Prayer Partners Needed for the next 100 days!

Email me and sign up today mgsalomon@gmail.com

Share the youtube video with those you know who might pray too!

Volunteers is the wrong word…..treasure is the right word!

Those who love Jesus, love His Church, know they are called by Him for His purposes, love others in His name, serve in their giftedness……these people are disciples! We often call them volunteers but that is such a pale term. Treasure would be the right word….

If you are following our launching fun on facebook or twitter (yes, my own personal facebook (www.facebook.com/melissasalomon) and twitter (www.twitter.com/mgsalomon) have been taken over…..it is the quickest way to get you real time updates, you read in three short twitter posts about my dream last night.

I have been charting the welcome center and the many who will serve as we go to two services on the 14th at the new site. We firmly believe that God has given the church all the gifts needed and we must discover how each is gifted or SHAPEd to serve. I am sure that was on my mind last night and in my dream I was very excitedly finding coins in abundance everywhere I looked. They were on the side of the road, in the gutter, in the dirt at the side of the road, on the floor inside a house or building (not sure which)…..just everywhere.

I think this was a dream about finding treasure in abundance and everywhere….just needing to discover it….and sometime it is at home and sometimes it is in public, hidden by a mound of dirt or forgotten and unused in the gutter. I believe the treasure are the volunteers (the disciples) whom God has provided, as He always does, for everything that is needed in the church! Launching a new church requires many gifts, talents, experiences, willing spirits, etc. etc.

I got on the plane in San Diego and began to chart out the welcome center now that we are going to two services. I discovered that we need 53 people to make Sunday welcoming! With a core mission launching congregation of about 100 people that is quite a challenge! We are deliberately creating space for people who are brand new to church to serve….and we are confident that God will uncover all the giftedness in the people who are now Concordia and will bring many good gifts in the people He will bring to Concordia as we launch. No doubt.

As I got off the plane in Phoenix in the middle of the concourse was a bright, shiny quarter! People were passing it by…I saw it from a bit of a distance. I stopped and looked around wondering why no one else had picked it up. I sure picked it up! Remarkable coincidence? Maybe. Confirmation? Maybe. God giving me a little sign to give me confidence as I would continue looking at the welcome center chart on the next leg of the flight? I think so!

Please pray for the wonderful children of God who will serve on Sunday morning to be a compelling force of welcoming love! Pray for the men and women who love the Lord and want to see others come to know Him, love Him and follow Him too…..as we serve together on Sunday morning with joy, with excellence, with a deep knowledge that God is doing a good work among and through us!

Pray as we transform the worship center this next week……

Pray as we work on the many things that still need to happen……

Pray……for the things that we don’t even know we should pray about……

Pray for the direct mail postcard that will go out next Monday…….

Pray for those whom God will direct to visit Concordia for the first time…..for another time……for all time!

Melissa Salomon
Community Life Coordinator
www.concordiachurch.com

PS. Welcome new prayer partners! Only 75 more to go to reach the 500 mark! Help us invite more people to pray one minute a day for the next 100 days (or the next 50 days)……

Prayer Partner Update – February 1, 2010

Dear Prayer Partners,

Yikes!   It is February already!  It is 20 days to the launch!

I hope you are following us on facebook or twitter (see last weeks post at www.concordiatogether.com for how).  These next two weeks will see some transformative work….you will want to see it and hear about it in REAL TIME!

We have 422 prayer partners as of today!  Keep on inviting others to pray with us…..it will be a blessing to us and to God’s work here but it will also be a blessing to them as they see God responding in this new community.

We have had some responses from people who have wanted to partner with us in providing some of the immediate launch needs listed in our new giving section of our website (www.concordiachurch.com) and that is VERY EXCITING!  They are contributing to the launch with donations and by giving for specific needs too!

