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'?!

Sound Issues

LOTS and LOTS of people have let me know how painful the sound was last week. I hear you (no pun intended) and we are going to get it fixed. We will spend a few hundred dollars this week alone to make some adjustments that are necessary. Here are a few additional thoughts:

1) There is a difference between pressure and volume. Often, people will say it's too 'loud' (and they think it is), but, in fact, the problem is that the sound is unbalanced. The first Sunday, March 14, we ran the sound very loud. It was mixed well, but the volume was higher than we've run it before. That's on me. I told the tech guys to crank it up. Last week, though, we were running fewer decibels than we ran at the High School. The problem wasn't volume, it was that the sound was 'piercing'. It hurt. I get it. I hear you. I felt it, too. We'll fix it.

2) When it comes to sheer volume, though, it's never going to be quiet and serene. It shouldn't hurt the average person's ears. The sound should not painful or piercing. At the same time, you should not be able to sit in your seat and have a casual conversation during the worship. The music we do has to move people, grab them. I have watched many Sundays as we played killer music that should have had people jumping up and down, but because it wasn't loud enough, the sound remained 'on the stage' instead of being in the seats. If you go to NewSpring, Atlee, National Community Church, Mecklenburg, Elevation, Mosaic, NorthPoint, or most any other church like ours, you'll experience a concert-like atmosphere where the music volume is loud, but the pitch and mix is such that it's not painful. That's what we're after.

3) One of the reasons we're having a hard time getting our room right is that we had to cut some serious money from our sound equipment budget in order to get into the building. We'll add that stuff back over time. In the meantime, we're making some adjustments that will hopefully 'cheat' our way back to comfort.

I assure you that this coming Sunday will be a good mix. I will ensure that.

I'm really grateful to the folks who let me and others on our team know about last week's sound and also who have been patient and gracious with us while we work out the kinks.

See you Sunday!

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!

Midweek and 3rd Service?

Many have asked if we will do a midweek service or a 3rd Weekend service at the Powhatan Campus. There is a lot of conversation happening around both of those. My short answer is, 'yes. I feel like both of those will happen at some point.'

But there is a longer answer...

While moving into the building is awesome and launching Westchester is great and launching the Online campus is innovative; and while all of these things give us an exponentially increased opportunity to reach people...the truth is that these endeavors have have also really taxed us. We're tired. We need a break. At some point, I start to wonder, "are we hurting people?"

So we will do whatever God tells us to do, when He tells us to do it. That's our job. We obey without delay. But short of a clear directive from God, we're going to try to let everyone breathe a little before we turn our church upside down again.

In the meantime, we need to fill every seat, every week. Invite everyone you know. Our two physical campuses mean that PCC is convenient for people to attend regardless of where they live. Invite your co-workers, your neighbors, your friends, family, enemies and the people you do business with. No More Empty Seats!

CHANGE IN SERVICE TIMES

For the Powhatan Campus Only, beginning next Sunday, March 28, our early service time will move to 9am. This will give us longer in between services. Our service times are now 9 and 11am. At the Westchester campus, which launches on April 4, the early service starts at 9:30.

Once Westchester launches, we will go to work on the Online Campus, which we hope will launch pretty quickly after Easter.

A Cool Thing about our Church

You might not know this or you may not have thought about it.

Three years ago, we raised almost $50,000 to re-build Calvary Baptist Church in Belize, and teams from PCC have been down there multiple times to help them complete the project.

Saturday, March 13, the day before we had our first service, a band group from Powhatan High School practiced in our new building auditorium. They had a last-minute cancellation on the facility they were going to use and asked if they could use ours.

Before we had our own building, we build another church theirs.

Before we used our own building, we let someone else use ours.

We are not a perfect church. But we do this exceptionally well. We give to those outside ourselves. We put the needs of others above our own. This is what the Bible teaches. It reminds me of the story of the Macedonian churches:

2 Corinthians 8:1-4 (NIV) And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.

I'm so glad that I'm a part of a church which considers others first.

PCC: Tanzania

Jeanette Brannan's blog