This past Thursday at 330 in the morning my FNL talked me into heading north of Pratt Kansas for my first pheasant hunting venture. I’ve always longed to become more of a hunter but always had an excuse of finances, or lack of equipment, or just had another interest. I can say I’ve been bit by the bug similar to triathlon 4 years ago. I love the rush and the unpredictability of a bird leaping out of nowhere. Everything in me as a man comes crying out of my heart as I enter into hunter mode. When a man goes to hunt it’s almost like he goes to battle. Why do so many flee to the fields, the mountains, or the ponds? Well it allows us to pursue the adventure inside of everyone of us to roam free and go into pursuit, instead of the mundane activities of life that are so predictable. The ticket to pheasant hunting is all about working together as a team and having a strategy so the birds don’t get away.
Similar to pheasant hunting our core team got together this past Saturday and proposed a strategy for the new year as we planned for 2010. I’m beyond pumped up as we enter year 2 of The Well! To be completely honest I will never forget year 1 and we actually still have 3 months left, but it’s been a roller coaster year and I’m ready to focus more and settle in a bit. We have an incredibly talented and gifted team to lead the charge in almost all areas. I truly feel like we have the right people on the right seats on the bus. Here’s some things we tackled and some goals:
- Strategically quitting our 9am volunteer gathering
- Going all out with our elementary kids and creating WOW factors for parents. If we truly love kids and think they are the most important people then we need to step up our game in a huge way! We have a perception of being a younger church reaching just college students which is far from the truth.
- Briefly mentioned doing a night venue in another location but will only consider if there’s enough people on board to make it worth while and a launch team is in place to steer the vision
- Instead of building sidewalks and making people walk on them we have sat back and watched what paths people have walked and are now creating sidewalks on those within our Groups approach. We will expand our home groups into larger families or communities in which much of the Acts 2 mentality will take place, as well as benevolence and pastoral care. At the same time we will grow smaller by creating small bands of brothers and sisters for the heart of raw discipleship and deeper relationships that involve accountability on steroids
- We are focusing heavily on 4 major community serving events through the year including Servolution Sunday and the free garage sale. We will also host some 2nd Saturday events that will be much like mini- Servolution Sundays and will also offer ongoing serving opportunities for people to serve that best fits their schedule
- We are thinking up creative ways to create more of a buzz in the community for The Well and I’m totally excited for some outside the box ways of getting our church out there more
- I will personally be tag-teaming with one of our other elders to create 3-4 opportunities during the year to encourage more Wellers to get involved with Team Well and become a player on the team instead of just riding the bench as a spectator. We want people to always feel like they can come and go, but for those that want to take ownership of The Well this is our way of getting people apart of the team
- We are going to do more theme Sundays and be far more creative in creating a more attractive environment on Sundays as this is the time when most people will give to a church. We are also expanding our teaching team and I will go from teaching over 45 times this past year to around 35 so I can focus on other areas that I feel gifted at
In a nutshell we will offer 3 different environments for different kinds of people, instead of creating all those environments into one. In other words some people only feel comfortable coming to a Sunday larger gathering and be anonymous so we will continue to create the more attractive environment at the theater. Others long for a more community and relational environment kind of like a large family. So we will provide these different larger groups in homes around the community. Still others want a deeper, more accountable relationship where they can ask more one on one questions and need a kick in the pants spiritually. We will meet in smaller clusters or bands all over the community for men and women to meet in a more organic setting.
Which one should you get more involved in? It all depends on where you are and your personality and your current journey. Just pick at least one so you can be gathering with others and growing spiritually. I am still a firm believer on not neglecting the larger gathering where this is more teaching and worship, but also believe in getting in the face of others and letting others challenge me spiritually.
theater foot washing
guests ready to play
it’s all God’s
beards of brotherhood
missionary to claremore
These past couple days I was able to sneak away and head down to 
The memories of staying up late during a summer when my older brother came home from college circles in my memory. He was a huge “Cheers” fan and planted a seed in me for the show. Being raised PK’s it probably was a little ironic that we would watch a show portrayed in a bar setting. I’ve only really stepped in foot in one my whole life….. to be honest? It was one of the most welcoming environments I’ve ever been and left thinking – wow what The Well could be that loving to a guest? They didn’t pressure me to buy any alcohol and invited me to eat peanuts and play pool.
01 We got to celebrate Camden’s 5th birthday party at Pizza Hutt with friends and family. We set up a tent in the backyard that same night and got to listen to a train every 15 minutes as it passed through town and the neighbor’s dog bark 
05 got to clean the feet of our community with other Weller’s as we picked up trash after the Will Roger’s Day Parade. I fulfilled my goal and picked up over 226 cigarette butts.
