Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Change in Church? What's New

What a busy week for Victory. This last Sunday we held our last service at the Polonia Soccer Club. It is hard to ignore God’s blessings on this mission congregation. We went from a core group of 12 to a group of 120 in just over 2 years. I believe in the last year, Pastor ran 6 different series of Bible Instruction classes not to mention all the individual BIC classes to those who couldn’t make it to the larger classes. The newest one may be in the double digits. Our outreach into the community has brought a larger and larger number of people. 90 kids came to our last event, Easter for Kids. The kids ministry has been growing each Sunday as you can tell by the noise meter in church and during Bible study class. About half the church are parents 30 and under with about 25 kids under 6.

With the move to the theater I think we will see a slightly different dynamic. Church will not be this echo filled cinder block hall and that will have a large impact on the noise level. It will feel different in church because it will definitely seem quieter. I’m sure with 100 additional seats in the theater than we usually put up it will seem emptier for awhile as well. Also the change to have the kids go to Sunday school just before the sermon will be a big change. Having fellowship before church will be a shift for a lot of people.

I’m excited for the new arrangements. The kids will have rooms to do their Bible Quest group. We have a nice café area for fellowship before church that will be stocked with quality coffee (I think we are getting Alterra) and bagels etc.. We have the big theater for our service but the kids can have their video portion of Bible Quest in the smaller theater across the hall. Also for overflow we can beam our service across the hall to the small theater, We also will beam the service to the TV in the Café area for those who need to sit with their kids etc..

I’m also excited for the new technology. We just spent a good amount to upgrade our technology. We bought a new laptop as the “sound” computer and it will be the controller of our new computer based mixer. I will be able to record the whole service and do magical things with the “soft” mixer. We got a wireless monitor system for the band so they can actually hear themselves. We got a nice projector that can handle the bigger screen. I also bought a wireless video transmitter and receiver for sending our service video to the Café’ TV or the small theater on occasion.

The improved sound without all the evil feedback we get at Polonia will be great and I think the improvement in balance will be very noticeable. The rest of the things I don’t think anyone will appreciate the technology behind the conveniences. On the website I am hoping to put the entire service video each week. We’ll see how a file that large will work.

I have a feeling we will be growing into this location very quickly. I predict 200 worshiping each Sunday 1 year from now. To God be the glory.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It sounds like God is blessing your congregation in very visible ways. That is terrific!

Like Franzmann says in his hymn, we spread the seed of the Word and God does what he will with it. When we see people brought to faith in Christ, and are privileged to have been used by God to that end, it is truly a special joy that we share with the angels.

I pray that the Spirit continues to use the Word and Sacraments to turn hearts to Christ (and sustain faith) in your changed setting.

Rejoicing with you.