Focus Teams

One part of our new leadership structure is the Focus Teams component. The idea is to separate the Foundation ministry into different ministy areas that can be focused on by a team of individuals. These teams of individuals make up the Focus Teams. The goal is to have more people actively engaged in ministry so that they are able to use their unique gifts to serve God in a meaningful way. Below you'll find some information about each focus team. If you are interested in joining one of these teams, please send an email to thecorefoundation@gmail.com and someone will contact you ASAP.


The Focus teams are Spiritual Growth, Outreach, and Creative Team . Outlined below is what each Focus team will be responsible for accomplishing:

SPIRITUAL GROWTH:
*Small groups- recognize leaders for each group, review and select material, make sure each group has a place to meet, place people in groups
*Discipleship- prepare for a leadership study during the summer while small groups are on hold
*Prayer team
*HangOUT- decide meeting place, plan ahead, scripture discussion, fun outing

OUTREACH:
*Missions- service projects (2-3 per semester) for small groups and the Foundation as a whole, put together a contact sheet of names and phone numbers of the options (local and in NC) for projects
*Recruting- give ideas to HangOUT team for recruiting and fun outings, call people to invite to events
*Outreach- research needs in the community and at CCC, get volunteers to be greeters and for hospitality at events
*Publicity- CCC commercial, club fairs, flyers, giveaways, email people and update website about events, newspaper ads/publicity, contact churches to let them know ways the Foundation can serve them, create contact cards/bookmarks with information about the Foundation to pass out to people

CREATIVE TEAM:
*Worship Services- plan services, songs, preaching, sound, location, setup, breakdown, video presentation, creative ways to make the service different (message planning), tech team (sound, power point, lights, film, etc…)
*Website- update, schedule bloggers, creative media (media, songs, sermons, videos), message board, prayer wall, feedback wall or board, calendar, post the service and get feedback (media,video, and audio)
*Touring Group- organize events, song and message if needed, scheduling places to go (churches or other)

Foundation Leadership Structure

Ok, so here is a diagram of the newly created Foundation Leadership Structure that was revealed at the Strategic Planning retreat. Take a look, ask questions, and share what you think. I'll post more information regarding individual parts of the model later. Enjoy!




(click image to enlarge)

Foundation Vision

Hey yall! Last service we talked about the vision for The Foundation and I thought it would be helpful to put it up online as well. I'll put up the strategic gameplan for our vision later but these are the main areas where we want to see people growing in. Enjoy!

Mission Statement

We exist to bring glory and honor to God. Our mission is to go out into the world sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and making disciples of all people.

VISION

We want every disciple to grow in these four facets:

Foundation:

Disciples who are grounded in the truth of God’s Word which is salvation through Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 3.11-For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Fellowship:

Genuine disciples who are engaging in authentic community with other believers to be God’s people.

Acts 2.42-47- They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Follow:

Gospelized disciples who are intentionally pursuing Jesus to become more like Him.

Matthew 4.19- "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

Feed:

Missional disciples who are equipped and confident to reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus in a way that makes God’s love tangible.

John 6.35- Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 21.18-Jesus said, "Feed my sheep…

WARNING! Contents Under Pressure May Explode: Warning Signs of a Church in Danger

When I was younger and still to this day I have an obsession with fire, danger and anything that explodes. I guess you could call me a high-tech-pyro-redneck! One thing I used to enjoy doing back in the glory days was making Draino bombs. With the right combination of tin foil, draino and plastic, one can take a 2 Liter bottle and have some fun. Once the ingredients are mixed and the lid screwed on, the bottle begins to expand, very quickly. The contents become under great pressure and eventually "bam," the bottle explodes from the pressure. (metal trashcans sound the best, haha).

The church is similar. Churches have life cycles. Churches are born, churches grow, and churches die. Here are four warning signs of a church in danger:

• Lack of Vision: What is vision? Vision is a specific, detailed statement of direction, unique to an individual or church’s ministry. Its clear. It concentrates on the future. It's from God. It unifies, it empowers, it’s inspiring, and it’s contagious. It creates passion, it creates action. It challenges, It separates. It's a ministry's strategic game plan. Vision is key.

Vision Killers: Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of the unexpected, Tradition for the sake of Tradition, Complacency, and Lukewarmness(Rev. 3.14-22).
Results: Apathetic Christians. No passion. Shoulders sag, hope fades, and the dream of doing something great for God diminishes. No direction.

• Lack of Leadership: In case you didn’t know, the Pastor isn’t the only minister in the church. We place the responsibility on other people's shoulders and then complain when things aren't the way we want them to be. Pastor's are burdened down by having to spend all their time workin IN the church and don't have time to work ON the church.

• Lack of Growth: Healthy things grow, period. A thriving ministry should be growing. And yes, numbers matter. Numbers represent souls and souls matter to God. Many times we get comfortable with the size of our ministry or church, while there are still numbers of people all around us in the community dying and going to hell. A ministry should be growing. True disciples create more Christ-followers.

