Volunteer shoppers needed

Okay, so if you're looking to get involved at Grace, this might be just the opportunity you are looking for... we need shoppers. If you like to shop and if you're like me, love to buy in bulk, here's the opportunity.

Seeking the best deal for supplies for our daycare, school and Sunday/Wednesday ministries, we often purchase large quantities from Wal-Mart, BJ's Wholesale Club and Costco. Thing is it takes two people to get the stuff because we purchase so much. To date we've been using paid staff, who normally are caring for children or working in one of the offices, so we have to cover them when they're out shopping. It's pure shopping, so anyone who can drive a van and life bulk quantities of drinks and other grocery supplies can do it. We'd supply the shopping list, so your role would be to pull it off the shelf. We'd need you to go shopping about once a month or so.

If you're interested, let me know.

Apples (computers that is) are tempting

Though I've been a PC-guy for years, I am more and more tempted to defect to the Apple-side. So the following quote hit my funny bone...

Chris Pirillo: "The box said Requires Windows 95 or better. So I installed OS X."

An outsiders perspective on church

Having the privilege of growing up in a Christian family, I've attended church since birth. My Dad was an Assistant Pastor when I was born and not long after that became a missionary planting churches. So, understanding what it's like for someone to attend church for the very first time is difficult for me. That's why I found this post interesting... http://www.davidfoster.tv/?p=286

Daycare inspection results

Thanks to those of you who prayed for the daycare staff during last week's inspection. Our staff came through with flying colors and did a tremendous job. During the inspection the inspector often visits each room and while expecting the daycare workers to be caring for the children, the inspector starts rattling off questions along the lines of, "What temperature should the referigerator be?" or something of the sort. To help the daycare workers, two of the administrators went with the inspector to each room and helped care for the kids so the daycare workers could concentrate on answering the questions.

The visit went well. We did receive one citation because an EPI pen wasn't in the box packaging. Our track record has been so exemplary that we take even one citation like that pretty hard. But as with other inspectors, they always leave saying how high the quality of care our center provides to the children. If you see anyone who works with the daycare, be sure to thank them for their hard work and for maintaining a good testimony with the State.

In my next post I'll disect last week's financial audit.

What's in a daycare inspection?

This week is the annual State inspection of the daycare ministry. Being State certified gives our center credibility with the families who entrust the care of their children to use. That makes the annual inspection crucial.

While the inspection is normally a one-day gauntlet, we've been notified that this year's will be a two-day review. Inspection consists of a inspector from the State reviewing every detail about our center. They review each child's file with the office staff for emergency numbers, proper record keeping among many other State requirements. They spend a lot of time interviewing the office staff about the daycare program and their compliance with standards. They review our fire drill records, making sure that we hold a drill at least every 60 days (we practice every 30) and that we evacuate all the children in under three minutes (every scheduled drill is timed). They review our evacuation procedures. They review our security process. They scrutinize our daycare staff for proper and current certification in CPR/Fire/First Aid training. They review all the necessary child abuse and criminal checks and educational requirements depending on the responsibilities of each staff person. And that's just the stuff that's reviewed in the office and I didn't even cover all of it!

Then they walk through the entire daycare wing. They observe the staff caring for the kids in real time. While caring for kids, the inspector will fire roulette questions at the staff who HAVE to know the answer on the spot. They review the cleanliness of each room, whether everything is in it's place. They give their personal assessment as to whether our rooms are designed for the ultimate safety of each child. They make sure all the proper emergency information is posted in each room. Everything is open game for questioning and scrutiny. They review the kitchen, the food preparation too.

Then they go outside and give the same thorough review to our outdoor play areas. There are State mandates for the depth of mulch on the playground in addition to all kinds of other details.
You probably get the picture. It's a very intense, stressful time.

With the passionate staff God has blessed us with, our track record in these reviews is exemplary. Of course, that puts pressure to maintain that same high standard. Be praying for Tammy and her staff as they go through the 2007 inspection.

Monopoly: to play or not to play?

Grace Church has ended up in the unenviable position of being surrounded by houses. Years ago, what is now the development that lines what we would call the back of the church property, was a field. From what I hear, we had a chance to purchase it, but at that stage of Grace's life we weren't positioned to do so. The houses that front the church on West Lincoln have been there since the 1970s.

I noticed in the past few weeks that the large house next to the Chapel parking lot is on the market. Over the past 6-8 years all but maybe one of the houses that line West Lincoln have gone on the market. Each time a house went on the market the Elders weighed the pros/cons of purchasing it.

