Well stewarded. When we go into a place to do an Experience it's quite the ordeal, or "experience" if you will. We get up close and personal with their building pretty quickly.
Every building is different. Life 360 has a beautiful Park Crest campus, but to be honest EE doesn't really need beauty. It DOES need space and this campus has lots of that too. Space that is very, very utilized.
What's going on at a church mid-week, mid-morning, on a summer day? We know because
we arrive on campus 3-4 days before each event to begin set up and such. We walked into an office whirring with activity to find the associate pastor, who had been tasked with our care and coordination.
He walked us thru the building zipping by the janitorial staff and lines of pre-schoolers toddling after their teachers. He pointed at a room we would be using over the weekend, but couldn't go into quite yet because there was a volunteer appreciation banquet that night followed by a men's breakfast the following morning. The gym was being emptied out so we could begin set up after the Royal Rangers loaded up all their camping equipment for an upcoming outing. Soon we were dodging flying objects as the youth department made their way into the building where their youth pastor quickly channeled their energies from throwing things to setting up things.
Over 400 people went thru the experience and many committed to pray and give and a couple even felt called to GO and all that is great and why we do what we do, but my take away was this:
1. They are excellent stewards of their facility and ministries to their people and community. It may have been crazy to to navigate around for our weekend event, but stepping over people young and old who are in and out of the church for school, fellowship, discipleship, and service is a good problem to have. To say the "church" (the people not the building :) are alive and well would be an understatement.
2. My second take a way was this: Look closely at these next three photos.
Not only do they have this wall of suggesting you pray for area churches and have invested in printing these prayer cards, they've made an even bigger investment; they allot time in their Sunday morning services to lift up one of these congregations each week. In case you didn't know, service time on a Sunday morning is a BIG deal!! AND if you'll look closely, these are churches of all different denominations and I LOVE that!!! Life 360 is truly a missional church and I'm not just saying that because they brought me back a few weeks later and gave me a GoPro and very nice promotional banner and let me teach Sunday School :) , but you can drive by their church any day of the week and see life and ministry taking place. It's not just a Sunday thing for them, actually nothing they do is just for "THEM," and that's kind of Jesus thing. Thanks Life 360 for having us!
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