BILLBOARD

With our advertising getting into full swing, Jorge and Dotti Leiva are parking our customized van outside Island Cinemas, Mastic every day and it's sure getting some attention. Heard today about a lady who has seen it there and plans to be there on the 13th with her family. It's a great billboard.

This week the local paper is carrying a half-page article about our venture and I'm a bit nervous. Reporters don't always grab what we're saying, so I'm praying for a good write-up.

This time next week all the door hangers should be out and the End Of Summer Fair we're planning for Labor Day will be over.

Busy week ahead!

BLESSED

I sometimes tell the story about a disillusioned pastor who used to mysteriously disappear from the church office at the same time early every afternoon. Suspecting he was up to no good, some staffer followed him one day and discovered him sitting alone on a grassy bank outside of town. Fearing he was waiting for some illicit meeting, they confronted him and asked why he came there every day. Pointing at the train passing on the nearby track, he commented, "To watch the only thing around here that moves without me having to push it."

I led my Weight Watchers meetings this morning, as I do every Saturday, which keeps me at the Selden Center from 6.45am to 1.45pm.

Meanwhile over at Island Cinemas, Mastic, a crowd of very excited, hard-working volunteers off-loaded all the equipment for our new campus, unpacked it, put it together and set everything in its place.

The good news is that everything worked - sound, video, lights. Everything fit well into the storage areas and we're all ready to rock and roll with our run-through over there next Sunday morning.

What a great team of people we had over there working, laughing and sweating together. I am blessed to have such terrific folks around me who have so thoroughly got hold of the vision that they run with it - without me!

MOVING DAY

Everything's set for moving our stuff into Island Cinemas tomorrow morning, though it looks like the weather isn't going to cooperate. We have a ton of new equipment to be unloaded, unpacked, set up, tested and then put into the storage areas we have in the theater.

I can't be there myself as I lead Weight Watchers groups on Saturday mornings, but part of the strength of this new campus is we have some really committed people, so things do go on when I'm not there.

Next Sunday, September 6th will be our first actual service but tomorrow is preparation day.

Oh and I get my garage back!

MANY HANDS

A lot was accomplished today - and I mean a lot - as we had two teams of volunteers working in separate locations. Great day. Great people. They're wired!

Out in Mastic, the workteam got all the new banner stands made for Ronkonkoma - the Mastic stands had already been completed. For us the whole multi-site concept involves branding where each location looks pretty much the same. So the new signage will appear in both places on the 13th.

Back in Coram another excited group of people separated and bundled the remaining 9,000 door hangers and then stapled around 1,000 free coffee invitations to invitation cards for the Mastic launch. They did all that in record time.

The UPS man kindly brought the lawn signs we will put along the roadside outside both theaters. We owe him a huge tip at Christmas.

Everything goes over to the theater on Saturday to be unpacked, assembled and tried out in advance of Sunday September 6th when the service will be in Mastic so we can have a trial run whilealso letting the Ronkonkoma folks check out where the second location will be.

Full, busy, purposeful day. This is good.

THE FOOD CONNECTION

Diners are fascinating places and they're a good place to meet people. The Diner in the small strip of stores alongside Island Cinemas in Mastic is fairly new and it's a bit quiet there at the moment. However several weeks ago I decided since we are going to be in the community, I'd eat there from time to time.

There's actually a novel configuration of stores with a diner and a pizzeria side by side, looking like two different businesses, but with an opening inside so you can walk between the two. It's the same owner, a very nice guy that I have been getting to know.

When it comes down to it, church isn't about lighting, video equipment, microphones or any of the paraphernalia, it's about people. So I'm glad to be getting to know someone who's local.

He's also helping us.

There's one of our big Back To Church Sunday posters in his window already, announcing our launch.

He's going to serve pizza to all our door hanger volunteers at 1.00pm on Sunday September 6th.

He'll give 10% off the check in either the diner or the pizzeria to anyone showing a church newsheet at Sunday lunchtime.

In turn I hope we'll help him, by improving his business and by being such a good example of followers of Jesus that he will come to follow him too.

PEOPLE POWER

Trips to India, Home Depot, Staples, Lowes, Furniture Stores and a load of other places, plus enough online purches to make the UPS man a friend of the family. Add to that the purchases made by members of the launch team and we just about have all the stuff we need for launch day, which is a good thing.

