Crash Sunday Morning Proposal

Here's a direction I propose we head. This is my best shot at taking into consideration everything that was mentioned at the meeting we had on 8/27, and picking a few good things that were brought up, and trying to incorporate those ideas into a format that I think we can execute with excellence.


Please think about it, and let me know if you see any glaringly wrong. Or speak up if you see something that needs to be tweaked.


1. A proposed "format" - Use a program similar to Buya, but get more students to be up front, running the show, and incorporate more student stories. Specifically, this is what I think a typical Sunday could look like. Please understand any of these parts could be substituted for some other element, or rearranged altogether, on any particular Sunday.

• 10:35(whenever 1st service ends)-11:05 - Hangout time
• 11:05 Start our program
• Use student and leader pairs to "emcee" (lead) the programming.
• Do something fun up front, like a game or funny video that draws everyone together
• Announcements about upcoming events would happen here too
• 11:15 - A video about our topic
• 11:20 - A student shares a story, or a student/leader interviews a student, about how the topic has affected them
• 11:30 - Message over a topic (probably most commonly done by an adult/leader)
• 11:50 - Pray, dismiss, and perhaps always have a "take home" piece of scripture, or encouraging note, or follow up activity. Perhaps even the last 2-3 minutes of the message, before the prayer/dismissal, could be a student sharing a practical application of the message or something they're going to try to do this week that has to do with the topic. Kind of an "I Will.." that we don't have to say is an "I Will", but is an example from a real student's life of how to try to live out the truth that was just discussed.
• 11:50-12:10 - Hangout time until service lets out.

2. The "Wow!" Factor - What about a full service, Starbucks style espresso bar operating out of the window in the kitchen??? My wife, who is much cooler than me, has always thought that a full-blown, full drink menu (so espresso drinks, iced coffees, teas, etc) type cafe would ROCK if we could just make it happen. This may be a "Wow!" thing we could pull off, and could be very attractive to high school students. What do you think? Would it be cool to come up into the Attic at 10:40am and get a mocha with your friends before we started our service? Would it be "invite" worthy?

3. Essential Needed Student Roles/Ownership - THIS IS THE CRITICAL PART! Without students who "own" this, meaning, if they don't sign up regularly to help make it happen--it won't happen! You have to want to do this so much that you'll find other students to help you pull it all off. It won't be good enough for you to sign up for your role, we absolutely need students committed to getting other students to sign up for roles as well. Here are some of the roles we'll need you to fill, and for you to convince your friends to fill, too.

• Greeters - At least 2-4 students working to specifically say "hi" to every student and to, MOST IMPORTANTLY, sit with and be friends with new students during the service. Greeters will have to resist the urge to go sit with and only talk to "their" friends. Greeters will have to desire making new relationships and see every single new student as a potential new friend. Remember what we said? Every single student has infinite value no matter what they wear or what their interests. Too many of us feel like "trash" every single week. We can NOT let any student feel like "trash" on a Sunday!!! 
• Baristas - At least 2, maybe 3, that can be trained on an espresso machine, can take orders, and make coffee/drinks. The coffee shop would be open from 10:35-11:05 (when our Crash program starts), and then could open up again from like 11:50-12:10 (when our Crash program ended).
• Story Leaders - A group of 4-6 students who would be willing to:
• A - share their own personal story or be interviewed on any given Sunday about whatever the topic is going to be
• B - are willing to go out and find others that would be willing to share/be interviewed about a topic on any given Sunday
• Special Note - This also could be a PRIME OPPORTUNITY for anyone who likes to make videos/films/digital stuff. For example, I'm betting there's at least one of you that would LOVE the chance to do your own interviews among your peers using your phones/mobile devices.
• Emcees - 3 or 4 students who would be responsible enough to review the Sunday planning ahead of time and who'd be comfortable getting up front and getting on microphone to help an adult leader lead the Crash program.
• Video "Miners" - This role isn't quite as essential as the others listed, but it could be cool to have students who are able to "mine" the internet for videos that could be used for stories. Coming up with relevant videos that students enjoy watching is actually one of the most difficult pieces of planning a Sunday morning program. So if you enjoy finding the new videos and sharing cool stuff you find with your friends, I'd love to have any/all of you just sending me links every week to the stuff you find!

4. A Special Note About Music On Sundays - I am all for music being used on Sundays in a "performance" style mode, kind of like how big church does it. If we had the people/abilities to do music, I'd be all for seeing what would happen with artists/musicians who'd want to get up in front of everyone and share a song, or something they created, that had to do with the topic and what God was teaching them. I would not see us doing regular, corporate "everyone stand and sing" worship music, however. Mainly for two reasons:

• Out of respect for the seeker. Big Church will occasionally do worship songs, but rarely do they do it with the expectation that everyone in the room stand and sing. I personally believe (but could be wrong) that performing a worship song for the seeker (and then having that artist explain why/what makes the worship song powerful) would be completely ok, and even cool. But I don't like the idea of seekers feeling like they're expected to participate in worshiping a God they don't believe in yet. So when I think about music done in a "performance" style, I think "AWESOME!" But when I think about worship music done with the hope that everyone will join along and sing, I cringe a bit, because I think that could create a type of tension that we don't want to create on a Sunday morning.
• I still hope to do Collides on a quarterly basis, and incorporate a lot of worship, response stations, etc. I think corporate worship will have a lot more excellence, and be in a better spot for our ministry if we focus on Collides as worship nights.

5. NEED YOUR RESPONSE - Will you please email me with what you want to help out with, or what any general thoughts or comments you have about what has been said here? My hope would be to get this stuff all going in the next 4-5 weeks. Trevor Moran and I are renting a dumpster Wednesday to throw out all the old stuff. So in the next 2-3 weeks we'll probably schedule a "painting and planning" night to paint the walls, and to solidify the roles we can each own. I'd like to know ahead of time which roles you think you might be interested in, so please help me with that.

THANKS!