Thank you so much for praying for us as we held the “preview” worship yesterday. It was a bit light but we saw some new families from the community and new families from the preschool so that is a win in my book.  We are working on other elements of the Sunday morning experience…..but that is why it is a “PREVIEW”…..we get to try things and see what is working and what is not.
If you don’t subscribe to Pastor Schmidt’s blog I recommend you do (www..  He always has some thoughtful things to say.  Here is his blog post of this morning…..as he Monday morning quarterbacks yesterday service.

After reading this you will see why I so much appreciate working on his team. He is true and honest and is relentless in the pursuit of excellence and focus when it comes to helping new people connect with God and explore a journey with Him!  Do you want to get future posts directly to your email inbox?  Go to www.richardschmidt.wordpress.com and click on the link on the right bar that says: “Subscribe to RichardSchmidt’s Blog by Email.”

Thank you,
Melissa Salomon
Community Life Coordinator

Adjustments

Posted on February 1, 2010 by richardschmidt | Edit

Sunday’s preview felt a little like the Chargers/Jets game.  We’d been listening, evaluating, tweaking, making each preview better than the last one, and then Sunday was just “flat.”

It was long.  Worse, it seemed long.  The pace was slow. I was flat.  And, we tried to do too much.  And the result wasn’t a crystal clear message woven throughout the Sunday experience.  It was mush.

Now good things still happened, despite it all.  That’s a testimony to the grace of God and the power of the Spirit to do things in spite of us.  We had some new first-time guests; and there were still a few isolated moments that seemed to connect with people

But  overall, we didn’t hit the mark this Sunday.   Not by a long shot.

First of all, my apologies to any first time guest reading this.   We will do better.  We must do better. Second, my apologies to those who’ve been with us for several previews.   What happened on Sunday wasn’t what you’ve come to expect.  We’ve been improving each time, and this Sunday we didn’t.  Again, we will do better.  We must do better.   Hang with us.   And to all those who worked so hard to make Sunday happen (it takes 25-30 volunteers each week to pull it off); again, my apologies.  I really didn’t put you in the best position to have a “win.”

Now here’s the good news.   We still have time to adjust – and we will.   That’s why we do “previews” and practices — so we can work all those kinks out before GRAND OPENING.   True, Grand Opening is 20 days away, so there’s not a lot of time.  But that means we still do have TIME to learn from what we did and make it better before we open.

What happened, in a nutshell, is that I got away from the core game plan of FAM JAM: ONE deep truth experienced in a variety of simple ways and tried to teach two deep truths instead.   Actually, there was ONE deep truth behind it all – but I developed  that with two more DEEP truths, instead of  simple steps reinforcing the one big thing.

I tried to cram too much in.  And that didn’t work.

That wasn’t good news yesterday.  But it’s good news today, because my “Monday morning quarterbacking” took me back to the basics of the game plan.   I even wrote a series of  questions I need to run through in planning each Fam Jam that wil keep me focused on what we’re trying to do

I don’t like coming out flat, like we did on Sunday.  I never do.   But this time  I’m actually excited about failure, because this time,  we still have TIME to “fail forward,” to learn and grow from this, to ruthlessly evaluate what went wrong, make adjustments, and get it right the next time.

And we will.

So pray for us.  Pray for me.  If we’re going to get to 100 baptisms in 2010, we’ve got to get this right.

Facebook and Twitter taken over for launch updates

My facebook and twitter accounts are going to be dominated by launch updates.  We are here at church setting up for tomorrow……

Follow facebook launch updates at

www.facebook.com/melissasalomon

Follow me at twitter at

www.twitter.com/mgsalomon

It should be fun to be a part of the launch via very short messages and photos!

Join the fun!

It’s just  TWENTY TWO days to launch!

Prayer Update for January 29, 2010

Twenty three Days to Launch!  We have been waiting a very long time to step into these 23 days!

