Launch Team Meeting ONE

Among other things, 13 of us spent time dreaming out loud what church could/should be.

Some of the thoughts:

• A place where opinions/dialogue matters. Not simply told what to believe and blindly go with that.
• A place where there is teamwork... everybody, not just a few, moving toward the goals.
• A place where you know you're missed when you're not there. A place where you'll find people going through the same things as you. Imperfect people bringing what they DO have to offer and getting involved
• a place for reality and honesty
• Accountability... where someone will call you and ask you what you're doing.
• Church should be a place you act the same as you do when you're home. Not a place where you "get conservative" and "fake" to attend, only to be 'normal' the rest of the week.
• TRUTH. The message. The plain, uncompromising truth in the scriptures. Church should be a place for that.
• A place the values and emphasizes kids and family
• A place for creativity
• A safe place to not be perfect
• Community - a place to journey together as much as possible. People shouldn't feel alone in the church. A place to connect, to carry other peoples loads and to be carried at times.

The Church is Beautiful. I expect us to spend more time dreaming about what Church could/should be, because the above might only scratch the surface.

We desire to tap into the brainpower and life experiences of those who will be part of The Launch Team. So, we broke into small groups and spent a short time asking the question, "How do we increase the amount of people on our Launch Team?" Here are some of the ideas.

1. Every group put emphasis on the “personal invitation” including use of all normal communication… e-mail, friends at work, etc.

2. Dinners for Six (this idea comes up about as often as a drummer!)

3. Message Boards – online (Myspace, etc.) and physical places like Colleges or laundry rooms

4. Using the 5,000 gifts idea and tweaking it so that it’s something like “5,000 reasons church should be amazing”.

5. Hang out where people hang out.

6. Invite a person with Church Planting experience to come into our meetings and suggest ways to increase the Launch Team

7. Speak with Churches

8. Christian Colleges like Fresno Pacific.

Thoughts? Comments? Anything to add?