VCNP Leadership Monthly for September 2009
September, 2009
Greetings!
You may have heard us say, "Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken!" Now is the time for flexible leaders!
Did you take the opportunity to tour our new Auditorium over the past few weekends? It was exciting to get a glimpse of the future!
The latest word from our General Contractor is to shoot for November 15th as a completion date. If that happens, it would be fantastic! (However, lots of things can happen with construction projects, so please pray with us for God's timing.) We will keep you posted as we get new information.
As you know, once we move into the new Auditorium, we will be cutting back to three weekend services (Saturday night service at 5:00 pm and Sunday morning services at 9:30 am and 11:15 am).
Each of the three services will last 75 minutes. This will allow us five minutes longer (than our current services) for worship or ministry time as God leads.
Because of the uncertainty surrounding when we will actually move into the new Auditorium, we have been trying to make as many changes as possible before we move. This will help alleviate as much chaos as possible for everyone. We are trying not to make a multitude of changes in one weekend.
Since we will be going to one Saturday night service when we move in, we have decided to transition this change before we actually move into the new building. This will allow us to pick an exact date and not have to "guess" as to which weekend we can occupy the new building and then try to change all of our service times on one weekend!
So, after much prayer and discussion, we have decided to transition to one Saturday night service on Saturday, October 24th. This service will begin at 5:00 pm (which is the same time it will be in the new building as well).
Currently, we have between 520-620 adults attending our two Saturday night services combined. So, we can easily combine those two services into one service and still have plenty of room for people (we currently average between 625-725 adults at each of our 10:00 am and 11:30 am services).
Making this change ahead of the other service time changes will help us immensely when we actually move into the new building! Hopefully, we will have worked out the kinks in our Saturday night service by then, and we can focus on working out the kinks in our Sunday morning services!
Unfortunately, the people who will suffer a hardship by us going to one Saturday night service are those of you who volunteer on Saturday nights now.
We know that currently many of you serve during one Saturday night service, and attend the other one. Beginning on October 24th, that option will no longer be available. For that, we are truly sorry.
We wish there were an easy solution to that dilemma, but there isn't.
We want to encourage those of you who currently serve on Saturday night to continue serving. We know this will be a hardship on many of you, but please pray and see if Jesus wants you to continue in your service, even without the luxury of being able to attend a second Saturday night service. If you would continue to do that, it would certainly mean a lot to us. And it is such a valuable service.
For others of you who attend on Sundays, please pray about taking a season to serve on Saturdays, especially during this transition time.
If, however, you pray about it and you feel like God is releasing you from serving on Saturday night, then I want to ask you to do two things.
First of all, please let your overseer know about this as soon as possible. That way, he or she can make the appropriate changes that need to be made.
Secondly, I want to ask you to either continue to attend the 5:00 pm Saturday night service, or the 8:30 am Sunday morning service and not one of the two later Sunday morning services at this time.
The reason for that is we simply do not have room for any more people in those two later Sunday services at this time.
Once the new building is open, then please choose whichever service you would like to attend. There will be plenty of room in all three of our services then!
Even though there are going to be hardships, sacrifices, and difficulties surrounding the opening of this new Auditorium, please don't forget why we are doing this.
We are doing this because people matter to God! And God wants us to reach as many people for Jesus as we possibly can.
Once this new building is open, we are praying that we will see thousands of people come to Jesus through our church family! We pray that some of those people will be your neighbors, friends, co-workers, and loved ones!
Thanks again for all you do to help make Vineyard Church of North Phoenix the church that it is! You are truly making a Kingdom difference with your life!
See you soon!
Love,
Brian and Thora
