takes a while to get used to the concept. Let me explain.

It used to be that there was essentially only one kind of church – the kind with a building and a steeple. The kind with its own pastor and its own staff and its own leadership. And when that church was planted, it might have a lot of support from parent churches and denominations, or it might only have a little. But at the end of the day, that church stood all by itself, and plenty of them aren’t standing anymore.

Today, there is a new model emerging for the way we reach people. It doesn’t replace the old model, but rather adds to it. It is experiencing great success not just in making churches larger, but in reaching the goal that Jesus gave to us – reaching people who are far from Him. This model is called ‘Mulit-Site’. A multi-site church is essentially one church operating in multiple locations.

Why would a church do this?

A church should consider expanding it's campuses when:

1) It has a unique DNA (style, personality, mission, structure)

2) That DNA can be duplicated

3) The church is healthy (not divided or fighting)

4) The church is already reaching people in another community who are driving some distance to come to church

5) An analysis of the area under consideration reveals a likely success

This is a philosophy at which the business world has been thriving for decades, and now the church is catching on. Through the multi-site movement, churches:

• capitalize on their success,
• do what has been proven to work,
• take advantage of their recognized name and community goodwill,
• offer the benefits of the large church in smaller church environments,
• and ensure that new plants do not stand alone, because they are truly integrated and are fully a part of whole organism.

I do understand that some are nervous about our becoming a multi-campus church. It's an unknown for us...and it's a change. But in all of the questions that are still left to be answered, this one thing is sure: God called us to reach people. We're not supposed to be comfortable...we're supposed to be available. Like Nehemiah, PCC positioned herself for whatever opportunity God opened, and He opened one.

Is there risk? Yes. I don't know what the future holds, how many will come on the first Sunday or how many will be coming in a year. But I am sure God is in it. The journey has been long and filled with prayer. And people are going to come to know Jesus Christ. That's why we do what we do.

The multi-site model will enable us to do it more effectively than ever before. It defines our new tag line: PCC: One Church. Multiple Locations. Powhatan. Westchester. Online. …and beyond.

I'll answer more questions on this blog...so keep reading it.