Another reason to get a pickup

Putting Super-Size Sunday in context was pre-empted by unusual circumstances this afternoon...

I was transacting some paperwork with one of my co-workers when I heard Gene's voice in the lobby, "Where's Andrew, Andrew's gonna want to know this..." With curiousity piqued I met Gene at the door. "You're about to lose a light pole in the parking lot, there's a semi truck about to run it over." And such began an entertaining hour or so of my afternoon today since it was but 30 minutes before classes let out and that of course is the main entrance parents and school buses use for picking up their kids.

The rest of the story... it was the truck driver's first day. He was enroute to the Johnson & Johnson plant to pick up a load, new to the area he apparently missed their entrance and had hoped to turn around in our parking lot. In his words, "he misjudged the turn". He was on the phone with 9-1-1 when I reached him, of course, he couldn't tell them his location. While a tow truck was dispatched the Police arrived. We all stood around and looked at the situation for about 20 minutes just waiting. Then David took a look at things (he's in the white shirt)...




photos courtesy of Elaine

Even the Policemen told him his truck couldn't do it, 'course with David, you tell him something can't be done and that just increases his resolve (see Christmas Walk-Thru, Beach Blast and now At the Hop). So ended an entertaining hour of my afternoon. Who knows what will be next.

The light pole is fine and unscathed, but the berm is ready for spring planting.

NEXT TIME: Putting Super-Size Sunday in Context

Theme song and another lesson

I realize this evening that two items of note had gotten lost in, as Scott has proclaimed, my Elephant brain. Though chronologically out of order, I couldn't resist leaving these undocumented...

I was the last of our group through the enjoyable encounter every air traveler today experiences with the wonderful people at the Transportation Security Agency. And after frantically retying my shoes, shoving the laptop back in it's case, putting my baggy of liquids and gels back into my luggage, I was able to catch up with the rest of my group. The facial expression on Matt's face, a combination of embarassment and discust, conveyed that my rush was unnecessary. See, two of the nine in our group are fans of Walker Texas Ranger re-runs and all week at various times, they'll break into singing the theme song from the show. The disdain of the rest of us and their fervor where diametrically amplified when we learned that Walker himself attended one of the ministries we've crossed paths with while on this trip. So "when you're in Texas look behind you..."

Secondly, as an addendum to my last post, another lesson I picked up this week, is having the paint in the facility touched up weekly. One of the ministries we visited employees two full time staff who's sole responsibility is to go around the facility each week touching up the paint on the walls. Hadn't thought of that before.

What I learned today: Hallways and Handwashing

Twenty some years ago, I would've denied any enjoyment in learning. Grade school and undergrad were a chore for me, but now that I've had the opportunity to focus on specific areas and see the direct applicability of lessons learned, I've found learning to be very enjoyable.

Though I didn't know it at the time, much of my philosophy of learning, was crystalized in middle school when I decided that I wanted to pursue a Bible degree first to give myself a solid foundation upon which I'd build/add any other specialties. Today, I like to push myself to look for lessons to learn from a diverse range, taking those observations and lessons and passing them through the filter of my Biblical foundation and applying the dregs that remain in the filter.

Though I saw a lot of interesting things at Prestonwood today, two small details caught my eye related to our Early Childhood ministry: hallways and bathrooms.

I am adimant that the size of hallways cannot be underestimated in any facility project. They have to be designed to move a maximum amount of people in an efficient manner; the wider the better. I've seen too many churches from the 1970's era that present significant traffic flow issues because of narrow hallways. In addition to large hallways, making the children's area hallways vibrant with color creates an atmosphere of comfortable enthusiasm that's attractive. The off-white Early Childhood hallway of Grace, with some paint, can easily be transformed into a whole different atmosphere.

If you walk the daycare halls during the day, at various times you'll pass entire classes lined up by the restrooms for potty breaks. By law, employees must always have their eye on the children, with exceptions made only when their relieving themselves. Traditional bathrooms with both sinks and commodes behind closed doors present a challenge to this. The employees are required to monitor the kids when they're washing their hands at the same time watching the line of kids waiting in the hallway. At Prestonwood I saw an interesting solution to this conundrum; public handwashing stations. Only the commodes were behind closed doors for privacy. The children's sinks were outside the restroom in a small alcove off of the hallway, arranged as a shared, communal washing area. I found it to be an outside the box approach to allowing employees maximum visibility for keeping track of the children in their care.

I enjoy learning.

