First, I’ll list the basic order of elements to our service and then I’ll give some thoughts.

Sundays 10 AM

• (Actually 9:55 am) Countdown video
• Opening video on the theme of the day.
• Welcome with time to greet others
• Music
• Offering
• Video themed to message
• Message
• Response
• Music with prayer opportunity

Of course, there will be changes from time to time, but this is where we start each week. I didn’t put our time targets in place, however, this new format is designed for the Music at the end to start at 11:05.

There really isn’t anything too radical in this change and other churches have and are using a very similar format. For us, this is a decent change from what we had been doing.

One thing we don’t want to do is get locked into something to the point that the form becomes greater than the purpose. Methods, forms, formats, and styles change, but we do not change the message of hope and lifechange that comes from Jesus. Our purpose of knowing Christ and making Him known is the constant in our decision making processes.

This is our format for now.

We have a good diversity of people who attend on Sunday mornings with differing ideas and preferences when it comes to some of what we do in church. This current format comes from conversations with some of these as well as feedback we received from guests. A couple of “why” thoughts behind this change:

• Quite honestly, we had too many preliminaries before the message and were hearing that it took too long to get to the message. This played out as people arrived later and later in the service over time leaving our band starting with just a few people in the room. We have shortened the time before the message so that it will start about 15 minutes into the service.
• The first set of music will be no more than 2 songs that are more upbeat and help get us in the right frame of mind for the message.
• The music at the end of the service will be more worshipful/contemplative in style and tone to allow for people to pray and reflect allowing God to speak to them. We will also have people available to meet with those who wish to receive prayer during this time. By pushing this time to the end of the service it affords more flexibility in the prayer and response time. It also allows those who desire a longer time of music and singing in worship to have that without being rushed by the next element in our service schedule. Those who don’t connect as well with music can slip out without being a distraction.
• Our goal is to provide a meaningful experience for each person that attends so that they can connect with God and His message with as few detractors as possible.

There is no “perfect” format that will reach everyone and we know that some will not connect with our way of doing things. However, this seems to be working well for us for the first few weeks that we have used it as it allows for those who want more music as well as those who want less and we can keep the focus on God’s Word and what He is doing in people’s lives.

This, of course, is just a nutshell account of what has been behind our change in format that we are going to use for the time being.

If you have experienced one of our new format services, feel free to leave your thoughts below in the comments. If you have any questions, feel free to post those as well.

That now infamous press conference with coach Jim Mora is forever etched in our brains thanks to a couple of different beer commercials.

It is no secret that I am a big fan of football. The NFL has always been my favorite form of football to watch. From the first time I saw Joe Montana play, I have been an avid 49ers fan. I don’t remember the exact game or even what year it was, probably 1980. I think I was seven. Watching that master of the game direct the offense and thread the defenses with those tight spirals had me hooked. I’ve been watching pro football ever since.

This time of year is bitter sweet for me. The playoffs are exciting and a lot of fun, but it also means that in a few weeks, football will be finished for several months.

This year is, of course, very exciting! With the 49ers finally back in the hunt as legitimate contenders, this playoff season has been a blast. I am greatly looking forward to the game on Sunday against the Giants.

My wife got me a fantastic present for Christmas this year, a throwback Joe Montana jersey. Sweet!

Anyway, my prediction for the games this weekend:

AFC

• Ravens 20
• Patriots 31

NFC

• Giants 17
• 49ers 26

As much as I think a Ravens vs. 49ers Superbowl would be and see the Harbaugh brothers coaching against each other again, I don’t think it will happen.

We are holding a Super Bowl party at the church on February 5 at the church. However, Indianapolis is only a couple of hours away, so if someone would like to give me tickets to the big game…..

My Joe Montana jersey I got for Christmas!

During the month of January, we are taking time each Sunday to lay out the vision and direction for this new year. Our theme is “The Next Step.”

All year long we will be talking about taking the next step for us as individuals in our career, our family, our health, our finances, our spiritual walk with God, as well as the next step for us as a church.

