Who are you going to invite?

Every week at actionchurch we ask people who attend to do three things.  If you’ve been attending for even a short time you can probably recite them by heart:

Invite, invest, and get involved.

This week for Easter Sunday, you can actually remember just one of the above…INVITE!   Here’s why.

Over the last four years, many people have invested in actionchurch.  They’ve invested their money.  That investment allows us to rent THREE theaters and a party room at the most amazing theater in town each week.  (One for the main service and two for children’s services.)  The’ve purchased a truck…and a truck load of equipment and signage necessary to transform those movie theaters into actionchurch each Sunday morning.   People…dozens of really talented, hardworking people…have gotten involved in the Sunday morning mission of actionchurch.   They unload and assemble thousands of pounds of equipment.  They create and staff great children’s environments in our actionkidz theaters.  They assemble a lighting, sound, and video system in the main auditorium. The book bands, and create art for the screens, uncountable behind-the-scenes details that make a Sunday morning experience at actionchurch the fast moving hour that it is. They set up and staff a check in center for kids, an info center for adults, and a cafe stocked with donuts…and muffins…and water…and coffee, anything we can think of to make our guests feel welcome and comfortable on Sunday morning.  ALL of it happens each Sunday because so many people Love God, Love people, and take action by creating a place for them to be introduced to the life-changing story of Jesus like actionchurch.

Because of them…the people who invest and get involved at actionchurch each week, we’ve got great seats available…comfy, red leather, rocking, seats…available for Easter morning next Sunday at Frank Theaters.   We’re so blessed to be able to make over a hundred more of those great seats available by merely removing the black curtain that runs across the rear of the theater.

Many of your family and friends who don’t normally attend church are considering whether that should change this Easter Sunday.   They probably have NO idea a place like actionchurch has been prepared specifically for them.  Stop and think for a moment about who that could be in your circle of family and friends.  Who could you bring with you Sunday?  Who would be GLAD that you took the time to introduce them to a place like actionchurch…to a life-changer like Jesus.  Who is it that will miss out on what is available, just because someone didn’t take the time to invite them to come along with them Sunday?

Who are you going to invite?

 

 

4th Birthday Party at the movies.

Sunday we announced that actionchurch will celebrate it’s fourth birthday in a way that would make ANY four-year-old very happy:  we’re going to have a star wars birthday party and invite all our friends to a free screening of the Star Wars episode one in 3D!     We are so grateful to Frank Theaters for giving us such a great birthday gift, and we’re excited to be able to share it with all our friends.  We’ll serve the birthday cake at 6pm on February 21st, then we’ll all head into a private actionchurch screening chock full of pod-racing, light sabers,  and the most annoying creature in the galaxy- Jar Jar Binks.

Make sure and pick up tickets at the merch table on Sunday mornings.  Be sure to invite your friends (we have plenty of free tickets…and cake) for them as well.  Remember, hold onto your tickets as they not only get you into the theater, but the number on them is your ticket for the raffle where you could win a really great prize.

Spread the word.  Invite your friends. Don’t forget to pick up your tickets.  May the “fourth” be with you.  :-)

 

Relay Wrap-up.

Here’s a wrap-up of this years Relay for Life event from the Director of action-events:  Kenna Schaller:

I am so proud to be a part of a church that takes their mission statement seriously!

Loving God, Loving People, Taking action…..The actionchurch crowd was
seriously into it the entire weekend.  Everyone was able to use the skills and
talents that God gave them to make this event a success!

We had people at Vo-Tech at 8:00 in the morning scouting the area and doing
pre-setup…..People took their lunch hours to come out and plant the
actionchurch logo at various stations throughout the track!  Crews and crews of
people, walking the track, loving kids, making coffee, makng friends for over 24
hours!!!

Our FREE coffee bar tent was the happening place to be at Relay…..we
served countless (literally) countless cups of coffee.  Three 40 plus cup coffee
pots running continuously from 9:00 P.M. until way after breakfast.  You do the
math, but I stopped counting at about 500 cups!

Team members walking all through the day and the night!  A continuous 24
hours on the track  . Someone in an a/c t-shirt on the track at all times,
representing our church!