My garage is full of stuff. Jorge and Dotti's home gym is packed. Next weekend it all goes into the storage areas in Island Cinemas and we start to focus on the really important stage of our preparations.

When it comes to church planting, while I have never seen this stated so bluntly, it's a case of Go big or go home! Launch day decides a lot of things. If you have 25 people there, you will struggle to add to that number and may never get remotely near the 100 mark. If you make a significant impact on day one, the road ahead is a lot easier.

So now our attention is turning to getting word out in the community and that starts with the newspaper ads and the posters that will be appearing this week.

In the end of the day, we have all the literature we need and probably more besides, but it will come down to having the people to get everything out. We have a great launch team and for the next few weeks they will be incredibly busy as we put door hangers on every door, pass out invitations outside the theater, host a Labor Day Fair in the movie theater parking lot and pass out hundreds of coupons for free 7-11 coffees.

The stuff is easy. You find it, pay for it and get it.

Now it's all down to people, their commitment, their time, their effort.

And one day not to far down the road, the words of Churchill after the Battle of Britain will be very relevant - "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Go Team!

UPDATE

Haven't been here for a couple of says, so here's a synopsis -

+ Door hangers are all printed and printing of invitation postcards is underway.

+ Editor of South Shore Press is letting us run full page ads for just $200.

+ Bought chairs for Big Screen Cafe today. We wanted the same as Ronkonkoma to maintain a uniformity between the two campuses, but white patio chairs are tough to find this time of year.

+ Had encoraging email two nights ago from a couple offering to underwrite the cost of our new soundboard.

+ Coming down to the wire. There is a heck of a lot to do over the two weekends leading up to our launch Sunday.

+ Tomorrow we're getting the Mastic info added to the back of our customized van.

+ My Mustang is out on the driveway as new equipment has finally taken over its spot in the garage.

ODDS AND SODS

+ Just got the layout for the newspaper ad we'll be using for the opening. Meeting the Editor Tuesday morning and hoping for a great deal.

+ The Back To Church Sunday theme should grab the attention of Long Islanders, the majority of whom do have a church background - mainly Catholic.

+ Had our first taste of video worship today - that phrase doesn't do it justice. We'll be using downloads of worship sets from Lifechurch.tv some Sundays, so ran one in our Ronkonkoma service today and I am very happy with the feedback.

+ Visited Integrity Christian Fellowship and Lamb's Chapel this morning to talk about our venture. Great reception - kingdom-minded pastors.

+ Four weeks from now our first service will be history.

+ Need to get a sound board this week. That's about the last major item - I think.

+ We're going to start parking our customized church van outside the Mastic Theater all day. It will serve as a billboard for us.

+ I could write a book about everything that has fallen into place already, but the best stories are still to come - changed lives.

FAMILY

With so many people doing so much to prepare for our Mastic launch on September 13th, I was thinking today how blessed I am to have a family that is so supportive and committed.

At one time this afternoon, Gill was in our kitchen checking that the new coffee pots for our Big Screen Cafe worked okay before we pass them on to the folks heading up that area of ministry(can't leave it until the big day, she told me!).

At the same time and for a couple of hours, there were calls and emails going back and forth to Plano, Texas as our son Jonathan worked on some more of the graphics for our advertising. I am so glad now that he dropped trivial subjects like Math in high school and focused almost entirely on art!

Then Charlotte was in her office searching the internet for the best deals on some of the outstanding bits and pieces, like table cloths in our new colors, while also casting an eye over options for chairs for the cafe.

Thankfully ours is only one of many families who really have caught the vision.

Praise God for family!

(By the way, the photo is my three grandchildren - the next generation)

IT'S ALL ABOUT TEAM

I hope my theology is correct, because it appears to me that the whole concept of working in sync with others begins way back in Genesis 1 with the revelation of the fact that God is a Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Of course that theme continues right through the Bible into the Gospels and the book of Acts where Jesus and the Apostles ministered with teams around them.

There is an amazing group of people helping in different ways to get our new campus under way and two of them made a huge dent in our preparations today.

Dottie and Liz got the printing of our door hangers under way - 4,000 done and 8,000 to go. They come in sheets of three, but once printed were separated and put into stacks of 350 for every delivery duo we have going out on Sunday September 6th.

With the printer going all day, Dottie began working out delivery routes for each of the afore mentioned duos, ensuring we cover every possible home in Mastic, Mastic Beach and Shirley. Then Liz worked at organizing the staffing of the Street Fair in Ronkonkoma on Sunday 6th with all the volunteers who have come forward to offer their help.