We have been giving lots of tours of the preschool. Director Mary Mason said she is giving lots of tours including one group to  5 families at ONCE. A bit wild.  A new group of students are joining every week it seems. Some classes have waiting lists. We are at 145 students!  Please pray as we readying registration packets next week, please. Pray for the teaching staff who are working hard and have had some challenges including health challenges during this winter season.

5,000 brochures were ordered today!  (I really like Willy Walt printers, 5,000 full color brochures on nice thick glossy paper for $249 and great customer service!)

We had the run through and prep of the welcome team tonight.  There is so much to a Sunday morning experience but it’s lots of fun working together with the large team that it takes to put a Sunday  morning together. Really! I am excited about welcoming two of our preschool teachers who are first time serving on the welcome team (thanks Gaby and Miriana!).  A new visitor to Sunday morning over the last couple of months of previews is serving on the drama team.

Please pray for those who will come on Sunday morning!  Pray for those who have been invited by friends, preschool families who have been invited by teachers, people from the neighborhood who received a postcard through the mail this week or who drive by and have seen the signs on our property.

Pray that more people will join us in one minute of prayer a day for this new church launch. Thanks to LM who just a few minutes ago sent me this email: “yes, i will be a prayer partner and i sent the info to some 10-20 other people!”

Pray that all these individual parts and prayers will come together to help us reach our goal of 100 baptisms in 2010.

Pray as we put together the preview of the classic tradition worship for February 14.

Pray as we begin to form the children’s ministry.

Pray as we make final decisions about staging and draping and decorator touches to the worship center.

Pray for more partners and donors to help provide the many immediate things needed for the start up. If you are able to give a gift of any size, please consider partnering with us to launch this church!  We have set up a giving page on our website found HERE. New this week is a NEEDS LIST that shares some of our immediate needs in the start up.  Thanks to volunteer KZ for building the website and figuring out how to turn ideas into website pages!

One of our volunteers is  as putting together a video for the website.

Pray as we continue to work on the website. This is new on the website this week in anticipation for our classic worship preview on February 14th:

Worship Format and Times

Our Fam Jam Experience
Have you ever been to a Disney or Pixar or Dreamworks movie with your family?  Everyone goes together, watches it together, enjoys the experience, and talks about it afterward.  Everyone, youngest to oldest, has fun.  And everyone, youngest to oldest gets something out of the movie.   In fact, in the best “kids movies”, everyone gets something at their own level of understanding.
What’s driving us to start Concordia in Windingwalk  is the relentless pursuit to create a place where the whole family can experience God together; and grow in God together; and make a difference in the community together.  It’s a relentless pursuit to experience deep truth in simple ways, drawing us deeper and deeper into the heart of God… TOGETHER.

Check us out…come along for a “test drive.”   Join us February 14, 2010 at 10:45am for our final preview before our GRAND OPENING.   Help us get this new church going.  It’s likely you’ll experience something in Sunday church like never before.

Our Classic Tradition Worship Experience
Do you resonate with classical forms of worship?  We will preview our classic format on Sunday, February 14, at 8:45 a.m.  We are led through a Christ-centered worship experience that weaves hymns, traditional liturgy, and a Bible-based  message that applies to everyday life together for a “cathedral-like” experience in a modern worship space.  Join us on the February 14th at 8:45 a.m. to help us test it out.

Pray as the preaching schedule is being put together for the Easter season.

Pray as we put together the small group program. Just talked last night with a volunteer who will help me with organizing/planning small groups in the Spring.

Pray as we put scheduling of welcome teams together now that we launch and will be doing this weekly! Pray that an additional person will be raised up to help with the scheduling duties!

Pray for protection, for strength, for health for the many volunteers and launching team.  Just this week I was talking to vendor about all the things we are doing and she said, “But, aren’t you a small congregation?”  The realization of this again chocked me up and all I could do was point a finger heavenward.

