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user friendly 2

In this series of posts, we are looking at simplifying things to become more user friendly. One of the changes we are making is with our interior branding and names. Right now we have a variety of names and terms for things around The Journey...Explorers, Quest, Route One, Journey Series, Community Groups (sometimes called small groups), Reach, Connect, Develop, Serve, Devote, 3 Relationships, motto, mission, vision relationships not religion...and more. As time goes on in church, or any organization, it is easy to get use to names, systems, and communication. They can be clear to regulars or they can even become vague. It is easy to not see things from a new persons perspective and we want The Journey to be user friendly if you are a regular or a newbie.

So, we are making some name changes. Instead of saying Route One for students in 6th - 12th grade, it will now become Journey Teens. Instead of saying we have Journey Kids Stuff - there is Quest, Explorers and nursery. Okay, what ages in which...I don't know, let me check. We will now just call it Journey Kids and each room will be marked with the age so it is easy and clearly defined. There will be some other changes like the Journey Series will now be called Intro Group and Groups as a whole will be Journey Groups instead of Community or Small Groups. It basically comes down to calling things as they are to make it user friendly instead of just having a cool name for it. A name doesn't make it cool or more effective so we are making some name changes to simplify things in order to be more user friendly.

Experiments and Evaluation 8

THE CINEMA

One of our biggest experiments was the Cinema. Some things worked, some things didn't. We were maxing out space and we set a limit of 380 for a month. If we hit that, we would look at doing the Cinema. So, in March of last year, we committed to 3 months in the Cinema to make space.

We learned alot through the Cinema. It was a great experiment to prepare us for multi-site in the future. We learned that if we are gonna do it, we need to do it right. We really needed to up the quality. We learned that we need full kids stuff at whatever we do because that is a big group of who we reach. We learned that our current space can hold more than we thought. We learned that it take more time and planning to pull it off. We learned that if we do another site, we need staff for that specific site so we don't line out our current staff and so things and people are cared for at the other site.

We asked for $30,000 for the Cinema. Some of the money was rent. Most of the money was spent of equipment. We have used about 75% of that equipment to replace or add to our current facility. The rest will be utilized in our next site or as we expand our current location.

Overall, money wasn't wasted, we connected with some new people, we built a great relationship at The Cinema, we learned a ton to prepare us for the future, and we made space at our current facility to make it through the weeks around Easter. So, I wouldn't call this experiment a success, but it definitely wasn't a failure either. Bottom line: if we want to reach those not being reached, we need to try things others aren't trying.

Video Blog: Experiments & Evaluation

Here is our lastest video blog in two parts...

Evaluation and Experiments 6

Sometimes you just have to try new things. This week we kicked off the Dark Side series. I was working on set design. I bought a fan to make a big fake fire. It worked, but it was really loud. We hung the red paper and I made flames and tried to back light it so it looked like a backdrop. Didn't look good. I just tried to back light the red paper in a cool way - it wasn't cool. So after 4 hours of experiments, I finally settled on the paper flames with the red lights behind them.

Whether it is props, a series, methods, programs, groups, kids stuff, youth stuff - we have to try new things to find things that work. We need to experiment so we don't become stale.

The same is true with our lives and people too. God says we face trials and temptations. They are kind of like an experiment. Sometimes we fail; sometimes we build character and learn to trust God more. In our lives, marriages, roles at the journey, jobs - sometimes we need to try new things in order to keep them alive and active. We like to give people experiments and roles to see if they are ready and willing to take next steps too.

For The Journey, we have tried many things - some are great, some don't work - but we will keep trying new things to help people take next steps and find what works.

Experiments and Evaluation (5)

Mistake Again

After meeting in the Trillium for 6 months, we were offered some space for where we current meet. We had to decide how much space to take - it mainly came down to a money decision...How can we have faith for God to fill the space and still use the common sense He gave us to make a good stewardship and financial decision?!?!!? So, we took 7500 square feet. It has been great for 3 years. Now, as we continue to outgrow the space - we look back to evaluate the decision and we are not sure if we made a mistake or not. We are currently looking at redesigning space we could have had in the first place. It will be more expensive to redo now, but the question is if we could have afforded it 2 years ago.

Experiments and Evaluation 4

We don't want to build any traditions in our methods. Methods, events, programs are all just tools. We want to view everything outside of our mission as experiments. When we first started the Journey, we hosted many big events to try to reach people disconnected from God. We had carnivals, Valentines Dessert & Dance, Coffeehouse concerts, and dinner parties to name a few. They were good events - fun, well attended, organized and put together well. However, as we evaluated these events, they were not successful in one area...connecting with the disconnected. We found that unchurched people are very disinterested in coming to a church event. They would think things like...a concert at church? or a Dance at a church? I don't know about that. However, they were more open to invitations to Sunday morning. We the we stopped doing special events to reach people and we started putting more stock into putting together 52 Big Events every year on Sunday morning. Everything is an experiment. Evaluation is Essential.

Evaluation and experimentation

We are starting a new series on experiments and evaluation. One of the things we value at The Journey is taking risks for God. Basically, we don't want to settle or get comfortable. We want to do whatever we can to help people get connected in relationships, not religion. That means taking risks and trying new things... experimenting. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It has been said...no risk, no reward. So, in this series, we will talk about experiments, mistakes, evaluation, risk, and God's faithfulness.