To date, they've decided, and I support, not buying the properties. The land is of most value to us. Additional land would give us more green space to build out other parts of the property. The houses create a visual block to our property from West Lincoln, reducing our visibility. In a lot of respects we'd probably prefer to level the houses. Of course, paying market rates for 5+ residential properties is going to run upwards of $1M in today's market - that's a lot of money for but an aggregate of a couple of acres. That's why we haven't pursued them.

Each time I see one of those houses go on the market, I remind myself why we've decided not to pursue them.

What's Happening Now?

The general sentiment seems to be that with the Rodeo complete, the church office has entered reclusion. In reality, the opposite has occurred. We're knee deep in getting ready for the upcoming academic year and trying to keep up with growing ministries. It's a 24x7 challenge. Here's my attempt to quantify it...

The school, daycare and children's ministries are growing. We're working on re-arranging room usage to free up space for additional math classes, the afterschool program and for more Sunday School and Wednesday night programs. That all begins a domino affect on other groups that use our facility. Groups that had been using the Fellowship Hall throughout the year, beginning at 5pm, are having to push their start times back because we need the room through 5:30. The Worship Arts ministry rehearsals are moving to a different night of the week. Sunday morning Adult Bible Fellowships are being moved around so the Children's Ministry can use some of the larger rooms in the building. We're also rescheduling the outside groups that use our building as well. It's a very complicated tango that's being expertly choreographed by our Master Calendar master, Elaine.

We're also taking a hard look at the Children's Wing, reevaluating our usage of the space in that area and looking for more efficient ways to use it to further the direction of the Children's Ministry. For years we've accepted the space as is, but we're now recognizing that in some ways it's inhibiting the ministry.

We've added additional staff this summer including a Pastor, several support positions, an assistant in the Athletic Department plus an Elementary PE Teacher. Of course, as new positions, we didn't have offices for them, so we're busy creating and equipping new offices.

We're reassessing our insurance policies

We're putting in some new interior doors to further isolate our children's areas from the main lobby and gymnasium during school/daycare hours to continue to increase our security measures. If we reach our goal, it should hardly be noticeable on Sundays and Wednesday nights.

We're replacing several rooftop HVAC units - the building is showing it's age.

The annual State daycare white-glove inspection is this week.

We're rethinking our computer network log-in accounts, especially for students. Classes endured long delays logging into our system last year so we're trying to correct that.

I'm working on upgrading our data storage system, we filled that last one up over the span of 18 months - it's getting harder and harder to keep up with the demand for data storage.

I'm working with Betsy, our computer teacher and a couple of IT guys that I've gotten to know who attend Grace to create a strategic roadmap for our IT department for the next 3-5 years to keep our IT stuff up to snuff.

We're considering changing the normal seating configuration in the Auditorium for Sunday mornings.

The Concept Development Team meets for the first time this week. We've been wanting to get that launched for the past two years and are finally getting it off the pad. This is the group that will first devote it's attention to the property across the street and ultimately help us nail down the conceptual direction we'll propose in terms of future expansion.

I realized recently that our web page is due for a content makeover, so we've put that on the to do list, too.

And on top of everything, the financial audit begins today and will continue most of this week.

Getting in good with the alumni department

Being a Grace Brethren Church, you might expect our staff have a strong Grace College representation. There are a few. Seeing as our Senior Pastor graduated from Liberty, you might expect our staff to consist of several Liberty grads. While we don't, five out of last year's Senior class are headed to Lynchburg in the fall.

Though none of my doing, the number of PCB/PBU grads on staff has increased from three when I started 9+ years ago to six, by my count, as of this week.

New feature on LGBC.ORG

In conjunction with the iBook message series and specifically the Bible reading challenge, we're rolling out an interactive forum on LGBC.ORG this weekend. It's designed to give the Grace Church body an opportunity to share what they're learning or thinking about as they read the different portions of scripture. It's also a forum in which the body can ask questions to which our Pastoral staff can respond. I've been working with TCW, our tech support company, over the past few weeks to get it set up.

I'm excited to be able to use the internet for this kind of an application. The challenge is the internet is accessible by everyone under the sun and our target for this application is those who are connected with the ministries of Grace Church. We're gonna try to control that by moderating the comments.

On each day's scripture passage you'll be able to post your thoughts, questions, comments, etc. about the passage. Others will be able to respond with threading so you can see who's responding to what.

You can watch for it at blog.lgbc.org

Help Wanted: Flower Gardens

We could use help keeping the church flowers beds and bushes looking nice and presentable. Flower beds were formally assigned to ABF classes for them to plant and care for over the summer months. However, since few ABFs actually meet over the summer that system didn't really coincide with their schedule or the built-in accountability. So we're trying to come up with a new system to keep our property looking nice.