We have an exciting year ahead for us as we walk this path. There will be new events and outreach opportunities, our youth ministry is growing and building a new momentum, our Easter Egg Hunt will be bigger than ever, we are partnering with a new church launching in Westerville, and we are planting a new church in Gahanna/Blacklick in September.

CapCity, I can tell you that you don’t want to miss what God is going to do this year through us, through and in you.

This Sunday we will take the next step with “Charge Up” as continue looking at the vision for 2012. Also on Sunday we will have some special guest missionaries from the Zambia!

• Each Tuesday I will post a Bible study. This will most often be in the form of a video post with some text support. We will start next week at 1 John 1. We will walk through the books of 1,2,&3 John.
• Thursdays will be a random day where I post about life, sports, technology, whatever. This is also where I will post book reviews.
• Fridays I will post regarding Capital City Church. This will include upcoming series, a preview of the upcoming Sunday, things that are happening and other thoughts regarding this great congregation.
• The weekends will be sporadic as I post from time to time about things currently happening.

The goal of this new focus is to blog more regularly and provide more content.

Very soon, I will start blogging excerpts to a book I hope to have finished by the end of the year. When this starts, I will post these on Saturdays.

I look forward to the journey together in 2012.

The problem is simple. Life is not linear and neat and tidy.

Everyone of us has to deal with the unexpected, the interruptions, and the unplanned. It is a normal part of life. That day when the “To Do” list becomes the “Didn’t do today got to do tomorrow” list is something we each face.

This is where the margin we built into our block schedule comes in.

Let’s start with appointments, in the last priority we should have included an appointment block into our schedule. I have two regular blocks set aside and three for lunch appointments (see image 1). These can be appointments where someone wants to see me or where I ask to see them. Our secretary has access to my calendar through Google and can actually set appointments for me in the two main blocked times when people call to ask for a meeting. (I’ll post later on how we handle calls for a meeting and what guidelines we use.) I set my own lunch appointments.

We also should have in our block schedule time allocated for unplanned/unexpected things (see image 2). This allows a time to slot those things that come up and still be able to remain on track with those things that are a part of our purpose and flow with our priority list. We also have the white space on our calendars which gives us some room for adjustment and add on items as well. We just need to be careful and guard what and how often we allow things to invade that space that are not part of our top three priorities.

Of course, if nothing unexpected or extra happens in a week (yeah right) then we have that margin time to catch up on things that have slipped or even work ahead to get ready for the next busy season that will come about.

There will be those unexpected things and even opportunities that arise that take a whole day or more. With this schedule, you will be able to decide how to respond best as you will truly know what is being affected with a yes. It also helps us plan for those weeks that are crazier than others in advance instead of getting in the middle of them and scrambling to keep up.

The next post in this series will deal with managing our use of Social Media and email.

What are your thoughts or questions?

This post will look at the regular meetings that take place less frequently then every week. How do we plan in a weekly schedule for those meetings that take place monthly, every other week, quarterly, and so on?

It starts where we start with every meeting: is it truly important and necessary for me to be there? If not, then it’s easy, don’t be there. For those meetings that we need to attend, we then look at who determines when and where they meet, how long they last, etc. The more control or input we have in the meeting the more planning and time we need to take in this step of scheduling and blocking time for that meeting.

• If it is up to us to set the time, place, etc, then we need to fit it into our schedule according to our priority list. This meeting cannot take away from Sabbath, Health, or Family. After looking at our weekly schedule, we can then determine, the best time and day for this meeting. This applies whether it is a daytime or evening meeting. Even in the less-than-weekly meetings, our priorities remain in tact.
• If someone else dictates the time, place, duration, etc. then we simply add it to our monthly calendar as a recurring event knowing that we will likely need to rearrange something that week in order to accommodate the meeting properly.

If we need to have items prepared for that meeting, it is important to have time blocked  beforehand to get the preparation done. We can add that in now as well where appropriate. As far as I know, all computer calendar programs and services allow for repeating events at various intervals (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.). Just use this function to make sure that each of the items that are your responsibility to do get done. By setting appointments for the preparation the same as we set the appointment for the event, we are less rushed and better prepared for our meetings and events. This is one of the reasons we weren’t even more specific in the previous step. By allowing some margin and unplanned time before, we can allocate some of that now for these other regular meetings and events we are a part of .

