Cumberland Church Blog

So Eddie, how does someone become a “video church” pastor? (My Story: Part 2)

Part 2:  Doing the unthinkable...shutting down a church

In January of 2003, I was having some coffee and hangin’ out with my buddy and “boss” Kyle Idleman from Southeast Christian…when all of a sudden, he asked me a question that would ultimately prove to change my life forever.  Kyle leaned in and asked, “Eddie, have you ever thought about starting a church?”  My first thought was, “No, why?  Are you trying to fire me?”  :>) What kind of question is that!?  I loved Southeast, why in the world would I ever think about leaving such an incredible place of ministry behind.  But Kyle knew my heart and my gifts well enough to know where I really belonged.  His nudge was exactly what I needed to hear.  After a few weeks of careful thought, prayer and counsel from some other ministry friends, I felt called and ready to step out and plant a church.   Finally... my chance to be the lead teaching pastor of a church!  Or, so I thought.

Video Worship!? That won't work...or will it?

Last month at Cumberland Church, an exciting new innovation was experienced by all those in attendance. The entire Sunday morning worship music set was on video! Yes, that's right...video! The worship experience was previously recorded from a live Sunday morning performance at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA.

For those of you who were unable to attend, I think I know what you're thinking, "No way! That'll never work." Sounds a bit strange, perhaps. But it really works! The feedback we have received so far is that, while no one really is ready for 100% video worship, the experience really worked. In our opinion, it was the most engaged and loud our crowd has ever been during the worship. Go figure!

Our good friend and Campus Director of Buckhead Church, Jeff Henderson, is the mastermind behind this latest innovative idea out of North Point. Last fall, our team was able to visit Buckhead Church's newest environment at Atlantic Station in Atlanta called "Midtown Gathering" where this concept was introduced and is being used. In a recent blog entry, Jeff explained the concept and the effectiveness of using video worship at Atlantic Station. Below is part of Jeff's thoughts:

Why is North Point planting new churches?

 

I've received quite a few emails this past week in regards to North Point's church planting efforts.  Instead of responding to each one individually, I thought I would share here (from time to time) some answers to some of your most popular questions.

So, why is North Point planting new churches?   Here's a great, bottom-line answer from our teammate Scott Tanksley, North Point's Director of Strategic Partnerships:

The Urban Myth of "Connecting with your Teaching Pastor"

One of the most common questions, or "push-backs", I receive as a North Point (NP) Strategic Partnership Lead Pastor is.... "Eddie, I love your church but why don't you teach more?  I'm not really sure I like having a video teaching pastor.  You can't be THAT bad of a preacher, can you!?".  I always love that last part! ;>)

Well, since some form of this question comes up so much in my world (especially in the beginning stages of planting a NP video church in a new town), I thought I would share with you my thinking and response when these questions and objections are raised.  Here's a couple that immediately come to mind:

• In our NP ministry model, we often use video as a means to bring relevant messages to our congregation. As long as the video technique is meaningful and helpful in our mission to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, we will continue to use video messages for preaching and a local ministry staff for ministry. If we determine another technique is more relevant and helpful in accomplishing our mission, we will adopt it.  North Point has been using the combination of video sermons and local ministry staff preaching since the summer of 2001 and so far have found them to be quite effective.
• If you go to any church in any town that is probably above 500 people, you’re probably not going to have a relationship with the Senior Teaching Pastor anymore. Most people think they do, but they really don’t (unless he's already a family friend).  Once the church reaches a certain size and the responsibilities grow for that Teaching Pastor, he naturally has to retreat more into the leadership development of a few key church and staff leaders. The stakes are raised on his teaching so much that he feels the pressure to start spending more time doing that.  And to find the necessary time, he starts handing off most, if not all, his counseling and “visitation” duties to other staff or deacons.  The blessing is the curse for a small but growing church...especially for that talented lead Teaching Pastor. The more the church grows, the less accessible he becomes.  I’m sure you’ve seen this scenario played out before.  That’s why, in my humble opinion, the North Point (NP) model is SO wonderful.  I am allowed the opportunity to be a TRUE pastor.  I can take some time to personally respond to most emails and answer questions from our guests in the length and style I really want to.  I didn’t have to hand you off to a secretary, an elder or another pastor.  I love that. 
  

Fat Elvis or Young Elvis?

In light of the last post about our staff studying Randy Alcorn's book Heaven together...

Here's a big theological question I've been pondering and working through.  What will we look like in heaven when we get our "new resurrected bodies"?  I call it the eternal "Fat Elvis or Young Elvis" question? 

