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the well monthly

February 3, 2009 at 4:59 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

JANUARY 2009

Mission: Serve our community with the authentic love of Christ one person at a time

 

STORY OF THE MONTH

promo4The Well Previews #2 and #3

We are now officially in launch mode and are under 3 weeks out. We’ve held 3 Previews and have a strong following of 70 people. We had several audio/video issues and plenty of things to iron out before launch, but above all we are knocking it out of the park! A month ago we didn’t even have a full band and now I wouldn’t trade our line up and the quality musicians we have for anyone else. Our greeters smiled like chessy cats, our ushers guros, and our Kids Team is blowing me away! We had people with lack of sleep and trying to hook up new equipment solving problems left and right. Other stepped in last minute and decided to respond not react when challenges arose. These Previews have forced us to approach each one like the big day and it also has given us an opportunity to grow a steady crowd. We are attracting our target of young marrieds with kids, young marrieds, young profs, and I can’t count all of our college students anymore. We are also bringing in established mature couples that are looking for a church to mentor younger people – I love it! People are sticking and almost everyone that came to Preview #2 came back for #3! It was an honor to have our theater manager and her husband with us Sunday!

Here’s some comments from Sunday: “You guys are going to explode” “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for” “I looked at ya’lls website and things I heard today made me realize without a doubt this is where I need to be” “Church Sunday was amazing”

 

WELL UPDATED – SERVING

RCYPO Sponsored Dinner

A few weeks ago we were able to show up with some of our team and cook them a meal and serve them with Christ’s love. One of our team players, Matt who led the dinner, gave us an opportunity to mention The Well and give out brochures. Amy and I have grown to love this group and many of them have become good friends. As a result quite a few will be at our launch!

Community Blasts

Last Sunday during our team gathering we all spent time putting together over 120 bags full of donated goodies. Thank you Julie for making this all happen! Several of our ladies made over 500 cookies and took them to strategic city employees around the community such as: water treatment plan, sewer plant, electrical building, and others as we showered them with love and appreciation to let them know they are far from forgotten. Several told the girls, “Oh yeah we’ve heard about you guys you are the church meeting out at the theater right?”

Wood Manor

This elderly community has been at the forefront of our hearts since the very beginning. We’ve adopted them as grandparents and it will be an honor to see several of our Well grandpa’s at our launch on the 22nd!

Social Non-Profit Speed Dating

Earlier this month as I was attending our monthly Leadership Rogers County class we had the opportunity to meet each and every non-profit leader. Where was this nine months ago?? I was able to share our story with each and everyone of them and several got so excited. I am looking forward to partnering with them and my dream is that one day there would be at least one person from The Well represented in every organization in Rogers County.

 

WELL UPDATED – RELATIONSHIPS

photo-31This past Sunday we discussed the lost parable in Luke 15. Upon leaving we had our butcher paper up on the theater wall with over 20 black markers. I almost lost it when I saw people writing names to add to the list and little did they know they were on that list! What an amazing sight to see! Only God could have orchestrated that moment. Please be in prayer as all of those names are now being invited to the biggest party we can throw and we pray they would see Jesus and the church in a whole new way as we shatter the perception of church.

 

WELL UPDATED – FINANCES

With God’s favor and the blessing of other churches, friends, family, and the Assemblies of God denomination we have officially raised our budget! With 3 weeks to go our prayers have been answered! I’m still in absolute awe! Because of all our purchases and equipment needs our account has dwindled rapidly. We are now entering into week to week offerings and tithes to become a fully operating church. Our budget will consist of operational costs, facility rental, missions giving, and staffing.

If anyone is feeling led to give you can give online or send checks to: The Well / P.O. Box 266 / Claremore OK / 74018

 

WELL ADVISED – ADVISORY TEAM

Although in approach The Well is very non-denominational, we decided early on we didn’t want to have a maverick approach and needed to be affiliated. We are currently held accountable by the Assemblies of God and receive counsel as well. Once a month we meet with an Advisory Team that consists of area Pastors and denominational leaders, that examine our budget, receive our feedback, and make those calls so we don’t have too. As our church grows out of our infancy stage we will seek out reliable men, based upon Paul’s letters to Timothy, that can then be apart of that Advisory Team.

 

p10400031WELL UPDATED – TEAM WELL

Over the past six months our team has picked up trash, served the elderly, served food, met in a garage right? God has brought together a team of misfits (that includes me), underdogs, and we are hitting it out of the park! The average church size is 85 and we are almost above that before we even start. We are far from average though! We’re operating like a church of 500 that has 5 full-time staff. Here’s the catch – we are a bunch of volunteers, dads with full-time jobs, young marrieds with busy schedules, and college students that are craving to serve and find a place. We’ve entered into a place of stretching ourselves to become excellent. It has been a time of testing if we will rise above conflict and allow ourselves to be teachable. Our team is stepping above and being every bit of that and I’m so proud of them. We’ve reach our goal of a launch team of 40!

 

WELL UPDATED – BUZZ

There’s definetly a buzz going on around the community. We are starting to run into people as I’m paying for purchases that know about the church in the theater. Our website has experienced more hits than any other month. More and more are filling out online surveys. We were gracious to have the Visitor’s bureau write up an ad for us in their monthly column, Mom’s Club sent out a highlight, the paper put us in their happenings column, and this past Sunday one of the writers for the Claremore Progress showed up to do a major feature on us in the next week or so! Praise Christ for all of this buzz coming from others. Our team is inviting people word of mouth which is the greatest form of buzz, and my desire is that it wouldn’t be for us but to make the name of Jesus famous in this community!