Crisis Management

Knowing that the students are safe an no lives have been lost, I took some time this evening to learn a little bit about Union University. I was intrigued by their use of the web for information flow as they navigate the crisis.

1. I hope that I would be equally open in disseminating information in my responsibilities.

2. It's a good reminder that multiple avenues for communication need to be available. Mobile phone towers, landlines, internet connections, etc. can be destroyed. For that matter, even if they weren't, if someone's mobile phone charger was left in their now destroyed room, their mobile phone's battery is eventually going to run out rendering that avenue ineffective.

3. A coordinated response with strong leadership is critical.


While I'll never believe our contingency planning is complete (there will always be another contingency we haven't considered), we do have some general contingency plans in place at Grace which I'll share next time.

Madame Tussauds in Lititz

Approximately 100 chairs have wax on them from the candlelight services earlier this week, with about 30 of them judged to be severe. Nathan spent most of yesterday with an iron and paper towels dabbing up the wax off of the 30 worst. In most cases the wax dripped onto the backs of chairs as guests held the candle in front of them as they sang carols.

Maybe we should send the most-waxed chair to Madame Tussauds.

Wax on / Wax off

One of the downsides to a candlelight service is the side effects of the candle wax. Wax drips on the chairs and the floor and presents a post candlelight-service clean up challenge. In the past, our Senior Pastor would expound on the proper candle-lighting procedures, so much so that it's part of our folklore. We've also tried only having the candles lit for the signing of Silent Night to keep the burn times to a minimum. Even with those efforts, there was always wax to be cleaned up after the service. This year neither of those public service announcements were employed and whether it's a true cause and effect relationship we'll never know, but there's a lot of wax to be cleaned up this week. In fact, much of Jay's day today, if not most of this week, will likely be devoted to wax cleanup.

We contemplated for just a bit the use of glow-sticks in place of the candles, but that just didn't feel right. And as I marvelled at the sight of 800+ people in the Auditorium singing out the Christmas Carols with candles lit, I wondered if the atmosphere would be enhanced if we held the candlelight services outside. A thought to ponder for future celebrations, I guess.

Or maybe we'll devote our next Digging Deeper elective to proper instruction on candle-lighting and burning and fly the guest speaker in from Arizona.

Christmas Prodcution Mid-West Tour

By now you've probably heard that for the first time in probably close to a decade, Grace Church won't be producing a Christmas program of some sort. This year, we're emphasizing the Christmas Eve Services. Of course, the past two Christmas' featured a Walk-Thru.

Knowing that we weren't planning to do a Walk-Thru this year, when asked, we agreed to loan many of the sets and decorations to the Grace Brethren Church in Ashland, OH. At least, I think that's the church, but I can't find any mention of it on their website. We loaned the sets for them to produce their own version of the Walk-Thru this Christmas. Maybe since I've yet to experience the Walk-Thru (I helped behind the scenes when we did it) I'll travel west to catch their production. For that matter, you can make it a full mid-west road trip and catch a light show in New Branson otherwise known as Topeka, Kansas.

And for those afraid to make the trek in the uncertain winter-weather, our Christmas Eve Candlelight Services are Monday, December 24 at 5:30 and 7pm.

I love working with passionate people

I really enjoy working with people who are passionate about what they do. Several people assisted with chair setup in the Auditorium the other Saturday morning at 8 a.m. As the chairs started to get setup, as is usually the case, bulletins and other leftovers from the last service were strewn about the seats, hymnal racks, etc. so I asked two of the folks out to help setup to go about and collect the trash. I was impressed by one individual who exhibited passion for the task he was assigned.

Literally crawling through the rows of chairs, Nicolas covered a good part of the Auditorium looking high and low for trash around the chairs. He passion to get all of the trash inspired me. Over the years I've walked through each row, I've touched each chair, I've prayed for the lives that each chair would hold, but I've never crawled on my hands and knees to make sure there wasn't any trash tucked in a crevice. I love working with people who have that kind of passion.

Even though he's only 5 years old, Nicolas can be on my team anytime.

Maintenance personnel maintain more than buildings

The little blue van that could did it to me again. On the way to make a Dr. appointment I had my schedule timed just right. I arrived at the day services center on schedule to pick up my Dad, it appeared we'd arrive in Denver, PA with a few minutes to spare. Within seconds everything turned.