What do you think you will look like in eternity? 

Here are the questions that I'm thinking about right now:

Will I look like I did when I was 16, 30 or 50?  Will I permanently lose that much needed 10 to 15 pounds?    Will I still have a craving in heaven (or on the New Earth) for a Blizzard from Dairy Queen every summer night, or was that a part of my old, sinful nature?  Will I be able to walk past one of my ex-girlfriends from high school or college in heaven without one of them saying, "Wow.  Amazing what a resurrected body will do for you Eddie!".   And here's the biggie for me...when I'm playing in a pick-up basketball game in Heaven's Celestial Park with Moses, Peter, Paul and Mary.... will I be able to dunk the basketball again like I did in college?  Or will I still be going to the hoop with a boring one-handed lay-up like I did here on earth? 

You see, this is what being a video pastor allows me to do... ponder on the BIG questions of life and eternity.  Aren't you glad to know that as your pastor, I'm working through these huge theological issues for you!? ;>)

Have a great weekend everybody!

Lunch and Learn

One of the things I look forward to every week is the opportunity to sit down with my staff in a small group environment and do a "Lunch and Learn".  What is that you ask?  Lunch-and-Learn is an hour long training and team-building environment where we cover predetermined reading material from a book of our team's choosing.  The structure is designed to be more informal than formal, as we will order in lunch and assign a staff member to lead and facilitate the group for that day.  The facilitator helps engage and encourage the conversation each week by bringing his/her own questions and adding some creative elements to help us dialog about the material.  The "win" of Lunch-and-Learn isn't just knowledge.  It's about us a staff team learning how to connect, share and learn together.

At Cumberland Church, our team went thru Andy Stanley's book, "7 Practices of Effective Ministry" this past spring and right now we are working thru a GREAT book by Randy Alcorn called "Heaven".  While usually I would like for us as team, like the Leadership Team at North Point, to focus on leadership books...this study is proving to be an amazing and powerful look at the "WHY" of our ministry. Every great leader and team needs a "big picture" understanding of who they are, what they do and where they are trying to take people. Perspective is so key to anything in life.

As a staff, we are about half way thru the book right now, but here's a couple thoughts (in random order) that we have found and talked about so far:

• Most people are really not looking forward to heaven, especially men. To them it seems boring, irrelevant and complicated.  The reasoning seems to be that many people associate and compare Heaven with their own boring, irrelevant and complicated church experiences.
• Heaven is far more descriptive in the Bible than we were taught growing up in the church.  Hard to be excited about "going to heaven" when no one is showing you what it's REALLY going to be like. 
• Our loved ones in the present heaven can actually see us!  They root for us, they remember us and they even "pray" (talk to God) for us.  Wow!
• Heaven doesn't receive it's title by it's location, it receives it by it's Occupant.  Wherever God is, that's heaven.
• Heaven now (Intermediate Heaven) isn't Heaven Eternal.  Amazingly, Jesus is still building that one. (if you can figure that one out, please let me know!)
• Resurrection is not only the hope of our salvation but also the hope of my body, my ministry, my family, my relationships and ultimately even my world.  Christianity is the only religion or philosophy in the world that offers a total and complete Resurrection.
• In the future, we will live back here on this earth.  Earth will be resurrected to it's original design.  The whole earth will once again be like the Garden of Eden.  We will live back here on it and have meaningful work and relationships.  The Eternal Heaven will be a physical place where God Himself dwells and we will be able to transport back and forth from the New Earth and the Eternal Heaven.
• For the first time as Christians, we finally feel like we can actually SEE and describe heaven.  What a POWERFUL tool to have as a follower of Christ for the day-to-day battles of life and ministry.
  
• Heaven has re-energized our batteries to seek out the opportunities we all have every day to invest in people far off from God.  To start the conversation about the truth and hope of where life starts, why it breaks down and ultimately, where life ends.  It's a great book, you should check it out! 

Do you have a team of people your doing life and learning with right now?   If not, you're missing out on a GREAT opportunity to grow closer to your team and learn from some amazing leaders you probably already have around you.  Give it a shot, you may be surprised what you may learn!

This week's lineup @ Cumberland Church

Leading worship this weekend at Cumberland Church...  Chrystina Lloree Fincher from North Point Community Church!  Chrystina is one of North Point's best and most loved worship leaders.  We're pumped that she and her husband Jayce will be joining us this Sunday at Cumberland to lead our worship.  Chrystina has just released a new worship album entitled, "Brighter", and you can learn more about her by visiting her here.