 

WELL UPDATED – PRAYER REQUESTS

1. Pray that God would give us wisdom as systems are being implemented, specifically in our area of serving within the church

2. Pray for our Feb 22nd launch that we would blast off into the future with amazing momentum and as we lift up the name of Jesus he would draw all men unto him

3. Pray for our finances as we now enter into a week to week giving that will determine our church’s ability to be fully operating 4. Pray for our team in the upcoming weeks as we are all being challenged with time. We are needing to add at least 20 other volunteers over the next month or so to free up others from having to commit weekly.

5. Pray for a relentless passion within all of us and a reliance upon our Senior Pastor – Jesus to lead, guide, and direct us. He’s the one that changes lives not us.

6. Please Pray for an anointing, purest motive, a hunger like never before, and for me to hear God’ voice as I’m right smack in the middle of an extended fast, in which Matthew 6:17 promises “God won’t overlook what you are doing, and will reward you well”. Many of our team has accepted this challenge to begin fasting meals.

 

UPCOMING HAPPENINGS

February 8           Groups 5pm & Team Gathering 6pm

February 14         PNO “Parent Night Out” 630-9 @ Van Pay’s February 15 Groups 5pm & Team Gathering 6pm

February 22        THE WELL PUBLIC LAUNCH @ 10am

February 28        Community Mt. Bike Trail Day @ 8am

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the well monthly

December 30, 2008 at 7:49 pm · Filed under the well monthly

copy-of-wellgreylogo DECEMBER 2008

 Mission: Serve our community with the authentic love of Christ one person at a time

 

 

STORY OF THE MONTH

pc140070

pc130024

The Well Preview #1

December 14 was truly a road marker in the endeavor of The Well.   This has been nothing short of a journey of faith, hope, trust, and complete surrender and desperation to a God that has orchestrated our steps.  We are climbing a mountain and have never known what is on the other side.  It has been a journey of doubt at times and at times frustration.  I’d rather have it no other way.  I don’t want to know what the other side holds.  If I did where would trust in Christ be needed?  I love living this adventure called being a follower of Christ!  

pc1300331Several weeks ago I truly didn’t think we would be ready for our first preview.  We sent out a few emails, facebook messages, and texted some friends and family.  I was expecting 15 people to show up – God boggled our minds as we had that many kids!  I’m humbled and God is stirring a passion in the hearts of real women and real men who are longing and hungry to live this thing out the right way.  We just want Jesus and we’ll do anything but sin, give up our families and marriages, or give up our own salvation to have the passion and love that God has placed in each and everyone of us.

I had unchurched people handing me cash as there offering not knowing otherwise.  The theater manager said, “I’ve never been church ever and don’t believe much in God.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…. if I were to ever go to church I think I would go to The Well!”.  We had six new people join Team Well.  One good friend’s eyes swelled up as he said, “I’ve been waiting all my life to hear a Pastor say the things you did this morning about church”.  I’m not sure what I said but it’s God all him and I’m just going to do my best to simply be a mouthpiece.  

 

WELL UPDATED – SERVING

p1010099p1010100A Well Christmas

On December 7th over 25 close friends came together for the first ever Well Christmas Party.  We ate a lot of pizza, played “Dirty Santa”, had more dessert than we should have, and played a hilarious game called, “What is Yours Like?”.  The highlight of the night was giving away gifts to our adopted family.  Lindsey and Tuda have become good friends to us as they live right next store.  Our boys have played together, Tuda and I have helped each other with tree limbs, and we’ve shared meals.  She is about to have a little girl and without anyone electing to throw her a baby shower – The Well jumped at the opportunity to express an authentic love to her.  Our girls layed hands on her and we lifted this little girl up to God.  

A Well Deserved Offering

On the 21st Jonna shared a story about a girl that cut her hair.  Her husband recently lost his job and they had to take back all of their Christmas gifts for their kids.  Our team decided to pass around the water bottle (which we normally take offering for our start up budget) and came up with $225 to give this family we don’t even know a Merry Christmas.  She was able to go in the following day and overwhelmed the girl with love as she shed tears at the thought of a group of people doing this that didn’t even know her.  This continues to be the closest thing I’ve ever felt to being apart of an Acts 2 community.  

 

pc210016PNO (Parent Night Out)

Several weeks ago several couples got a chance to sneak away for a night, along with a single father as our team offered a PNO (Parent Night Out).  As I drove in my truck this morning I could only shed tears at our team’s pure generosity and pursuing love as we serve one person at a time the authentic love of Jesus.

 

claremore_0001sepia A Christmas Carol

On December 13th a handful of our team showed up at Wood Manor Assisted Living and showered them with love through Christmas caroling.  We’ve already decided to do this again next year and continue to show up several times a month to let these elderly people know they are not forgotten.  Will they ever come to the theater?  Probably not.  Is that why we do it?  Nope.  Why? God’s love with no strings attached.

 

WELL UPDATED – RELATIONSHIPS

 I’m thankful that we have developed relationships with close to 400 people in our community.  Originally our goal was to get over 1000 to 1500 names on the wall.  I think it became clear to us early on that there’s no way we could truly develop authentic relationships with that many people.  We’ve chose to invest in the ones that we have and invite them to The Well on Feb 22.  

 

Christmas Parties

Some of our team is involved in different organizations in the community.  We were represented for the Big Brothers Big Sister’s Christmas Party, as well as Rogers County Young Professionals.

