Blog

by Elkhart Campus Pastor Gene Troyer

It’s Monday morning, one of my favorite times of the week. The office is quiet and I’m reflecting on the weekend that was. I have a couple of comment cards on my desk that were filled out by those in attendance. People use these for a variety of purposes. Sometimes it’s, “Hey, I have a new email address.” Other times it’s, “Please pray for this situation”. We get feedback on what did or didn’t work in a service through this method of communication. When someone goes to the trouble of completing both the front and the back side of a comment card, I pay close attention.

This morning I’m paying attention.

Members of our guest services team are often the unsung heroes of Granger Community Church. They show up, greet people, smile, engage and encourage with no real fanfare. The important and critical role they play is not lost on us as leaders, but our encouragement and cheerleading pales in comparison to a real, live attendee giving real time feedback. One of our comment cards this weekend provided this encouraging and powerful word.

Continue reading on Gene’s Blog...

by Director of Story Kristin Baker

Powerful stories are sitting in your congregation waiting to inspire and point people toward Christ. Many of us have had to sit through long rambling stories of people that feel awkward and confusing. If you can find ways to help your people tell their story better, you will, like Christ did, tell a better story. Here are a few tips for helping to craft and capture personal testimony stories of people in your church.

1. Seek out the Story:

   Set up topical confessional booths. The goal of these is to find concise sound bytes on one topic to cast a wide net of “Me Too” moments that relate to a general topic.

   Here are a couple of examples:

   Prayer: https://vimeo.com/32087199

   The Time I Needed God the Most: https://vimeo.com/25355966

   In these sessions, we limited the time to ten minutes per person and asked very specific questions about the main idea, lesson learned, the low points, and asked them to try to describe their experience in one sentence.

Continue reading on the GCC Creative Team’s Blog...

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by Teaching Pastor Jason Miller

When I was in high school, I was pretty sure music was my future. It was the only thing I had ever been good at, or at least it felt that way. I had been affirmed by my peers and my teachers, and I loved the way music made me feel: the stage was throbbing with electricity and beauty and connection.

With a lethal mix of presumed clarity and adolescent pride, I burned the bridges that could lead me anywhere else. I had signed up for Physics 2 my senior year because I liked the teacher and my friends would be in the class, but having discovered that it required some advanced math work (I like some math, but I’m allergic to the fancy stuff like calculus), I decided it wasn’t worth my effort. On the first day of class I explained to my teacher that I was going to play music the rest of my life and since that didn’t require physics, I would be failing his class. When we had an exam, I would write my name on the top, leave the answers blank, and turn it back in right away, thus preserving my precious energy for my artistic pursuits. It’s a good thing, too, because otherwise the world may have never been blessed with the prodigious accomplishments of my early musical career. (If you’re wondering why you’ve not heard of said accomplishments, you may have missed my sarcasm.)

I remember at the time feeling so certain about this future. It was a mostly untested plan; I had never successfully written songs, had never explored the music industry at a professional level. But it felt good to have a plan. It felt like I had found a calling.

Continue reading on Jason’s Blog...

by Filmmaker & Designer Adam Tarwacki

If there’s one thing I have learned in my time creating video at Granger it’s that I can shoot the most amazing footage and have the coolest motion graphics—but if I have bad audio I have a bad product.

Once upon a time there was a story of life change that, if captured and told, could change lives. So we contacted our video guy, also known as Joe Shmoe (also known as Dustin Maust). He shows up with a camera, shoots the story, and it looks beautiful. He captures tears, laughter, and has the best comedic movement ever. This video will be awe inspiring. He sits down to edit this masterpiece only to realize all he can hear is the hum of the air conditioner and the loud kids in the room next door with a hint of his subject underneath. He leans back in his chair, raises his hands to the sky and cries out, “Why, oh why did I not heed the words of my master Adam Tarwacki?!” *Just so we are clear, I actually learned this from Dustin but I’m sure he learned if from somewhere else.

It all boils down to this: Good audio is half of a good video. You cannot forget about audio. Your audience will become distracted with humming and hissing and peaking volume. It’s hard to concentrate on the real story. Our job is to provide a full product that is engaging, beautiful, and helpful—one that tells the story and is distraction-free so the message is clear.

Continue reading on the GCC Creative Team’s Blog...

by Lead Pastor Mark Beeson

I went to a movie. It was about sharks. I have no good shark pictures so I used my picture of this pod of Orcas. They’re not sharks, but hey, they live in the ocean and they are scary like sharks, only a lot smarter than sharks—so let’s move on.

I paid extra money so I could experience an extra dimension of the Shark Movie.

I put on my awesome, cool, “somebody take a picture of us right now” 3-D Glasses.

I watched the movie.

I was transported to another world where I experienced amazing things.

I took off my 3-D Glasses.

After that experience, I left the theater and went on with my life, as usual—except that I now have flashbacks to my scary Shark Movie experience.

I remember many of my experiences—and each memory triggers an emotional response. My experiences will mark me; experiences always mark me—but it’s my day-to-day practices and life-long patterns that change me over time—for better or worse.

Continue reading on Mark’s Blog...

by Creative Arts Pastor Sean Bublitz

Leading Creatives: It’s challenging, it’s fun, it’s chaotic, it’s joyful, it’s frustrating—it’s the best.

Throw church into the mix and the haze of the how thickens.

We’re all creative in one way or another. We’re teachers, musicians, designers, writers, thinkers—we all have traits that are amazingly unique and endlessly frustrating. So how do you approach the art of moving a group of people with unique qualities from concept to performance?

Define The Box

We all create within a box. We have a facility box, a resource box, a time box, etc. Define the box you’re creating within for your team.

Set The Bar

What is excellence for you? What’s the vision? The end result? Define it so you’re all working toward one thing, not many.

Give Them Freedom

Be secure enough to acknowledge that you’re not always going to be the smartest or most creative person on your team.

Don’t micro-manage creatives. Give them appropriate space to create.

Tell them what to do, not how to do it.

Keep creating along with them. This creates empathy.

Continue reading on the GCC Creative Team’s Blog...

by Executive Pastor Mark Waltz

Sequencing matters. Service matters. Systems matter.

And so do people.

When sequencing and systems fail to help our guests effectively experience quality service, or take practical steps toward desired outcomes, people are not valued. We don’t communicate that they matter. At least we fall obviously short.

Our connections team has been assessing processes, systems, staffing and teams that most effectively help our people take their next step toward Jesus—particularly, new guests to our church. Although someone’s very next step after an initial weekend service may be to come back the next weekend, we can’t assume that is the only step a guest may want or need to take.

How do people meet others? Find a sense of belonging? And in doing so take a step on their journey toward and with Jesus?

Continue reading on Mark’s Blog...