While attempting to close the van door, instead of closing, I was shocked to be holding the door in my hands, disconnected from the vehicle and unable to close. The thing just jumped right off it's track. In a bizarre twist, one of the staff was just exiting the facility and with the authority of Mr. Goodwrench explained exactly what I would need to do to reattach the door (I wasn't going anywhere until it was reattached).



Within a few minutes the day serices center's version of Jay Hall, Carl appeared and after 20 minutes, the door was reattached and we were on our way. Similar scenarios play out at Grace too. A car won't start, someone has a flat tire, keys got locked in a car, you name it and in many cases, Jay is called upon to help. As with Carl's help in my situation, it's apparently an unwritten expectation of facility/maintenance personnel. And while I didn't expect it, I greatly appreciated Carl's help and his willingness to bail me out.

I guess I need to add AAA to Jay's job description.

Locating the Lost & Found

The merger of entities that weren't separate in the first place - I'm so appreciative of the ground we've covered at Grace in the past two years, but it really is comical when you look in the rear view mirror. We were one entity to begin with, Grace Church with Early Childhood, Children's, Youth, Adult, Deacon and Missions ministries as well as daycare and Christian School ministries. But to just about everyone we operated and appeared to be independent, separated-at-birth relatives. We had 3 of everything - a very strict application of the Trinity in every aspect of what we did. Three receptionists, three lunch rooms, three, three, three, even three different lost and founds - ALL IN ONE BUILDING!!! And so, for the past two years and still on going, we've merged that which wasn't separated in the first place. And with it we now have one single lost and found.

The lost and found, in case you're looking for something you think you've lost at Grace Church, is located off of the ABF/Sunday School hallway intersection. It's the maintenance room that's across from the library and also across from the water fountain at the intersection.

We've cracked down on hallway clutter this school year, so hallways are being cleared nightly of coats hanging on coat racks, as well as books and other items left out that shouldn't be. We want the building to have a positive appearance 24x7, so you may need to check the lost and found more often. Now you know where it is.

Bringing pets to Grace Church

Did you see the Golden Retriever in church a few weeks ago? One of the families in our body is training a dog to be a seeing-eye dog and asked for permission to bring the dog with the to church for exposure to people.

With a daycare and school, and the potential allergies of the children in our care, we have to be cognizant of the animals that enter our facility. Anytime you wish to bring an animal into our building, we ask that you seek approval from Rick Bernhardt, Pastor Scott or myself. This should not be misconstrued as an anti-animal stance. We are very fond of animals and feel they play a vital part in the education of children so long as the allergen concerns of each child are addressed in advance... thus the need to request in advance prior to bringing your animal to the building.

Is our love for God evident in everything?

"When you do not pay your bills, you're marketing. When you do not cut your grass, you're marketing. ...You are shaping perception in the hearts and minds of your members and your target community..." Richard L. Reising

We're pretty good at paying our bills on time, and we're doing our best to keep the grass mowed, but I admit the exterior of our property doesn't reflect how much we love God and His people. If you'd like to help us in that cause, contact me.

Weekday Evening Schedule for 2007-2008

In all the places I've lived I haven't experienced a culture like Lancaster County that was so built around church schedules. It's slowly changing, but remnants are still there. Take for example Wednesday evenings.

I think there are still business that close early on Wednesdays so their employees can go to Wednesday night church.
It's an unwritten rule in the school's athletic league that there are no games on Wednesdays and in some cases, no practices either.

That was the traditional church schedule, services Sunday mornings, Sunday night and Wednesday night. I'm excited that we're adding to that schedule this fall. Our children's ministry is going to make use of break out groups Wednesday night to the point that they need additional room space. Our youth ministry is also planning to use break out groups and was looking for more rooms too. Those two ministries are essentially going to have the majority of our building in use on Wednesday nights this coming academic year.

Meanwhile, that didn't leave enough space for the Worship Arts ministry, so they're moving their rehearsals to Thursdays nights. Our assumption used to be that families would come Wednesday nights, the adults would go to choir practice and the kids would go to the children's/youth programs. From what we can tell, that doesn't hold true so much anymore. So we can make this shift without creating an inconvenience for the average family.

So the building should see even more use and more importantly, we see God working in and through our children's and youth ministries, so we're making adjustments to join Him in what He's doing.

Musical Chairs

We've been playing our own version of musical chairs at Grace in recent weeks. The Worship Design Team (a group that works with Pastor Scott and Matt to plan different elements of each week's service) wanted the Auditorium in a centered-stage configuration for the Samson series. We've used a centered-stage config two times previously and by luck of the calendar, Jay was out of town or unavailable those weeks, so I took charge of laying out the chair setup. For this third time, Jay was around and thankfully, he didn't use my notes.