 

WELL UPDATED – FINANCES

  1. We’ve also set up online giving on our website for anyone wanting to give toward our start up costs.  
  2. We’ve currently raised over $67,000.  We still lack $3,000 that we need to raise over the next two months.  Anyone wanting to help can give online or send a check to:  The Well / P.O. Box 266 / Claremore, OK  74018
  3. Thank you to all of you that have given to make this endeavor possible.

 

WELL UPDATED – TEAM WELL

pc210014This past semester some of our team has consistently week in and week out supported the Campus Crusade for Christ group at RSU.  Our goal was to do nothing but love, serve, and encourage these college students.  I’m thrilled to say in return they will be partnering with us to get The Well off the ground.  We have nearly 10 students that have showed up at some point and have expressed their interest to serve with us.  I can’t stand statistics but we can’t ignore reality.  Most churches that don’t have 40 or more on a team to launch a church have a hard time making it.  Stats also say that 2-3 churches don’t make it past their first year.  I know God orchestrates all of our steps and I’m pumped to say we have over 25 people that are committed to be apart of The Well.  We still have a couple of months to go and I’m expecting that number to inch closer to 40.

 

WELL UPDATED – BUZZ

Although we are more about word of mouth to create a buzz, a very cool opportunity presented itself at the Rec Center.  They allowed us to put up a billboard for a very low cost over the next 3 months.  We have already received emails asking about The Well and when our launch date is.  Many college students work out there and it is the largest social hub in Claremore.

 

welcome-outside6x3Well Signage

 I’m quite excited about our signage coming in and will arrive before our next preview.  It looks incredible and I’ve got to give a shout out to Drew Witt, a friend from Texas that has worked hard to make it happen for us!  Follow this link to see the rest of our banners.  One of our core values is excellence and we believe everything we do represents Christ.

 

WELL UPDATED – PRAYER REQUESTS

  1. Please pray against all attacks from the enemy of discouragement and fear for the unknown
  2. Pray that our team would continue to grow spiritually and numerically
  3. Pray for our Preview #2 that our vision would continue to move forward and others would be apart.
  4. Pray for our band.  We are still needing musicians that will become apart.
  5. Pray for continued favor for our finances, wisdom in every decision, and passion for the name of Christ and for the names on “The Wall”

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

January 4                 Recon to Owasso / Team Gathering “Serving Strategy”

January 11               Preview Gathering #2 / Creative Team Mtg

January 15               Sponsored Dinner for RCYPO

January 18              Team Gathering “Groups Strategy”

February 1                Preview Gathering #3

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the well monthly

December 9, 2008 at 9:54 pm · Filed under the well monthly

 

 THE WELL MONTHLY

 November 2008

 

Mission: Serve our community with the authentic love of Christ one person at a time

STORY OF THE MONTH

 

pb080013 Team Well Retreat

 Our team bonded together more so than any other time.  We spent an entire weekend together getting naked.  What?  Yeah you can read about it here.  I’m humbled that God has continued to bring his team together.  He does a far better job creating a team than I can – that’s obvious.  We are inching closer to having 20 committed people on Team Well – praise Christ!


WELL UPDATED – SERVING

Parade Cleaning Crew

We once again knocked out a parade together.  I’m so thrilled that our team isn’t above getting their hands dirty.  People have taken notice of our servant acts of love and it is creating a buzz within our community.  

 

Spaghetti Dinner for Team Claremore

We were given a special opportunity to host a dinner for over 30 runners that had entered the Route 66 Marathon.  We partnered with Rogers County Young Prof Organization and it was a fun night of conversations with those of my same interest.  Each person left with a Well water bottle.  Thank you to all of those on our team that served – you guys rock!

 

Dickens on the Blvd

A highlight for me was knowing that as my family was away on vacation in Texas during Thanksgiving there wasn’t any worries that our team could handle serving without us.  Many huddled together in 38 degree weather as they served food for Claremore’s annual Dickens on the Blvd event.  They passed out brochures and little did they know a few weeks later a family would show up to unload our trailers and looking to be involved on Team Well.  Because they endured some cold weather – we may have our sound man!  

 

WELL UPDATED – GATHERINGS


pb0900711This past month we met regularly in the Van Pay garage.  It has begun to get a little colder and we’ve had to bring in a heater.  It throws off a mean flame but reminds us that we are raw and nothing can stop us from gathering together as Christ followers.  We continue to write names on our wall and pray, worship, and tell stories of life change.  It is what we are about and what we will always be about.

 

WELL UPDATED – RELATIONSHIPS

Almost 350 names are listed on “The Wall” in our garage.  We are challenging each other to invest, invest, invest, and invest in one person at a time through serving them, loving them, and encouraging them.  We pray that one day an invite to a gathering could change their perception of church and cause transformation in their lives.

 

WELL UPDATED – FINANCES

  1. We’ve also set up online giving on our website for anyone wanting to give toward our start up costs.  
  2. We’ve currently raised over $30,000 and with the grant will be at 60,000.  We still lack $10,000 that we need to raise over the next three months.  Anyone wanting to help can give online or send a check to:  The Well / P.O. Box 266 / Claremore, OK  74018
  3. Thank you to Gateway Fellowship Church for giving us an offering of over $2000

 

WELL UPDATED – TEAM WELL

 Like mentioned above we are adding to the team one by one.  We just brought on someone to handle sound for us, as well as a young guy to do video editing for us.  We have someone that is going to handle Children’s Church temporarily until we find someone permanent.   

