Thirsty?
I was hired by Christ's Church to create and lead an alternative service designed for young adults.
The Well is a new kind of worship experience at Christ's Church beginning March 18, 2007 at 6 p.m. It is an informal alternative service with a coffee-house atmosphere promoting authentic worship, relevant biblical messages presented creatively (video, music, drama, prayer, film clips, creative arts, etc.), and deep meaningful relationships with Christians and non-Christians in a refreshing atmosphere.
The Well is a Real, Relevant, Relational, and Refreshing event designed to satisfy the spiritual thirst of young adults.
The goal we have for The Well is simply to connect young adults with God and with each other.
The Well will be open every Sunday night @ 6.
I know we're not the first church to design a service for young adults. Last week I was with Central Christian Church in Portland, Oregon and was encouraged to hear of the success of their young adult service. My brother and sister-in-law attend a young adult service called "The Gathering" at their church in Cincinnatii.
If you know of any young adults services in other churches I'd love to hear about them. I'm especially interested in what is working and what is not working.
My team and I have been working hard and we can't wait to see what God is going to do through The Well.
I'll make sure to share the details of this experience with you.
posted by Arron Chambers @ 9:52 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
I really wish we had one in Elizabethton. I would love to see it happen here because we are missing a huge group that needs the gospel.
Does this mean you won't be preaching in the other services???
In November, you posted that the leadership had decided not to proceed at that time with the Well. Now, things have changed. That leads me to two questions.
1. What convinced you (the leadership) an alternative service was the right thing to do?
2. What convinced you that now is the right time to do it?
Currently our church has a "blended" worship service. You know the kind. We sing some choruses and when we do sing hymns they are accompanied by one of those "new-fangled" keyboars and a guitar instead of the organ or piano. The old people are irritated. We sing some hymns and when we do sing choruses they are NOT accompanied by electric guitar or drums. The young people are bored.
We're also running out of room.
Two service seems to be a solution to both these problems. But planting a new congregation might solve them as well and expanding the building would solve the second.
We're concerned about division (you mentioned that in November) and we're also concerned about the difficulty. They tried it here about 3-4 years ago and it failed.
I'd really appreciate it if you'd share your decision making process. Thanks!
I have been attending Status at Discovery Church in Orlando (which you probably have already heard of). The church was mentioned in the Jan/Feb 2007 print issue of Relevant Magazine. I appreciate their honest and candid nature of the way they preach the Word and create a simple atmosphere that is conducive to worship. They also place an enormous emphasis on home groups and cultivating relationships in an intimate setting: a must for any large gathering of people! They have also begun church plants in other major cities (L.A. and NYC), so they're not keeping all that Status-goodness to themselves!:)
I'll probably be preaching in the other services about once every six weeks.
Andy--
1. The Leadership has thought--for the past year--that an alternative service would help them to reach people. They brought me on to do this. The plans have changed several times, but the vision has remained.
2. We prayed about it and felt that God was leading us to launch the Well on Sunday nights instead of when we had been planning to have it (Sunday mornings).
As far as your concerns in your present situation . . . we share similar concerns. We are desperate to maintain unity as we start this new service, so we've taken some pretty strong stands on key issues of strategy (no childcare, target is 18-30 year olds, leadership of our new service is made up of--chiefly--people from our target demographic, etc.). We are fighting to maintain unity now, so we--hopefully--will avoid major divisions in the future.
Arron: Our adult bible school class has been going thru the Nooma DVD's with Rob Bell here at First Christian Orlando & prior to our viewing same it was used with the college & career age group. Our class has a wide range of ages but we all have thoroughly enjoyed the discussion following each DVD which lasts roughly 15 mins., so much so that we're to use the same ones when our small group resumes in a couple of weeks even though it'll be a repeat for a few of us.
Maybe you'd like to check into it for showing at the Well.
I like the thought on Small Groups. That's where you get to know people and truly fellowship. you get some of that at the "big" gathering but for me a small group would fit the bill. :)
Aaron,
One Accord is a similar ministry in Indianapolis, IN. Check out
http://www.oneaccordministry.com/
Blessings,
SMB
Thanks sbryant! Very cool ministry.
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