Scheduling Community

Greetings current and future Community Group Leaders at Longleaf Church! Lindsey and I have transitioned our old Longleaf Blog to one designed to encourage and equip you! Help us by reading the posts and sharing via the comments section! My new group is certainly off to a great start this fall and I hope that yours is as well.

One thing I want to make certain I do is to meet 1 to 1 with each CG leader (Individual and Couple) over lunch, coffee or dinner this fall. My schedule works well for lunch on Wednesdays or Fridays, dinner on Thursdays or coffee just about any morning. Please email me a good time to meet with you and we'll set that up!

I have spoken to a few leaders lately about the challenge of working through scheduling conflicts and finding the right rhythm for your group in terms of a meeting plan. Here are a few tips:

• If you're having trouble developing a consistent schedule, consider meeting 2 or 3 times per month rather than each week. Developing your meeting schedule has a lot to do with the life stage of your group, but 2-3 times per month seems to be a good plan for most groups. It's good to have calendar margin for socials or to move a meeting to an off week when holidays and events come up.

• Schedule out at least two months.

• Ask one group member to manage your schedule. This involves email communication before each meeting about location and food/dessert plans. The CG scheduler will identify future date conflicts, such the week of Thanksgiving, and make adjustments. He or she will give a brief report at the end of each gathering.

• Take natural breaks. In my view, it's important for a CG to take at least 8 weeks off during the Summer and 2 weeks at the end of the year. These natural breaks mirror the pace of our lives and allows to fully retreat with family and enter a new season with more energy.

These are just a few thoughts. We realize that the scheduling component is sometimes difficult and we appreciate the effort that each of one of you demonstrates around the tactics and the spiritual nurturing that goes along with leading a Community Group. Does anyone have other thoughts or ideas on meeting plans?

Difference Makers

A shared passion for our mission and vision has fueled some remarkably generous giving towards our pre-launch funding goals at Longleaf Church. I'm excited to report that we were 95% to goal with our June giving! Average monthly giving at Longleaf Church has nearly doubled during the first half of 2010! Wow! Thanks for your amazing response and continued intentional giving!  In July we'll focus on another of our BIG 4 THINGS, Strategic Service....

The BIG 4 THINGS (giving, serving, connecting and inviting) represent participation in our mission and vision. I love how the people around Longleaf Church raise their hands to volunteer.  There's a contagious spirit of service that has surrounded our growing community of people since we first began our church planting journey. In the coming weeks as we prepare to launch our church, we will asking everyone to step-up or continue to Serve Strategically.  On Sunday, July 11 we'll continue the Simply Irresistible series with a message from Andy about this core value that we call Strategic Service.   

Our growing and contagious culture has a lot to do with our leaders in Family Ministry, Group Life and Service Programming that lead by serving well.  I'm so thankful for these tremendous leaders and all of the great volunteers around Longleaf Church. These people are Difference Makers.  Serving is a catalyst that grows our faith and while serving together we develop a deep sense of community and purpose.  Stay tuned for Strategic Service opportunities at Longleaf as we celebrate our journey and prepare for an exciting new chapter. See you at Longleaf LIVE on Sunday, July 11!          

Simply Irresistible Summer

Longleaf LIVE was awesome Sunday night! The momentum around our church planting journey continues to build... Longleaf LIVE is a series of preview environments running this summer that anchors our church planting movement AND offers visitors some tangible vision for our church. The recent message at Longleaf LIVE was about our core value of Authentic Community.  It's so encouraging to be part of an Authentic Community of people. Authentic Community flows best through Community Groups (Small Groups for Adults) at Longleaf Church.  This summer, we'll not only gather for Longleaf LIVE on 2nd Sundays, we'll gather for a conversational, coffee and dessert environment called Runway on 4th Sundays.  Join us for the next Runway on Sunday, June 27 at 6PM.  We'll hear stories of accountability, belonging and care that are happening within Community Groups at Longleaf AND we'll talk about steps for people to connect with a Community Group.  

There's also some socials going on around Longleaf Church this summer, including a Ladies Brunch on Saturday, June 26.  For details on the brunch, check our facebook page or email Lauren.  

Summer Fun!

The heat is on in Middle Georgia even though it's not even officially Summer.  Everyone is primed and ready for the most relaxed season of the year, Summertime.  We take vacations, hang out by the pool, and do a lot of grilling out in the Summertime.  There's definitely a lot of excitement among the kid's as they celebrate the end of the school year and the beginning of this fun time of the year.  The community of people planting Longleaf Church together are a fun bunch, so I'm sure that some great Community Group Socials are on the horizon!  My Community Group has already had one pool party.  Having fun together is certainly a big part of doing life together.  

In praying and planning for the full launch of Longleaf Church this September, we want to create a summer schedule that sustains our momentum yet also creates a healthy break for our volunteers. We want to uncork a lot of energy this September! We also want to maintain a consistent schedule that's not too difficult for people to track. With all of this in mind, here's the plan:

• Longleaf LIVE will continue to run the 2nd Sundays of June, July and August at 6PM. Those dates are June 13th, July 11th and August 8th.

• Runway will replace the 4th Sunday Longleaf LIVE Services.  Runway will run on 4th Sundays at 6PM. Those dates are June 27th, July 25th and August 27th. Runway is a round-table, conversational environment that's about building community, and developing the "4 Things" that are paving our launch runway. There will be childcare and a themed movie night for kids, but no Children's Programming.  Runway will culminate with an invest and invite celebration on August 27th!    

• Series Group will meet monthly this summer. Those dates are June 6th, July 18th and August 15th. The Series Group will continue to serve as a step towards connecting to a Community Group (Adult Small Group).

Please shoot as an email with any questions.  We look forward to a great summer as our community continues to grow and our momentum builds towards launch!  The Simple series was a great message to send us into the summer season with.  I hope that it was encouraging for our church planting community to consider how our journey of planting Longleaf is about following, believing and obeying Jesus. Thanks for your faith and courage to plant a church that's focused on leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.