 

 

WELL UPDATED – BUZZ

A pretty cool suprise occurred a week ago Sunday.  We opened up the paper to discover an ad on a church meeting in a theater in Ohio.  Our Claremore Daily Progress decided to write an article about it and took it a step further – they went ahead and did a promo for The Well and placed our website as a link.  I’m so thankful for God’s incredible favor.  I’m sure glad he’s orchestrated this and doesn’t need much of our help.

 

WELL UPDATED – PRAYER REQUESTS

  1. Please pray against all spiritual warfare for our team and pray we would have the strength and endurance to fight through
  2. Pray that our team would continue to expand and each one would take ownership
  3. Pray for us that all purchases would be made and everything would come together over the next month so we can be ready for our next preview gathering.
  4. Pray for our band.  We are still needing musicians that will become apart.
  5. Pray for continued favor for our finances, wisdom in every decision, and passion for the name of Christ and for the names on “The Wall”

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

December 13          Christmas Caroling at Wood Manor

December 14           The Well Preview #1

December 18-20    Teaching Team Retreat

December 25           Christmas lunch at the prison

January 11               Preview Gathering #2

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Team Well Recap

December 1, 2008 at 4:17 am · Filed under minutes

well_iconTeam Well Gathering    

 

11.30.08

“On this team you won’t make a difference, YOU WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE”

 

 

WELLBEING

Davey opened the night with a powerful song and we followed it in prayer.  

Well needs prayed for: Children’s Pastor, Preview Gathering on the 14th, team would continue to expand, relationships in community

 

WELLTOLD

1.  Brett –  shared about guy he works with inviting him to be apart of The Well

2.  Ricky – shared about an email from a friend desiring to be apart of an authentic community.  
3.  Davey – shared about having foreign exchange student over for Thanksgiving meal
Ricky also shared with the team some incredible wins this week:
  • Had 5 survey responses on website from passing out cards at Dickens on the Blvd
  • Received an unexpected offering from partnering church
  • Received over $2000 from Gateway Fellowship offering in TX
  • Perhaps the biggest suprise was in today’s Claremore Progress paper – they had an article written about churches meeting in theaters – they specifically noted one starting at the Cinema 8 in February – The Well!  They even placed our website in it – free advertising and continued buzz!  Thank Christ for his favor.

 

WELLUPDATED

  1. Ricky shared our group strategy as he met with Brad and Morgan this afternoon to nail down the bolts of what this will look like in creating environments of authentic community.  We will only do two things at the Well and everything will flow out of them: gatherings and groups.

 

WELLTIMED   

We focused much of our attention as a team brainstorming and planning for our upcoming parade.  The team agreed to once again pick up trash and discussed passing out water bottles with our logo w/ survey cards attached.  Brett mentioned making trash pickers from work & the team delegated responsibilities.

  • December 6: Space Usage Day at the Theater from 8am-12pm / We will be unloading the trailers for the first time and going through our set up / tear down strategy.  It is a must for all team well to be there to help out!  The band will decide after this day what all purchases need to be made and plan a guitar center outing that same week.
  • December 7: Team Well Christmas Party @ the Van Pay’s – 5pm / Everyone bring a dirty Santa gift and a food dish.  We will be playing games, eating, and watching a flick.  Anyone is invited.
  • December 13: Christmas caroling @ Wood Manor – email Jonna for details
  • December 14: The Well Preview #1 at 10am

Tasks for the week:

1.  Jonna will be making call tomorrow to Wood Manor to find out specifics about Wood Manor, as well as scheduling time to          

     watch CCB videos

2.  Ricky will be calling prison this week to find out details about Christmas lunch

3.  Morgan will be thinking through the group strategy and knocking out CCB videos

4.  Michelle needs to finalize details and plans for Christmas party and email out info who needs to bring what.

5.  Amy & Davey need to plan a day week of 7th to head to guitar center to make purchases.  Will need to research out prices ahead of time

6.  Brad needs to look over Big Idea book and be prepared for teaching team retreat on 19-20th

7.  Amy needs to plan for Dec 18th PNO and send out evites.  We also need some Team Well to help volunteer.

8.  Matt needs to notify Ricky about the date for RCYPO dinner in January

9.  Amy will need to find out about shower date for our neighbor

10.  Ricky needs to find out about family adopting for Christmas as a team

 

WELLTAUGHT

As a team we read 1 Corinthians 12 and shared our observations.  Ricky read a page from the book: The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond.  We challenged each other to read this chapter everyday this week and apply it as we take a back seat in all of our relationships.  Ricky shared of one of the greatest acts of love in which he received a gift card this past Sunday from a Hurricane Katrina victim.

 

WELLPLAYED

The player of the week was Allen Brezine.  The dude showed up tonight after working a long shift at Arby’s.  Allen thank you for making our gatherings a priority – we love you man!  He will be a huge assett in helping us run the sound board on Sunday’s.  

 

WELLINFORMED 

Next week we will not be meeting in groups due to the Christmas Party.  Invite a friend as an opportunity to meet others involved with the church.

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team well retreat 08 recap

November 12, 2008 at 6:22 am · Filed under team retreat

copy-of-wellgreylogo1

 

 Team Well Retreat

 08 Recap

 

The goal: get the right people seated on the right seat on this bus. You are on the right bus and I believe we have the right people. That means we will experiment, allow people to fail, and try again until everyone has found their fit!

If you need any resources we will try to make it happen so you can fulfill your role with excellence.

