Steve Bowen: March 2008

awareness...how we see..where's your focus

Easter Egg Drive Thru...How do you spell traffic jam?

wow what a day...our special set up team arrived on time at 9am...we set up the Egg Stations, signs, unpacked the egg bags, ate some great Krispy Kreeme donuts, downed some coffee and waited for the next team...

Interestingly we advertised the hunt to begin at 11am yet people began to line up their cars at 10am...
A sense of 'o boy what's going to happen' began to drift into my head.

The Egg Drive Thru teams arrived we went over instructions...ever tried to explain instructions or a concept...for something you've never done before? What we were doing was fluid, innovative, moving, morphing, learning as you go type of idea.

Who would guess that thousands of people decided to come out to an Egg Hunt in wind blowing ice crystals cold...better than last year where the temp was a -17 bone chilling, teeth grinding gale. This year the temp was a balmy 32.

We began moving the cars into the drive thru at 10:30 am...the cars began to line up in a bumper to bumper fashion backing up past the entrance of the park down the street past the entrance left and right in both directions for two blocks...That's a lot of cars and a lot of people in those cars.

We finally found a rhythm in about 30 minutes... Cars pull in... Egg givers walk to cars...ask how many kids...give number of pre-bagged eggs into car with a smile and have a great Easter along with an invite to our Easter Services and a flyer explaining why we were serving.

The vibe, atmosphere was filled with excitement...Dora the Explorer, Sponge Bob, Winnie the Poo, a 6 foot giant Easter Bunny, Zowie the clown and Ronald McDonald all waved and welcomed the kids.

The Drive Thru lasted for 2 hrs of constant keep em moving banter...This was the trick...how to keep cars moving...keep people safe...without sounding like a drill sargent. I admit I was a bit bossy in an upbeat type of way.

Our small army of main traffic keep em moving guys, did a great non-stop job. In the midst of all this movement...there was a sense of peace, fun, and encouragement. Our community loved the idea, kids hanging out the windows, pictures being taken with Dora, the giant Easter bunny and grateful parents relieved that they didn't have to stand out in the cold...Many smiles, thank yous, you guys are nuts, way to gos, smiles and waves as people drove away.

Our teams out did themselves in their positive serving and flexibility willing to attempt something new and out of the box. I like great ideas, teamwork, innovation, fun, full of energy, genuine serving, and caring for our community in ways that really make a difference.

Easter Egg Drive Thru

here we go...last night at our training evening we talked about breaking down barriers and building bridges into our community. We exist to serve our way into the heart of our community. We are unlike the Boy Scouts etc. because we are motivated by God's love found in Jesus Christ. He is the hope and the savior we need we serve because He serves.

A hundred people showed up for the training. It's interesting, out of the 100 people I noticed several people who are attending the Vineyard who are in the process of discovering faith. I sense they are being accepted and are serving gaining a sense of belonging before they believe. They are hopefully picking up... serving is normative to the Christian journey.

St. Patrick used to create organic communities of faith were people could find a sense of belonging and at the same time be able to process Faith. George Hunter III has a great book titled the Celtic Way of Evangelism that talks about St. Patrick and how he reached into the heart of community.

We bagged 15,000 eggs prizes, peeps, etc in 20 minutes and loaded the trucks.

Saturday will be an interesting day.

e:training

great time yesterday...over a hundred people turned out for the event...great presentations from all the speakers...

new ideas, the importance of relationships strongly deposited, as well as the process of discovering faith...I asked, "how many of you came to Christ the first time you heard the good new?...please raise your hand." No hands were raised...point made, discovering faith is a process.

People are either moving toward Jesus or moving away. Our job as believers is to listen, discover a persons spiritual address, and encourage them in their journey toward Jesus Christ.

A great day, good buzz, excited people.

We used some of Bill Hybels Just walk across the room. This tool is a great resource available @. We used several clips. The value of telling your story, How not to tell a bad story, How to clearly preset the good news using the Bridge, Do vs Done and the Morality Gap illustrations.

Highly recommended.

Cincy Vineyard also just completed 4 sessions on the "e" word. Also, worth a listen...the videos are available on line. www.cincyvineyard.com

Easter Egg Hunt 2008

e:training

e:training we've heard it's going to be a great time. We're pretty dog gone excited about next Saturday, 15 March at 9am.

We have some great speakers, interactive, informative and self study materials lined up. The speakers are all some of the best. All are been there, doin the stuff kind of people, practitioners not just theorist.

Scott Sliver is the number two leader with Doug Roe at The Dayton Vineyard a pretty good church. Under their leadership the church has grown from a handful of people to around 3000.They started serving the city by caring for the poor and needy, then moving to major Servant Evangelism outreach events all the while nurturing the people who gathered at the Vineyard.

Doug Pollock encourages discovery / revelation of a personal heart belief which often move people toward Jesus Christ. His is the E Director for AIA. He has been in over 39 countries and has spoken to small groups to major crowds. His insightful wondering questions draw people into dialogue. His contribution in Irresistible Evangelism project is one of the highlights of the best selling training course.

Steve Bowen is the E Pastor for The Dayton Vineyard a pretty good church. He was a church planter in Scotland for 18 years, worked for the Cincy Vineyard, and has developed on-ramps for service at the Dayton Vineyard. Over the past 5 years hundreds of Vineyard people have served the community in practical ways.

Julie Mitchel is part of Youth With A Missions Impact World Tour. The tour is currently in Ohio's greater Miami Valley. The tour uses creative communication connected to extreme events to reach the youth of our generation. Last year in northern Ohio the tour touched nearly 50,000 people. Julie has a passion to see the youth of our world discover faith in Jesus Christ.