I am glad this church launch was God’s idea because this is an impossible task for this little congregation.  We have seen His miracles one after another.  We see Him continue to provide.  We see Him send us helpers and partners from within and even outside of the church.  We have seen Him send us volunteers and partners with EXACTLY the right gifts, skills and experience we need at the RIGHT moment!  We have seen him raise up people to pray……another 100 plus prayer partners have joined us this month.  We have seen it and through prayer updates you are witnessing it too. Thank you for being on this journey with us.  Continue to invite others to pray! If you get an opportunity, invite others to give to the needs of the start up too!

–Melissa Salomon, Concordia Community Life Coordinator

Prayer Update

We have had very unusual weather this week….buckets of rain, tornado warning, thunder, lightening, hail this morning.  It’s very weird. Southern Californians don’t know what to do in the rain.  It’s good for the California drought, it’s bad for the hundreds of thousands that live in make shift dwellings in Tijuana across the border in Mexico.  Please pray for those affected by the heavy rains in Tijuana as we also continue to pray for the millions affected in Haiti.

Please pray for the Preview coming up on January 31. Pray for those who have been invited … that they will come (and that all obstacles will be removed).

Pray for God’s Holy Spirit to work powerfully through the message of the day in the hearts of those who will be there to hear and experience worship.

Pray for the MANY tasks yet to do in preparing for the worship service, the preaching, the teaching, the music and the drama.  Pray also for the work we must yet do to warm up and make the worship center space look more like a “church” and less like a cafeteria room!

Pray thanksgiving for volunteers who have donated their time to help us shoot a video for the church launch last night.  This video will be placed on the website and unveiled at the preview of February 14.  We are especially grateful to Jeff Horvath of the Horvath Group. He is a professional videographer, photographer and also does event staging  He gave us an evening along with his audio engineer Rodney, for the shoot and this project despite his busy schedule.  If your business needs these kinds of services, consider giving the Horvath Group an opportunity to serve you. It is amazing how much time it takes to put together a video project.  It will probably take a total of 30 hours by the time all the editing is done to produce a 2 or 3 minutes video.

Pray for Pastor Schmidt and other mission team members as preaching series, ministry calendaring, and outreach programs are being planned and finalized.

Pray for our Oxford site.  Pray that this property might be the perfect place for a church or school to rent or purchase.  Ask God to guide that group to find our property.

Pray for a new team that is forming which will work on the children’s ministry strategy.  Pray God will inspire them with powerful ideas born in God’s own heart on how His love can be communicated best to these young children of God.

Pray for the first direct mail postcards that will go to 5,000 homes in the area of the new church next week Monday or Tuesday inviting our neighbors to the next preview.  Pray that it catches the attention of many and that it is noticed by those where God has already prepared hearts to seek Him.

Sidenote:  I just got back from a meeting in Anaheim and ran into one of our prayer partners.  We have asked our prayer partners to pray for an additional 1,000 prayer partners and 100 baptisms in 2010……my friend told me she’s been praying for 1,000 baptisms!  I like her vision (thanks Judy!)….  It make me think that our vision pales to what God can and will do….which is more than we can ask or imagine. That is a good vision!

²⁰Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20,21)

Prayer Partner Update – January 11, 2010

“One more thing friends: Pray for us.  Pray that the Master’s Word will simply take off and race through the country to a groundswell of response, just as it did among you.” (2 Thess. 3: 1 The Message)

Dear Prayer Partners,

I woke up early…..I mean really early and fired up my YouVersion Bible for the iPhone which keeps my place as I am reading through the New Testament. The above was the first line I read!  Yes, that is Concordia’s prayer as we serve this new community in East Chula Vista.