Our major roles we still have not filled are the following:

  • Serving coordinator (inside the church outside in the community)
  • Guest Services Director
  • Facilities Coordinator (set up / tear down)
  • Childrens Pastor
  • Early Childhood Director
  • Marketing Coordinator
  • Video / Photographer

* (still need to meet with Muellers, Brogdon’s)

 

Roles, Descriptions

Communications / Graphic Designer – Mark Goodman

Research & Development – Brad Robinson

Groups Director – Morgan Morales

Worship Pastor – Amy Van Pay

Worship Leader – Davy Rumsey

Guest Relations – Prissi Klepczyk

Administrator – Diane Warehime

Lead Pastor – Ricky Van Pay

Sound / Animation – Allen Brezine

Set up / Tear Down / Student Outreach – Brett Brumbaugh

Administration / Finances / ? – Jonna Brumbaugh


Groups “Prayer”

A relationship without communication is no relationship at all.  If we have no prayer life (communication) with God then we have no relationship with God.

What is Prayer?

  • It is simply communication with God.

 

“God has no favorites, but He does have intimates.” ~ Alice Smith, Beyond the Veil

P raise

R epent

A sk for others

Y ourself

E xpress thanks

R eflect

Gathering

“Authentic Community”

  • Lets get naked together by being HOT (honest, open, and transparent)
  • A pseudo community fakes it
  • Lets have refrigerator rights
  • NO ONE STANDS ALONE
  • You don’t truly love someone until you’ve made their bed
  • If one of us hurts, we all hurt, one cries we all cry
  • Don’t ever rebuke someone until you’ve wept over them first

4 levels of relationships

  1. Pseudo – surface level and fake
  2. Acquaintance – let a little guard down talk about religion and politics
  3. Friendship – spend more time together and share a little trust
  4. Intimate – open book, share fears, struggles, dreams, sins, failtures

 

Budget / Equipment

Here’s how we feel lead and our team feels confident in this process for hiring staff:

1.  Someone would start out as a volunteer and serve on a ministry team.  Once

they have proven themselves faithful and hard working and capable they

would….

2.  Lead a ministry team of volunteers

3.  Once finances are solid and consistent and this position is taking more time and

the leader has show themselves capable we would move toward

4.  A minimal of $50 a month leading toward $50 a week followed by…

5.  Part-time

6.  Full-time

As of this past Sunday during our retreat everyone agreed that this would be the order salaries would begin:

1.  Children’s Pastor

2.  Graphic Designer / Communications

3.  Worship Pastor

4.  Lead Pastor

5.  Administrator

If more income comes in that surpasses our budget or we find that we didn’t need as much to start-up that money would go toward salaries before launching in February.  Our desire is that in some ways we could be bi-vocational for a season to continue to build relationships with those in the community and not enter into a full-time bubble.  

The Well Strategy – G5

Gatherings (what is the win?)

- life change and that people would want to come back and bring friends

Groups (how can we help build relationships? what is the win?)

- relationships and authentic community

Growths (how can we get people to grow? think steps not programs… what is the win?)

- people are taking that next step in their journey toward Christ

Gifts (how can we get people to serve? what is the win?)

- people are discovering their fit and serving within the church and in the community

Giving (how can we implement tithing? what is the win?)

- people discover the favor and blessing of giving in their lives as they trust in him

Marketing-Branding / Outreach (how can we attract people? What is the win?)

  • hopefully our greatest source is that we would be so in love with Christ that we would want to invite others to have what we have


Personal Growth – Book to Read

My desire is that everyone on our team would be falling more in love with Christ and with each other everyday.  I also pray that we would be challenging ourselves in our personal growth and leadership.  I once heard someone say, “leaders are readers”.  I know I know not all of us get pumped to pick up a book (besides Brad, Rachel, Jonna, Morgan, and myself haha!).  Each of you should have received a book designated to you.  Bottom line: How much you are growing determines how much our team is growing.

Here’s the scoop: If you can have this completely read by end of November.  After that I will have each of you at some point in the next few months share: 1.  How did this book challenge and cause you to think differently?  How did you grow personally?  What insights do you think would be beneficial to share with the rest of the team?


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The Well Monthly

November 2, 2008 at 6:24 pm · Filed under the well monthly

 THE WELL MONTHLY

 October 2008

 

Mission: Serve our community with the authentic love of Christ one person at a time

STORY OF THE MONTH

 

 Free Garage Sale 

 Last Saturday our underground church gave ourselves away and couldn’t have possibly fulfilled our mission any better!  I truly believe that this expression of complete unselfishness by our team planted seeds in more lives than we’ll ever know.  My favorite question all morning was,  ”How much is this?  Free?  Why?  You can read more about it by clicking here.


WELL UPDATED – SERVING

Parade Cleaning Crew

This past month our team followed up two different parades in our community.  We decided that we could better serve, not by a float or passing out candy, but to clean up after everyone.  It was an honor for us to help out our city.  We also handed out over 100 water bottles with survey cards.  You read about it here or here.

Citizen’s Academy

One of the highlights of mine over the past six weeks has been to be apart of the first ever Claremore Citizen’s Academy.  More than anything it has given me a huge inside view of how our city’s run and has given me a gigantic appreciation for our city worker’s!  I’m more than pumped after taking a tour of our county prison to hear bout an opportunity for The Well to partner with them to feed inmates during lunch on Christmas day!  Here is a few other things that the academy has given me a chance to do representing The Well:

  • visited our electric company and change a 30,000 watt electrical cord
  • got to fulfill a boyhood dream of operating a back hoe  
  • visited the water treatment plant & got to engulf the stench of our sewer plant
  • got an overview of city planning & budgeting
  • heard all about our parks and recreation

 

WELL UPDATED – GATHERINGS

This past month we decided to meet on Sunday nights at 6pm.  Every week it seems as though we add one more to the team.  We’ve now got around 15 players that are committed to the vision of The Well.  You can read about a recent gathering here and read past recaps here.  We also implemented groups at 5pm.  We are striving to create a band of brothers and sisters that will love each other more than we love ourselves.  Last week we talked about salvation and this week will be on lordship.  Our ultimate goal is that we would help people take steps from drinking from the fountain (gatherings), drink from a faucet (groups), and then help them find the cup (personal prayer, worship, and bible) where true relationship with Christ occurs.

