Staying Healthy-Part 2

So it's been a while since I last posted, so I'm just gonna jump right into it.

This is the second part of a two part post.

Click here to read the first one.

So in the first "Staying Healthy" post, we talked about being relationally and spiritually healthy. Those two were pretty easy to write about, and, like I said, those two things are not the reasons we pushed back the launch date at Sojourn. These next two are difficult to write about, and they both contributed to our decision.

I'm going to go ahead and tell you that you might not like to talk about these next two issues, but they are still a very big reality of the church. So get over it.

The third part of being healthy is being numerically strong. Go ahead. Get it out. Rant a little about how churches are all about numbers and that's all that matters. Ok. No, numbers are certainly not all that matter to us at Sojourn, but they do help. Right now we have nearly 30 people in our core team, which is a great number. I can't tell you how awesome is for me to see new people come into our church and enjoy their experience so much that want to right in on the ground level. Like I said, 30 people is a great number.

The issue for us is that we don't feel that we launch a church the way we really want to with 30 people. I know plenty of churches that have launched with well less that 30 people, and they are doing just fine today. But this is our feeling. We want to have a larger team for a couple of reasons. First, having a large team just feels good. It does. It really pumps you up to walk out in front of 50 people rather than 15. And it helps create more energy. 50 people are louder than 15. We also want to create an environment where people desire to serve and aren't forced to. With only less that 30 people, it really requires everyone to volunteer at the church every single weekend. Which is very, very tiring. Having to be in a room with a bunch of little kids will wear you out really fast. So we want to avoid that as much as possible. So having a larger team will allow people to only volunteer when they desire to, instead of feeling like they have to.

There's also one other thing that having more people provides for a church, which is actually the fourth part of launching a healthy church.

Get ready to rant a little more. Well probably a lot more.

Finances.

All churches ever ask for is money. If you don't give them a lot of money, they don't care if you come or not. Blah, blah, blah...

So again, that's not how it is at Sojourn. But here's the honest truth... It takes money to run a church. Wow. Shocking huh? It shouldn't be. I mean think about it. We are renting a theater. RENTING. Meaning we are paying the theater for us to meet there. That takes money. We want to have coffee there for you every weekend you come. Guess what... We have to pay for the coffee too. And of course, Toby, Kristi, Clay, and I would love for us to be able to devote full-time work hours to the church. Well, we have bills to pay, mortgage, car, utilities, food, gas. We have to have money to pay for those things personally, so guess what... We have to receive some sort of salary for that to happen.

So I know you might be sick and tired of churches asking you for money, but it really does take money to run a church. Like I said, rent and coffee at minimum. And honestly, that's all that we are paying for right now. There's no salaries getting paid right now. We don't have offices we are renting. I, as the worship leader, literally have a $0 budget for the worship ministry.

But as I said before, having more people does equal, to a certain extent, more money. So as the church grows we will be able to do more things through the church. And just to let you know what a couple of those things are. We want to a small marketing campaign. We want to send out 30,000 postcards to the homes around the mall before our launch on January 11th. We would like to do another 30,000 postcards at Easter time. Those things sure aren't free.

So as a summary, we want to launch a healthy church. We want to be relationally, spiritually, numerically, and financially healthy. This isn't going to come easy, and we know that. But we do feel that this is a calling that God has given us. So if you don't like it, well you don't have to. We'll still love you, and you're still welcome.