Thank you for your prayers on behalf of the Concordia Mission Launch. Yesterday was our fourth preview. The first three have been rough although each time we addressed it seemed like TONS of issues between the monthly previews and each time we could see marked improvement but yesterday was a totally different experience!  We went from a decent improvement to OFF THE CHART!  God blessed us with an amazing day. There were so many new faces from the community and families from the preschool that are checking us out too! The flow was nearly seamless which is remarkable considering there are so many elements to the worship experience from a rotating mixture of music, to drama (some of which includes young children) to video to message.  Some of the things we have been talking about…..like including new people in serving opportunities right away, actually happened like we envisioned.  One family that visited for the first time at the last preview last month returned the communication card that checked the young mom would like to participate in drama pieces.  Pastor and the drama team worked with her and she was brave enough to do a 2 minute pantomime (with engagement from those present) further demonstrating the BIG TRUTH of the day (compassion takes action).  Putting together this experimental worship experience is certainly risky but we know deep down that God has called us to be a church that takes risks as we are reaching people for Him…..and to change the world!

It takes about 25 people serving essentially throughout the worship and EVERYONE WAS TOTALLY ON THIER GAME!  I received ann email from one of our welcome team late last night with some of her reflections: “It really is coming together. Everyone seemed so relaxed today. It was wonderful.”

God is so good.  All the time.  And we are so grateful when we can see some of the stuff that He is doing!

As we journey closer to the launch date….in just 41 days!… we are inviting more people to join us in prayer.  Thank you so much for your commitment to walk with us during this time.  Please invite people you know who would like to be a part of this exciting venture of God, born in His very mind!  We are asking people to pray one minute a day for the next 100 days. Share the prayer partner blog site with them: www.concordiatogether.com .  There they will see the video request from Pastor Schmidt there or share the youtube link with them. (found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3AO17ArAJQ )

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers on our behalf.

Coming up prayer needs:

Pray for the “groundswell of response” in this new community, to God’s word, His Love and His Amazing Grace.

Pray as we focus a bit on warming up the provisional worship space. As we have focused on the worship, this has been definitely on the back burner.  We have reserved two future preschool rooms in the new preschool building for our worship space but need to warm it up a bit and make it look more like church. There are still cords hanging from the ceiling and it looks rather sterile yet.

Pray for strength, energy, focus, insight, confidence in the workings of the Holy Spirit, protection, health for the mission team…..especially Pastor Schmidt as he is finalizing the preaching schedule.

Pray for our efforts to be inviting to the 130 or so preschool families that have joined us in the new preschool and to share the vision of what could happen in their lives as they join other families learning each time, one BIG TRUTH about God as a family…in one place… at one time.

Pray for an upcoming video we will shoot for the website (and pray a blessing on two video professionals from outside the church who are collaborating with us and donating their time, talent and professional equipment to help us make this video).

Pray for  a direct mail piece that will be sent out to more than 5,000 homes in the immediate area of the new church which will reach homes the week before the next launch of January 31. We are thankful for an Ablaze! grant that is helping us do the direct mail that is letting our community know we are here!

Pray as we move from monthly previews to a preview in three weeks, then one two weeks later and the following week the launch!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for praying.

Melissa Salomon

Community Life Coordinator

Concordia Church and School

Pray for the Preview this Sunday, January 10

We are excited about this New Year.  Please invite others to pray one minute a day for the next 100 days.  Share the youtube video clip by Pastor Schmidt.

Pray for 1,000 new prayer partners.

Pray for the invitations we have made to the next preview this Sunday, January 10 at 10:45.

Pray for protection and health for the mission team.

Pray for those that will hear and experience worship on Sunday.

Pray for the team that will be serving on Sunday also.

Coming Up:  Pray for the mailing being prepared which will reach 5,000 homes in the area of the church next week.  Pray also for the preparation of a video clip to promote the mission launch. We are grateful for the partnership and donation of his time and professional equipment to tape this of Jeff Horvath of Horvath Group. He is a photographer specializing in business video productions and event staging.

More Photos from the Living Nativity

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650 people show up to the Living Nativity!

The evening was beautiful…..and more than 650 people showed up to see the Living Nativity!  We could have never imagined this many people would come.  What an amazing opportunity to tell the story of the birth of Christ in the public square!

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