 

WELL UPDATED – RELATIONSHIPS

Almost 350 names are listed on “The Wall” in our garage.  We are challenging each other to invest, invest, invest, and invest in one person at a time through serving them, loving them, and encouraging them.  We pray that one day an invite to a gathering could change their perception of church and cause transformation in their lives.

 

WELL UPDATED – FINANCES

  1. After months of moving through a process within our district and denomination I’ve been informed recently that our MX9 grant should be on its way within the next few weeks.  This couldn’t come at a better time as we will be headed down to Texas sometime in the next week to fork over the majority of our budget for two trailers and sound equipment.  
  2. We also received our tax exempt status which should have taken 3 months!!  
  3. We’ve also set up online giving on our website for anyone wanting to give toward our start up costs.  
  4. We’ve currently raised over $25,000 and with the grant will be at 55,000.  We still lack $20,000 that we need to raise over the next four months.  Anyone wanting to help can give online or send a check to:  The Well / P.O. Box 266 / Claremore, OK  74018
  5. Thank you to Claremore A/G for taking a special offering for us on October 12.  We also can’t thank all of you that are giving and have pledged monthly.  There’s no way we could be doing all of what we are doing right now without your support!  
  6. We also received a $1000 copy machine donated to us by a local business!

 

WELL UPDATED – TEAM WELL

 The ball is truly moving and momentum is building as we’ve doubled in the amount of players on the team.  We’ve added a communications/graphic designer, as well as looking at a potential Children’s Pastor.  This group of authentic Christ followers is blowing me away with their passion and servant hearts.  Last week we read in Exodus 18 about Moses being confronted by his FNL.  We also hit on a book called, “Me to We”.  I recognized that I was doing way too much and was choking my team from truly having ownership.  Since that time they have truly grabbed a hold and I couldn’t be prouder.  We never want pew sitters but people that will truly BE THE CHUCH!  We recently purchased our online database, Community Church Builder, and are looking forward to implementing this.  

This coming weekend we are planning our leadership retreat.  We will be spending the day on Saturday at the ropes and challenge course at RSU.  I’m excited to see how much this brings our team together. I can’t wait to pray, play, and plan together.  We will be discussing the following at our retreat:

  • Specific roles & job descriptions
  • Feb 22 overview & expectations
  • Calendar & Event Planning
  • Budget & Supply List

 

WELL UPDATED – CINEMA 8 THEATER

 Last night some of our team had a meeting with our location manager.  It continued to thank God for the favor we have as we asked questions and looked for an incredible future partnership.  Everything is lining up as we are looking to do some major space usage plans and go into detail about how we will work out our portable church.

 

WELL UPDATED – BUZZ

We are making connections by word of mouth that can’t get us more excited.  The garage sale got back to our local paper and they might be writing a story on us.  I’m also hearing alot of feedback and we are experiencing many hits on our website.  We’ve had quite a few take part in our online survey and we’ve been able to pass out hundreds of Well first touch pieces, and pass out tons of water bottles as well.  I hope that our buzz isn’t created by a door hanger or billboard, but more by the serving we do in our community.

 

WELL UPDATED – PRAYER REQUESTS

  1. Please pray against all spiritual warfare for our team and pray we would have the strength and endurance to fight through
  2. Pray that our team would continue to expand and each one would take ownership
  3. Pray for our upcoming retreat that are team would become a family
  4. Pray for continued favor for our finances, wisdom in every decision, and passion for the name of Christ and for the names on “The Wall”

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

November 8-9        Team Well Leadership Retreat

November 15           Spaghetti Dinner for Team Claremore

November 21           Dickens on the Blvd

December 7             Team Well Christmas Party

December 14           The Well Preview #1

December 13           Wood Manor Christmas Caroling

 

Comments (2)

a team recap

October 29, 2008 at 3:22 pm · Filed under minutes

 

Team Well Gathering    

10.26.08

“On this team you won’t make a difference, YOU WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE”

 

WELLBEING

Davey and Amy led in two worship songs as we opened up the night in prayer

 

WELLTOLD

1.  Brett –  mentioned his testimony from work with his former classmates & supervisor

2.  Amy – shared about giving up a named brand comforter to a lady that wanted warmth
3.  Ricky – shared about giving away expensive golf jacket & how proud he was of the team for
     giving themselves away and being the church

4.  Jonna – shared about lady getting bags full of clothes for her kids & toys

5.  Mark – shared story of guy in dorm giving him a new keyboard and speakers

 

WELLUPDATED

  1. 1.  Online Community (CCB) - Everyone on the team can now go to our website and go to contact.  Click on the log-in link and enter personal information into our new database.  This will also keep track of our calendar and all financial information.   
  2. Budget - Ricky encouraged everyone to stay committed with their tithes.  He shared the huge blessing God poured out with a business owner giving us a $1000 copy machine & random guy giving him $50 for gas.  This is what occurs has we are faithful in giving away – God will give back.
  3. Team Status - We are currently looking at a couple of possibilities of Kid’s Pastors & several Teaching Pastors.  We added a few more at this gathering and are increasing our team as each passes by.