The next post: appointments, unexpected, once-in-awhile, and other changes to our schedules…

What are your thoughts?

We do a lot of collaboration on our team working on documents and projects together. I have highlighted some of the tools we use for that: Dropbox, SugarSync, Evernote, Google Wave, and of course, good “old fashioned” email. The one we use for our sermon preparation has been Google Wave. It is a great product, but it has two drawbacks:

• The first is it requires a gmail account for anyone to access it. This isn’t a major issue, but it does limit the accessibility for some at first and it requires those on the team who do not use gmail to add another account to keep track of.
• The second is the fact that Google is no longer supporting Wave and has not replaced its functions with anything else. It is only a matter of time until this tool is no longer available at all.

We have been on the search for a suitable replacement. We have a found a good one, but it is not perfect. It has one drawback keeping it from being the exact tool we are needing. We’ll get to that in a moment.

This new tool is called Shareflow. It is a free service that has some very nice features. I’ll just focus on how we are currently using it. It does have some features that we are not using at this time, but very easily could in the future. We just started using this with our current two sermon series we are working on.

We use a procedure very similar to what we were doing in Google Wave before.

We start by creating a new “Flow” for an upcoming sermon series. After posting the initial outline and guide for the series, we invite the applicable team members to share in that flow. We have a base team that is our teaching and prep team, but from time to time, we include others based on the topics and plans for a particular series. Adding new members is easy, just type in their email (any) and an invite is sent. It is not specific to gmail, yahoo, or any other provider.

Shareflow allows for a user to manage multiple flows at one time and easily see or hide the flows with a simple click on the left hand side of the screen.

After the members accept the invite, they have full access to each of the flows of which they are a part. As we work through each message, the team can respond with comments and ideas and everyone on the team has equal access and input. This is where the one drawback comes in. In Wave, a team member has the ability to insert a comment anywhere in the discussion including inside someone else’s comment/contribution. In Shareflow, at this time, comments are linear only and added to the end like a chat. This just requires each contributor to be specific about what they are replying to.

I very much like the clean look and interface of Shareflow, it is better than the cluttered look of Google Wave.

There is an iPhone app available, but the mobile site version works very well on all mobile devices I have seen. It is easy to use, easy to add anyone, and it is free. At this time, it is the best Wave replacement we have found and even solves one of our ongoing issues with the exclusivity of Wave.

Have you found any online collaboration tool that works well for you and your team?

We are only working on weekly at the moment. We will set up other regularly schedule events (monthly, bi-weekly, quarterly, etc) in the next post.

Of course, if your work schedule is set by someone else, that needs to be put into your calendar first because it is outside of your control.

With the time you do control we start with the first priority, the Sabbath. We have already blocked the day, now add in the times for your daily times in prayer and devotions. In the image below, you can see that my times are adjusted slightly according to each day. I don’t get up as early on Saturdays or my day off.

Next, include your times for personal health. Of course, these very by day and by person. It is all about finding what works for you to maintain consistency. (see image)

Now we add in family time. This includes known sports/activity schedules of your children that are regular as well as general family time.

This takes us to our purpose. Now we add in those things that may be personal or career, but they fit the purpose which we are called to and passionate about. These tings that are “musts” for us to do.

After our purpose items are added, then we add in our weekly meetings.

That leaves us with margin, that extra time we need to catch the unexpected and everything else.

Here is what it looks like…

You can see some times listed for unplanned items with something planned to fill that time if something doesn’t come up. This along with the white spaces provide the margin needed.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the sight of a calendar this full. The truth is, your written/printed calendar might not look this full, but the reality is likely worse. By having this in place, it will help you control your reality a little better and get more accomplished. This also helps us to know what is being set aside when another appointment/event is added in. While this can look overwhelming or restrictive, it is actually quite liberating once it is put into practice.

The next post will bring in the other events that don’t happen weekly.