I wonder if the system they used at my first elementary school is still in place? I attended Labo Elementary School for grades 1 and 2 - in the boondocks of Southern Luzon. Like many other grade school students after the first day of school I brought home a grocery list of items that I needed for the school year. My parents were a little concerned that the list included a sickle. See the daily morning routine for the entire school included the following:
Morning assembly on the soccer field to sign the national anthem and morning calisthenics
Cutting the grass with sickles and tending to the garden and grounds around our classroom
Oh, and each Friday afternoon we cleared the classroom floor and got out the brooms, floor wax and coconut husks as all the students cleaned the floor!

So if you're looking to help out at the church and enjoy yard work, give me a call or send me an email. Last week, Aimee spent a couple of hours on two consecutive days on the office side and I really appreciate her work.

If you have suggestions of new systems I can consider to replace the now defunct ABF flower garden system, leave a comment.

Help rename LGBC.ORG

I've wanted for quite some time to replace our LGBC.ORG web address with an address that's more connected with our ministry. Our current address is an acronym for Lititz Grace Brethren Church, and while it's still one of many nicknames people use to refer to the body of believers that meet at 501 W Lincoln Ave, I think it's finally becoming less prevalent. As a result, I'm looking to get a new web address. Unfortunately, most, if not all of the logical ones are already taken, so I need your creative help. I welcome your suggestions and thank you in advance.

Celebrating Holidays Overseas

Sue Weaver, who along with the rest of the Weaver family, Grace Church sent to France as missionaries back in the 1980s, shared the realities of celebrating holidays overseas in her Xanga yesterday.

Is the building sacred?

I have to give credit to all that were involved in the design/layout of the building projects at Grace. For more than 30 years the walls/rooms/hallways that they conceived have served the needs of the ministries of Grace. They planned with foresight and a joining God in what He is/is-going-to-do mentality that ended up with spaces able to accommodate a lot more people than were being served at the time of construction. I hope to emulate their ability to plan for future growth.

With 30+ years of ministry under our belts, with God using our ministry to reach more and more people, with the changes in our culture, and with an aging building, we're having to evaluate our facility. Rooms that we've become accustomed to being the same for many of those 30 years, some of you recall riding your tricycle down the aisle in the midst of construction, are being used in entirely different ways that what they were originally.

If you look back there are ways that we've adjusted our ministry. With few large rooms and strict policies to protect the Auditorium carpet, our church rarely hosted all-church social functions. But that's changed in the last several years. We've had several all-church potluck dinners. That's just one example.

In all of this, I'm seeing a greater demand for more multi-use, multi-purpose rooms with mid-sized floor space. The schedule pressure for use of the Fellowship Hall and the Youth Room, our two current rooms that fit that description is intense.

The new sense of commoraderie and cooperation among staff and ministries has been integral to making the ministry schedule pressures work to this point. We're exhausting our current resources forcing us to look for new ways to stay up with demand. The good news is we have the floor space, it just isn't configured efficiently.

This summer we are reevaluating room assignments/room use around our facility and have ideas of way to reassign spaces for maximum efficiency with the way ministries are wanting to use the building in 2007-2008. We are also identifying spaces that with a little bit of renovation/reconfiguring can open up more opportunities for our ministries.

I want our building to be a tool that ministries can use efficiently. Our ability to use it to meet people where they are and move people to where God wants them to be is more sacred than the walls themselves.

This Might be a Dumb Question

A radio program I often listen to has a weekly segment entitled This Might be a Dumb Question. The host asks callers to call in with things they've always wondered, but never asked. Each call begins with the phrase, "This might be a dumb question, but..."

I wonder what questions people who regularly attend or are connected with the ministry of Grace Church have? It may seem like a dumb question, but I'm sincerely interested in trying to answer what I can. Here's a list of some of the questions I've answered in the past:

This might be a dumb question...

• but why can't I use the church kitchen?
• how in the world did we come up with the idea of doing a rodeo?
• but what are the benefits of a multi-purpose building?
• but is baptism so important that we should spend extra money for a full baptismal?
• but why do we baptize people in a hot tub?
• but how did we arrive with the concept of meeting people/moving people?
• but why do I have to have clearances to volunteer to work with kids?
• but what happens if someone collapses during a church service?
• but why do we use giving envelopes?
• but how do I start a ministry at Grace?
• but what happens at a Grace Church staff meeting?
• but why does Grace Church rarely cancel Sunday services because of weather?
• but why am I too cold in the Auditorium?

If you regularly attend or are connected with the ministry of Grace Church, I'd like to know what questions you have by posting a comment.