WELLTIMED   

We focused much of our attention as a team brainstorming and planning for our upcoming parade.  The team agreed to once again pick up trash and discussed passing out water bottles with our logo w/ survey cards attached.  Brett mentioned making trash pickers from work & the team delegated responsibilities.

  • November 1 – Will Rogers Parade (400-600pm) picking up trash
  • November 8-9 – Team Retreat (cost $20 plus food)
  • November 15 – Spaghetti Dinner (6pm)
  • November 21-22 Dickens on the Blvd (6-10pm)

 

WELLTAUGHT

Ricky briefly shared using the text from Exodus 18 in which Moses was overloaded with needs and responsibilities.  Ricky shared that this is not his thing and that it is the team’s.  A team is now in place and we need to start going from “Me” to “We”.  He quoted an older minister mentioning the lack of commitment from this generation and how they quit.  We will not be that way.  He challenged the team to get their fingerprints all over the well and take ownership.

 

WELLPLAYED

The player of the week was Jonna Brumbaugh.  She hadn’t even attended a weekly gathering yet and already served like crazy at the garage sale!   

 

WELLINFORMED 

Ricky encouraged everyone to hang out & challenged everyone with a short exerp of BEING THE CHURCH rather than just doing it.

Comments

team recap

October 20, 2008 at 11:24 pm · Filed under minutes

Team Well Gathering

10.19.08

“On this team you won’t make a difference, YOU WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE”

 

 

WELLTOLD

  1. 1.  Davey -  shared about his experience with the drunkard
  2. 2.  Amy – shared about her new focus on picking up trash ever since the parade 
  3. Ricky – shared about his conversation with a high school senior and telling him about The Well and making the name of Jesus famous in our community.  He also mentioned the opportunity we have to partner with the county prison for a Christmas feeding.

 

 

WELLBEING

We started the evening doing the most important thing – praying for specific needs.  We also listed several needs pertaining to The Well specifically:

  • We prayed for our new group format meeting an hour before the gatherings.  We are believing that this will be a time to form a brother and sisterhood amongst our team.
  • We added more names to the Wall and layed hands
  • We prayed over an upcoming interview with a potential kid’s pastor, as well as teaching pastor
  • We lifted up the garage sale and that we would show our community the love of God by giving away free items to those in need

 

WELLUPDATED

  1. 1.  Online Community (CCB) - Everyone on the team can now go to our website and go to contact.  Click on the log-in link and enter personal information into our new database.  This will also keep track of our calendar and all financial information.   
  2. Budget – Ricky encouraged anyone that wanted to view our budget and expense reports
  3. Team Status – We will be interviewing a potential Kid’s Pastor on Tues pm, as well as someone that may help out with the teaching on Sunday’s.  We also added three more to the team tonight!
  4. Personal Growth – Everyone was invited to grab books on the table for growth

 

WELLTIMED

 We focused most of our attention again this week on our Free Garage Sale.  Amy led the way with sharing all of our to do list and delegated out tasks to make this happen.  We also began discussion about our upcoming parade, Dickens on Blvd opportunity, as well as our team retreat.

  • October 25 – Free Garage Sale in the Springbrook Neighborhood  (7am-12pm)
  • November 1 – Will Rogers Parade (430-600pm) picking up trash
  • November 8-9 – Team Retreat (cost $20 plus food)
  • November 21-22 Dickens on the Blvd (6-10pm)

WELLTAUGHT

Ricky read from Acts 2 and discussed the content from the book “It”.  He shared that it doesn’t matter what size building you meet in, how much money you have in your budget, how big your team is (we’re in a garge for crying out loud!) but it comes down to having “it”.  People know when we don’t.  He shared that we can have a cool website, pass out cool flyers, and even serve the community and it may attract people to a theater.  What we need is a crazy passion and be madly in love with Jesus and let it drench from our pores.  People must see that we are madly in love with our Savior and madly in love with them!  He quoted Albert Pine “what we do for ourselves dies with us, what we do for others in the world remains and is immortal”

WELLPLAYED

The player of the week was Mark Goodman.  Ricky notified everyone that Mark is our new graphic designer and affirmed everything Mark had done over the past week.

 

WELLLISTED

Davey & Amy led us in a couple of worship songs as we gave praise to Christ!

 

WELLINFORMED

Ricky encouraged everyone to think of one or two friends they could invite to come check out the weekly gathering next week.  We dismissed and hung out awhile before watching the Red Sox downfall.

Comments (2)

team recap

October 14, 2008 at 5:45 pm · Filed under minutes

Team Well Gathering

10.12.08

“On this team you won’t make a difference, YOU WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE”

WELLBEING

 

We started the evening doing the most important thing – praying for specific needs.  We also listed several needs pertaining to The Well specifically:

  • We prayed that God would give us endurance & strength of the attacks of the enemy
  • That God would send us someone that is absolutely head over heels passionate about kids
  • We added another 10 names (which have faces, families, more importantly souls) to the wall & prayed God would break us for them &  we picked 2-3 we would invest in this week

WELLTOLD

  1. Brad - talked about how awesome it was serving at the parade and then we discussed how our team could be the cleaning crew for all upcoming parades
  2. Davey – shared about his grandpa & his conversation about church & God
  3. Amy – shared about conversation at Mom’s Club
  4. Ricky – mentioned the elderly lady from Citizen’s Academy that wants to come to The Well on Feb 22, the two RSU students he talked to at Java Dave’s, and the phone call from a friend inviting him to his wedding
  5. Ricky shared how the morning went at Claremore A/G as the church took up pledges & an offering to go toward our endeavor.  So far a little over $1200 was brought in with $145 in monthly pledges.