Tonight I'm meeting a couple of guys over at the theater and we'll work out our final arrangements with the owner so that we're ready to be up and running for our dry run on the 6th.

I guess the apostle Paul knew a thing or two when he told the Ephesian believers that the church grows through what every part brings to the table - not a literal translation, but my own!

LIVING IN TENSION

This has been a good day and a busy one for that matter. It went in a different direction than I planned, but tonight I'm very grateful to God.

After a great breakfast organising our tri-church youth challenge to distribute 9,000 door hangers, I was a few minutes early for my next meeting so I wandered into Target to check out the bargains in menswear. From there I went to the seasonal department and saw some chairs on clearance that would look excellent in our cafe in Mastic, but there were only six of them.

So after my next meeting and before the third I checked out the other two Target stores vaguely in our area. Sadly, no joy there. Would have loved that look in the cafe, but it's back to the drawing board!

Check out my regular blog for some more comments I wrote today on planting a new campus -

http://www.churchatthemovies.com/blog/?p=1694

THE GARAGE IS BULGING

Pretty early on in our church's story, we made the decision to finish the basement of our house, creating a suite of offices, rather than rent office space elsewhere at NY rates. That decision has saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past ten years.

It also means that every time some new piece of equipment is ordered, the UPS man brings it to our door - and the poor guy is working overtime right now. Todays offering was eight packages containing the rolling racks we will use for storing some of our equipment in Mastic.

The accumulating mass of essentials for the new campus presents one minor problem - it is threatening to force my Mustang out of the garage.

Like many Americans, we have a two car garage that holds one car and an amazing assortment of junk. The junk side was pretty much full before all this stuff started arriving, so today I had to move a load of miscellanous rubbish around to get the latest arrivals in.

Four weeks to go, but I'm nervous that the other half of my garage may no longer be safe. I understand the necessity for sacrifice, but there are limits.

INNOVATION IS A WONDERFUL THING

Being totally challenged when it comes to practical matters, my admiration for those who can be creative and innovative knows no bounds. So today my hero is Jorge Leiva, who this afternoon completed the prototype of a $13 banner stand that will probably be the staple for all the new signage at our Mastic campus.

As I reported here earlier, I saved a fortune by outsourcing the printing of the banners to India and with Jorge's efforts, we will have the package of banner plus stand for just $20.

That is insane. You can pay up to $75 for a stand alone.

Not sure when we'll go into mass production, but we need a load ourselves and should then probably set up a cottage industry for new churches!

STUFF

It's amazing how much stuff you need to get a new campus underway, but when it comes to finding deals on the internet, Charlotte is something else.

She spent hours at her computer today, buying all kinds of bits and pieces -

Rolling carts
Balloons for the street fairs
High speed multiple CD copier
Table cloths
Banner stands
Coffee pots

I guess when it arrives, it will live with all the other bits and pieces waiting patiently in our house, with a load of other equipment already at another couple's home.

I'm glad that we're getting close to having all we need to get things moving. Last minute shopping is too much pressure nowadays.

THERE'S A LOT TO IT

Okay, so today we tried to make a comprehensive list of all the stuff we still need to get the new campus under way and there's a fair bit, to say the least.

Then we chatted through the areas of ministry that we need to make sure we have covered and that was quite a number too. The danger is going to be we have most of our launch team involved in activities around the place and no bodies to help populate the worship area.

There's still a lot to be done and a long way to go, with the question always hanging over us of whether the finances in hand will be sufficient.

It's all these challenges that make this fun!

BACK IN ACTION

Yesterday I returned from my trip to India, where we had outsourced the printing of all our new signage which will serve both campuses. I know that may not thrill the President, but since we now live in a country that produces precious little, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

How about this? -

We ordered a total of around 38 banners.

The printer picked up the graphics from the church office in Mumbai. No one needed to go to him.

The next day he delivered all the banners. The job was done in 24 hours at a total cost of $267.

I'm into signage in a big way. There's nothing worse than going into a new environment and having no idea of where everything is. So since we want to put our guests at ease, we're brightening up the whole place with colorful banners that tell them most of what they want to know.

Today I also outsourced graphics for newspaper ads, the back of our invitation postcards and also of the door hangers we're using. But that job only went as far as Texas where we always get an even better deal than the print job. It's great to have a son who is as committed to our vision as anyone living it up here.