The setups I used were very boxy and used unusually long rows. Those setups worked, but there downsides:

-with more than 12 chairs in most rows, some event topping out at 30, it was hard to get into a row having to crawl over others who were already seated.

-with each section parallel to one of the walls, we needed to setup additional video projectors.

-with each section parallel to one of the walls, if you sat in the corner you had to turn in your seat to actually face the stage and it felt like you were a long ways away from the stage.

The setup Jay used for the current configuration improves, if not eliminates all of those issues. I give him credit.

We're also working on a revised configuration for the regular chair setup that we hope to roll out in September. We're looking to accomplish a couple of things:

1. We want the main aisle at the back of the room to directly connect with the main lobby entrance.

2. We want the center of the room to be filled with chairs, not an aisle.

3. We want to see if we can put full-width aisles on the outside of each side wall.

It's still in research and development, so we'll see if it becomes reality. We're also exploring other a chair setup system to replace the longstanding ABF-reliant system. Thinking most ABFs view their chair setup responsibilities as a chore, if not a drag, we're investigating whether there are people at Grace who view chair setup as a ministry opportunity. It's a long shot, but we're investigating.

Musical chairs, Grace style.

What's happening with Grace athletic nights?

Monday nights have been associated with pick-up volleyball at the Grace Auditorium.
Thursday nights were associated with pick-up basketball, more recently replaced with floor hockey.

Pickup basketball's been on a break for something like three years now and in 2007-2008, volleyball and floor hockey will be joining basketball taking a break as well. While not something we've prescribed, we see it fitting in with the ongoing morph of Grace Church.

The leaders of pickup volleyball and floor hockey were ready to pursue other involvements at Grace. We encouraged them in their desire to shift, but saw it as an opportunity for the church at large. Demand for rooms has increased in the past 2-3 years and having the Auditorium signed out Monday & Thursday night's left little room for other ministries to get in there.

Though they'll be on a break for at least the next year, we're interested to see where God works in the coming months and how we can join Him, and however than applies in the way the building gets used. In the meantime, the Auditorium will be used by other ministries on Monday and Thursday nights in 2007-2008. I'll describe exactly how in my next post.

Heat activated alarm

Around 1 or 1:30 yesterday the normal Grace Church summer routine was interrupted by the sound of an unscheduled fire alarm. Well versed in the drill, everyone evacuated in a calm, orderly and timely fashion. I on the other hand was scurrying. First of all, I was in the bathroom at the time the alarm sounded. As I washed up, it dawned on me that I didn't recall seeing Jay Hall's motor scooter in it's normal parking spot, meaning Jay was likely not in the building. When that's the case, I'm the guy that's responsible for handling the alarm.

When an unscheduled alarm sounds, there's added pressure to figure out whether someone inadvertently pulled an alarm or where the problem lies, all the while making sure the building is being evacuated. So I'm running around, trying to assess all of this.

Turns out one of the heat detectors in the attic popped. It was set to trip if the temperature exceeded 135 degrees, which gives you an idea of how hot it was up there. It's been replaced with a 194 degree sensor - otherwise we'd probably have another unscheduled alarm again today and from what the forecast says, tomorrow, the next day, the next day and the next again.

Anyway, it was another chance to chat with the Lititz Fire Chief, Ron Oettel. He and I have developed a casual acquaintance over the past 10 years. I appreciate his demeanor and attitude to these sorts of deals. He's usually very professional, cordial and expresses his best interest in protecting the people and assets of Grace Church. As is often the case with these kinds of alarms, we can spend 30-60 minutes trying to track down exactly which sensor (out of over a hundred in the building) is the one that's reporting trouble. It's often because of dust or like yesterday, overheating. Anyway, during that troubleshooting time, we get the chance to talk and catch up. Of course, all the while the daycare kids and staff were out in the sweltering heat of the parking lot. I regret not letting them at least come in under the main entrance to get in the shade.

Thankfully, we were able to get everything cleared sometime after 2pm and the kids were back to nap time in no-time.

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.

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.

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.

Help trim bushes, weed, carpentry

We can use help at the church from people who are interested in trimming bushes, weeding and carpentry. One mom who recognized the need contacted me out of the blue and has already worked four days weeding, trimming and cutting the areas around the church office. If you are willing to help make our facility look nice, let me know.