WELLUPDATED

Website & First Touch Pieces

  1. Website is up and running with a few kinks to work out (www.thewellchurch.tv) – please check it out and take the 5 minute survey!
  2. We were able to pick up our sport bottles, t-shirts, first touch pieces, survey cards to begin putting into the hands of the curious – everyone grabbed handfulls

Budget

  1. We’ve raised over $25,000 of our $75,000 start up goal and have been approved for the MX9 Grant from the A/G denomination.  We should be getting a $30,000 matching grant by mid November!
  2. The team is brainstorming on what cause to give toward for our October missions offering
  3. We received our tax exempt letter this past week!  This should have taken 3 months but took 2 weeks – this is huge, as we will be purchasing some major items in the next few months.

Team Status

  1. Ricky & Amy attended an ORU Career Expo and met and got contact info for over 20 students.  We need to pray that God would speak to some hearts to come help us.  Perhaps there are some that are looking for internships.
  2. The Well has continued to partner with 3 different organizations at RSU – CRU, BCM, and FCA.  All of these ministries are wide open for our involvement and are pumped at the thought of a church reaching out to the college campus.

WELLTAUGHT

We read from 1 Peter 4 and James 1 about enduring all persecution and setbacks.  We discussed how some of us how felt like we are in a funk.  This was perhaps a break through night for our team as we completely opened up and fulfilled a core value – to be authentic and to be completely ourselves.  The team layed hands on each other and showed one another how much we cared and loved each other.  This by far was the greatest team gathering yet as we went to another level with each other.

WELLTIMED

 We focused most of our attention on our second serving opportunity in October.  We will be giving ourselves away to our neighborhood of Springbrook with a FREE GARAGE SALE!  We delegated out task to make this happen.  We also discussed a weekend retreat and staying in Claremore to cut back on cost.

  • October 25 – Free Garage Sale in the Springbrook Neighborhood
  • October 19 – Team Gathering next week followed by trip to theater to discuss space usage
  • November 1 – Special Olympics Event / Will Rogers Parade
  • November 8-9 – Team Retreat

WELLPLAYED

The player of the week was Brad Robinson.  Brad is our research and development leader and is working closely with Ricky to develop the behind the scene systems that help us with structure.  Although we will be organic in our relational approach we still need some organization.  We put him on the “hot seat” for one minute and had a blast getting to know him more!

WELLLISTED

Davey led us in a sweet worship song as we added more names to the wall and ended our time in prayer.

WELLINFORMED

Ricky encouraged everyone to think of one or two friends they could invite to come check out the weekly gathering next week.  We dismissed and hung out eating more, checking our website, laughing, and played some mean ping pong.

Comments

well minutes

October 5, 2008 at 10:32 pm · Filed under minutes

Team Well Gathering

10.05.08

“On this team you won’t make a difference, YOU WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE”

WELLBEING

 

We met earlier to spend more time in prayer for specific needs.  We also listed several needs pertaining to The Well specifically:

  • Next Sunday’s commissioning at Claremore A/G
  • That God would send us someone that is absolutely head over heels passionate about kids
  • For all 431 names listed on the garage wall and that we would serve them one by one

WELLTOLD

  1. Brett – shared about the neighbor he met and has invited to dinner after his wedding
  2. Prissi – shared about lady she recently helped in a court case
  3. Michelle – she bought cookies from a child that is a neighbor they are working a
  4. Ricky – shared about mowing his neighbor’s lawn yesterday
  5. Shawn – shared about a guy he met in Africa

WELLUPDATED

  • Everyone has agreed to give away our last month’s offering to a special cause
  • Ricky talked with an RSU student about graphic design
  • Ricky let everyone know that there’s 11 possible church partners com next year
  • Several from the team will be going down to Dallas at end of month to pick up sound equipment

WELLTAUGHT

We started out creating different parts of the body with play-doh.  We were missing several parts and couldn’t put together a full body.  It illustrated everything Paul spoke of in 1 Cor 12.  We proceeded to discover each of our “Shape’s”.   We followed it up with a short 10 minute break.

WELLTIMED

Ricky reminded everyone about next week’s service at Claremore A/G and that everyone is invited, but that if you need to choose – please make next week’s gathering at 5pm more of the priority.  We focused most of our attention on our October serving opportunities. 

  1. October 10 this Friday 4pm – Homecoming Parade
  2. October 25 – Free Garage Sale in the Springbrook Neighborhood

Based on everyone’s “Shape” we delegated out tasks.

WELLPLAYED

The player of the week was Davey Rumsey.  Ricky affirmed the fact that Davey has been serving alongside him at Wood Manor, as well as been faithful with the worship.  We put him on the “hot seat” for one minute and had a blast getting to know him more!

WELLLISTED

Davey led us in a sweet worship song as we added more names to the wall and ended our time in prayer.

WELLINFORMED

Ricky encouraged everyone to think of one or two friends they could invite to come check out the weekly gathering next week.  We dismissed and went to lunch at Charlie’s Chicken.

The kids learned about how Jesus calms the storm and how he protects us.  Mark chapter 4 provided the text.  Amy had them craft little boats together and had different ones get up on the kids table while the others “rocked the ship to visualize a storm.”  I guess since the adults used play-doh we all had kid’s church today – it’s amazing that we can have fun at church!

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