There has never been a time in history when church leaders had more access to what the most influential churches in America are doing. Between blogs, podcasts, online sermons, open source materials, e-mail, and books, we can access some of the most innovative leaders of our time.� And there are also a multitude of church conferences offered all around the country. We have had some special times as a church when we’ve taken our leaders to conferences. In the past we’ve been to the Drive conference at Northpoint, Unleashed at Newspring, C3 at Fellowship, and Catalyst. They have all been great and have their own unique strengths. Pastor Furtick is actually speaking at Mountain Lake’s churchplanters.com conference this February.� �

So what is Elevation’s plan for 08? Well, of course we’ll take a crew down to Mountain Lake to support Pastor and check the conference out. We’re also going to go big for Unleashed at Newspring. The best thing about Unleashed (other than Newspring is great) is that since it a shorter event and close we can take our volunteer leaders.� We’ll also be returning back to our roots this February. We’re excited to be taking our entire staff to C3 at Fellowship Church in Dallas. Prior to launching Elevation, Pastor and I made our first trip to C3 to begin dreaming about what would become Elevation. At the time, my knowledge about church was minimal to say the least and C3 rocked my world. We’re excited to expose our entire staff to what God is doing in Dallas.� �

The other conferences that are on our potential go-to list are Innovate at Granger and if we can work a California trip in, the Thrive Conference at Bayside. In the end, our goal is to expose ourselves to what others are doing and what God is blessing all over the country.� Finally, we use these conference trips to develop and invest time in our staff and key volunteers. The conferences are great but some of the most valuable time is spent before and after the event with each other. You definitely can’t measure how valuable a conference trip can be at building a strong, unified team from a line item in the budget.� �

Chunks Corbett, Executive Pastor

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About a week ago I wrote a blog entry that centered on our new believer follow up process.� My purpose for the blog was to introduce our philosophy; you can read about it here.

At Elevation we have decided that we are going to cast the net as wide as we can in order to catch as many fish as possible.� Jesus teaches a parable about this topic in Matthew 13:24-30 that has guided our decision.� He suggests that the risk of trying to ‘pluck the weeds’ is far too great, you might unintentionally ‘harm the wheat’.� It’s better to leave the ‘weeds’ alone and let God separate them out at the end of the age.�

We have applied this basic principle to how we call people to salvation in our worship experiences.� On occasion we may get some people who for the wrong reasons, or without a complete understanding ‘check the box’, but isn’t that risk worth it in order to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to genuinely receive Christ’s eternal gift of salvation.� There will always be time to separate the wheat from the weeds later on, but frankly, God didn’t ask us to separate his harvest, he told us to sow the seed!

So, with all that said, here’s what we are working on to provide as many touch points as possible after someone ‘checks the box’.�

• We have put together a Nextlevel packet (this consists of a Bible, a letter from Pastor Steven, a book mark with the plan of salvation on one side and the table of contents for their new Bible on the other, and a copy of our most recent worship CD).�
• Also the people who ‘check the box’ will receive an email from Pastor that afternoon.� This email invites them to share their story with us.
• Immediately, following the service a team of people begin plugging people’s information into a spreadsheet that is loaded on Google Documents and by 6:00pm many of the people who ‘checked the box’ that morning are receiving a phone call from us.�
• Following that phone call people can choose to take any number of ‘next steps’ including a class about our church called 4G’s, a group devoted to New Believers called Starting Point (thanks North Point), a regular small group and/or a volunteer opportunity.

We don’t have a perfect system.� But we have a clear vision: people far from God being filled with life in Christ.� To that end we are casting, to that end we are sowing seeds, and to that end we are tending the harvest that has been brought in!!!

John Bishop, Community Groups Pastor
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I sometimes just like to get my thoughts written down that I feel are stages of our church’s development. As Elevation grows we encounter some things that are obvious to churches older and larger than we are but nonetheless new to us. So here is my version of a budget shift we just went through. It’s nothing revolutionary but should be relevant to the guys over the financial books of church plants.

The shift is simple.� We finally feel like we can accurately predict our spending. The last few years have really been a struggle to stay somewhat close to our budget (this is OK if you also underestimated the income). We had things come up like adding a campus (not cheap) and equipment upgrades. What bank account do you pay for unexpected capital expense items? Most church planters have one bank account that they are just trying to keep in the black.

Here are the two biggest reasons why we’ve been able to shift. First we’ve actually got a complete year of expense history to help project 2008. This also includes two quarters that have been relatively consistent. Second and where I’ll spend the most time, we now can truly separate our capitalized expenditures and operating expenses. This is because we have gone through a capital campaign and have a designated account to future expansion. This will cover the next campus we open, the satellite technology to simulcast and other technology upgrades.�

I guess the foundational purpose of a budget is different for various churches depending on age. It would be correct for all churches to keep the capitalized expenditures and operating expenses totally separate. And you should run 2 separate budgets or spending plans. But the point is that for church plants the two are so tied together. There is no second account to fund assets and the equipment costs are abnormally high in the first years. The same offerings are paying for everything so both must be considered while budgeting.

Projecting income and expenses are a challenge in the beginning. When you add the fact that assets have to be paid for by the same funds, it really complicates how much may be left for the operating expenses.

In the end, plan and budget the best you can. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn with the church. Don’t ever compromise and settle in the managing of God’s money. Always leave a paper trail to everything you do and always keep the board that approves the final budget aware of the current standing of the budget.� But also know that it’s just not an exact science in those first few years predicting what will be needed and spent for a dynamic organization. There will be many shifts in how things are done. We just went through one and I’m sure we’ll experience more as we grow.

Chunks Corbett, Executive Pastor

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