• Lack of Unity: Division in churches is the biggest danger of them all. This happens as a result of all of the above warning signs, but goes much deeper. This is the result of sin in the church. Pride, selfishness, and gossip are the big ones the divide a church quicker than anything.

Relieving the Stress

• Cast Vision- Jesus said we are to be Fishers of Men. Vision is like the bait. What good is bait if its stuck in the tackle box of the fisherman? Can’t catch a fish is you don’t cast the bait. So as a church we aren’t gonna catch men unto Christ is we don’t cast a vision.

• Creat Disciples-We will be much for effective in creating geniune Christ-following disciples if we quit teaching people a set of "Do Nots," on how to be like us, and instead challenge and teach them the person of Jesus and encourage them to fall madly in love with Him.

• Be Relevant- Meet the needs of the community around you. Tradition for the sake of tradition isn't going to cut it. As the needs change in the culture around us the church must change methods to reach the lost. Change the method and hang on to the same Message.

• Be Unified- Quit sinning habitually. Stomp out gossip. Humble yourself and squash pride. Be servants. Take ownership and responsibility for how the church is.

( These are some notes from the sermon I preached at Sandy Run for those of yall who were not there)

What If?

I was checkin out Perry's blog today and man he hit a homerun on this one, so I thought I'd share it with ya'll. He' calling us out to think about how we limit God and to answer the question what if:

"Maybe it's just me--but I don't really think that Jesus died on a cross so that a group of people could get together and swap casserole recipes! I think there was more of an intentional purpose--Jesus died, rose again, and then commissioned us to go and tell as many people as possible--NOT to sit in a room and have a business meeting to discuss whether or not it is God's will to paint the restrooms a different color!

What if we dreamed big?

What if we all believed that God is as big as the Bible says He is and is capable of doing more than we could have ever asked for or imagined?

What if we wanted our churches to be a place where people came in and the only thing that offended them was the cross and not the people wearing one?

What if we believed that people were one breath away from eternity and that motivated us to get as many people in the doors as possible to hear about Jesus?

What if we actually worshipped God with our money instead of worshipping ourselves?

What if we were never satisfied--don't get me wrong--there is a difference between thankful and satisfied...but what if we continually thanked God--but continually asked Him to do more?

What if we were a church who was more concerned with who we were reaching than who we are keeping?

What if we were willing to pray bold prayers and take HUGE risks?

Let's dream big--let's ask God for huge things--let's believe He is able and capable of reaching those far from Christ...and let's take the necessary risks in order to impact this community in an incredible way! "




I can't imagine what our churches would look like if we did this. I'd say Perry has been thinking about these questions. Maybe thats why the church he pastors has grown to 7,000 people in just a matter of a few years and he's in South Carolina of all places.

Webb's Notes

Below are Webb's notes from the previous Foundation meeting at DSBC. I also want to remind everyone of the Graduation Service which we will be leading on May 21st and to be praying for that worship gathering. If you have any questions email me, the link is on the side.


Notes from Webb:

THE FOUNDATION 4-15-06

Things we should do:

- have a main purpose

- do everything intentionally

- foster meaningful relationships rather than just many

- emphasize growing in relationship with God, community with insiders, and influence with outsiders.

Target Group:

- Post high-school to 30 yrs.

- Un-churched

- Don’t steal from other churches

- “Apathetic” Christians

- Returners

1. What do we want People to become?

- Disciples

1. following Christ everyday
2. involved in the continual process of maturing

2. What do we want people to do?

- Be growing in

1. intimacy with God
2. community with Believers
3. influence with outsiders

3. Where do we want people to go?

- Small Groups

How Do We Accomplish This?

Casual Relationships->Open Group Event or Worship Service--->
Group Link---> Small Group

Here's the notes I typed up from the last meeting. I think one of the largest discoveries regarding our discussion was the general conclusion that there is a need for a intermediate stage between worship services and small groups, called a "Group Link," which would function somewhat like a wednesday night youth lesson (execept way cooler and more mature and named something really smooth of course). This will require not a small amount of work for the individual responsible for coordinating it. I think a good topic for the next core group meeting should be to ascertain some estimations on when we want particular elements to be in place. For example if we start with worship services, how many weeks will it be before we schedule the first Group Link, and if we will start small groups at the end of the summer after we play it by ear. I think it may be good to have a core group meeting before the graduation worship service that we are supposed to lead in May.

The Foundation

1 Corinthians 3.11 - For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.


On this first ever Foundation blog, let me say this: everything we do must start and end with the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Everything else done, is done in vain if Jesus is not the foundation. The Foundation is just a small group of Christ-followers seeking to build on the foundation which Jesus has laid before us.

We are a small group seeking to live out this "Jesus thing" in our daily lives and to sharing the hope of Jesus with others.

The vision has started. God is at work. May we build on the Foundation of Jesus.