Also, Andy Stanley concludes our 2-part series, "Dealing with Doubt".   Since we all experience doubt at some point in our lives, we need to learn how God wants us to deal with that doubt.  This weekend Andy will challenge us to focus on God's past faithfulness and His present activity to get us through times of doubt.

For more info, service times or for directions, check us out on-line at our church website.  See ya Sunday!

 
   

Top 10 ways a North Point video church is a lot like Chick-fil-a

1. Just like Chick-fil-a, my church is a “franchise” and I proudly serve as the local owner/operator.  Whether it sounds spiritual or not, North Point Community Church and their model of ministry is a brand.  And that brand is now quickly becoming a franchise.  The leadership of North Point made a strategic decision a few years back to “transport” their way of doing church by planting local Strategic Partnership churches all across the nation and eventually, the world.  In fact, Andy just spoke this past weekend at North Point and announced a B.H.A.G. goal of 60 strategic partnership churches by 2010!  Wow!!   I’ve been given the privilege and responsibility twice now to open up a local franchise for North Point as the Lead Pastor of this church and this church.  My job was and is to establish a local, autonomous church that has the same beliefs, values, mission and strategy as North Point.  To prepare me for the challenge, I completed an intensive 3-month internship at North Point one summer before launching Watermarke.  I still receive ongoing training and support from NP thru specialized events like:  our semi-annual training event for all strategic partners called n-rich, the yearly Drive Conference for church leaders, an annual Strategic Partners Lead Pastors retreat and the Grow Up Conference for family ministry church leaders.  All that to say, I’m not trying to figure out how to “do church”.  Just like that Chick-fil-a owner/operator, I’m here in Nashville to open up OUR franchise and run it right.  I believe in my company and what they are trying to "sell".  I rarely, if ever, deviate from the training manual.

2. This isn’t Ryan's, Golden Corral or Ponderosa…we just sell “chicken” here. Our church model is not going to offer a gluttonous “buffet line” of ministry programs for every type of interest group, life stage or bible study we can possibly offer.  Our mission is simple. It is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.  We seek to do it by creating helpful, engaging and irresistible environments that help people take that “next step” towards a small group.  If that “next step” isn’t an easy, obvious and strategic step…then we don’t take it.  Meaning, our franchise/church is designed to sell “chicken” (life change) and the best way we think we can do that is by getting you into a small group.   Sorry, no “high-fat” church program buffet line served here.

So Eddie, how does someone become a “video church” pastor? (My Story: Part 1)

Part 1:  It all started for me with a visit to North Coast

My journey to becoming a “video church” pastor began in the fall of 2001 while I was serving as the Young Adults Minister at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY.  I was invited to be part of a research team, by my boss and good friend Eugene DePorter, to visit other cutting edge churches across the United States to help us at Southeast discover how we could do two things better: (1) do a better job of connecting people from the weekend service to a next step.  Believe it or not, we had over 8,000 adults that came to our weekend services that had yet to take a committed next step into a Bible study, small group or team of some sort.  We had to find a better “hook” than our current mid-week service. (2) We were looking for new and creative methods through which we could better attract and reach the emerging “20-something” crowd.   We felt like we were just starting to scratch the surface with some of our own initiatives but wanted to keep looking and researching for even better ones.  I was honored (and really out of my league) to be a part of this team.

So with those goals in mind, we decided to become researchers and students of other successful church models to see what we could learn.  One of our first trips took us to visit some really cool and happenin’ churches in southern California.  Nice gig, huh!?  We visited Saddleback, Mariner’s Church, Coast Hills Community Church and a few others that were truly getting it done - and done the right way.  But it was one church in particular that got my attention.   This one church was the craziest, and at the same time, coolest thing I had ever seen or experienced.  They met in a warehouse storage area and used the warehouse garages for 4 different types of worship service environments, which they called “video venues”.  The church was North Coast Church in Vista, California led by their innovative leader and Senior Pastor, Larry Osborne.

videochurchblog making the scene!

Sweet! Our first blog! We have a great deal going on at the moment and we can't wait to share it all with you soon. Well, I guess we have to wait...since it's not happened yet. Anyway, thanks for checking it out, and special thanks to Jeremy Thiessen for getting our blog up and running.   Stay tuned for more insight into Nashville's latest rocking church:  Cumberland Church

See you soon!

Look at the dealio under normalrockstar (below and to the right) for more on Jeremy. Go Canada!