At the crack of dawn, the troops started coming across the track like Moses
people crossing the desert!  The volunteers kept coming and coming and coming!
at one point I was looking for things for people to do – we had THAT MANY
volunteers!

And the really really cool thing was that we had everyone involved from the
very young to the very old.  Wee little actionkidz walking the track, taking
turns doing laps so our team would be represented….entire families and friends
cooking and baking and pouring coffee and juice, running eggs and pancakes from
the grills to the serving line – one person said to me ” My son couldn’t be
here, so I brought my neighbor”  soooo cool! …serving and encouraging
…loving and honoring God!  We had a teenager there who VOLUNTEERED to wash
dishes….and when all the dishes were done she took a turn at the bounce
house….we had elders serving bagels and fruit!  It was so wonderful – Gang, we
served a complete, delicious, nutricious breakfast to close to 500 people!

The bounce houses were a HUGE hit – it wouldn’t be Relay without them and
it took some very dedicated people to supervise the fun!  (We only had a small
amount of blood!)  The kids absolutely love the bounce houses and they are a
very important part of our mission at Relay.

And don’t forget the cleanup crew!  Those dedicated people who hang to the
bitter end to wrap up the whole event. The preacher’s wife herself with a
garbage bag walking the field picking up after other campers!  How dedicated is
that?

This year actionchurch was given the Generous Heart award by the American
Cancer Society.  All I can say was it was a God thing.  We couldn’ t have made
it happen without Him.

150 biscuits, 33 dozen eggs, 100kazillion cups of coffee, 24 hours and lots
of blisters later, we can start planning our next actionchurch event.  I’m
looking forward to it! –   Kenna

Behind the curtain

It was great to see the crowd that turned out Sunday for our first Easter Service since moving to Frank Theaters. Here’s some “behind the curtain”  stuff I want everyone to know…

1.  Six months ago we were a church struggling to survive.  We were losing our venue, and after a year-long, emotionally bruising search filled with rejection after rejection, we were facing the serious possibility of being “homeless” as a church.

2.  Sunday was a “normal” service.  Other than the fact that we were celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus, it wasn’t a special Easter service.  If Sunday was your first time to attend actionchurch, you can expect the same type of service to happen next Sunday.  Instead of preparing for a few “special” Sundays a year, we work hard as a crew to have 50 SPECIAL SUNDAYS a year.  (I say 50 weeks because we take the week between Christmas and New Year off…and we have a church-wide picnic in July.)

3.  Speaking of Crew, the “secret” of actionchurch…the real “behind the curtain” thing that you should know, is that all of the talented, passionate, hard-working, crew that make Sundays happen each week are volunteers with busy lives, careers, kids, jobs, and thousands of other pressures and concerns that normal folks have.   In Spite of that, each week our crew manages to put together a service that you would normally see at much larger…and MUCH bigger budgeted…churches.  I’m proud to be part of such a talented and generous group!

4.  We are just getting started!   I announced Sunday that James McBride would be heading up our action groups launch in the fall.  A few weeks ago I introduced you to Kenna Schaller who is now heading up our outside events efforts.  Over the past few months we have been aligning our crew into their personal “sweet spots”, and with the addition of our new crew-members, I think we are poised with the leadership needed to go places as a church that seemed totally impossible just a few months ago.

5.  And finally…there’s the curtain…the big black curtain that stretches across the back of the the theater.   What’s behind that curtain?   Here’s the great news.  Behind that curtain is 150+ red leather recliners…great seats for even more folks to fill on Sunday mornings.   150+ more opportunities for your friends and my friends to hear about Jesus.  150+more opportunities for your family and my family to hear the Good News that has changed our lives!  150+ new opportunities for potential crew members and leaders of the future.   And guess what…God provided those seats for us…planned that we would have them available…even when it didn’t seem like there was a single seat in York County available for us to rent.

I can’t wait ’til you see what’s behind that curtain in the upcoming months.  I look forward to demonstrating together that these ancient words from the book of Ephesians are still true:

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think Ephesians 3:20