Greg Surratt

Another day at Adopt-a-Block

It was hotter than hell as their wallets melted into the asphalt...

With the release of Geoff Surratt's new book "Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing", I thought I would share a few of our "great ideas" that didn't work.

One of our first attempts at fund raising was exceptionally stupid.  I will take full credit for this one:

We had about 295 people coming to our church in 3 weekend services in an auditorium that seated 145 bodies.   We needed to raise about $400,000 to finish out a larger meeting space. I thought, "We will do a four week series on giving, and on the final week we will meet all together, outside, on our property.  I will present the opportunity, and then, together we will give a generous offering that will hopefully more than meet the need."

There were two things I didn't factor into the planning:

1. The 4th weekend landed on or about July 4th.
2. It get's rather hot in Charleston in the middle of the summer.

We arrived early on that Sunday morning, set up 300 chairs in the parking lot, a stage on the sidewalk, and began praying for God's blessing.  (We probably should have prayed for God's wisdom a few weeks earlier when we were thinking this up.)

People started to arrive (fewer than we expected, because of the holiday), we began worship, and the sun started to rise in the hot, hazy, humid South Carolina summer sky.  By the time I began to preach the temperature had passed 90 and the humidity was approaching unbearable.  We are sweating like iced tea on a summer day.  During the message some older people began to pass out (in some circles that may have started a revival).  Others, who were, let's say, "calorie challenged" began to see their chairs sink into the by now warm, gooey asphalt.  By the time we passed the plates for the offering, most of the already sparse crowd had taken shelter inside the building, desperate for some water and a little air conditioning.

The offering that day came to somewhere south of $10,000.  Not exactly what we were hoping for.

Dumb?  Yes.  Fatal?  No.  Failure seldom is.  We lived to see another day and try another stupid idea.  More on that tomorrow...

10 stupid things...

My brother Geoff's new book, 10 Stupid Things Churches Do to Keep From Growing, was just released today on Amazon.

It's a great book that identifies the most common mistakes pastors make that keep churches from reaping the harvest that God may have for them.  It's got stories from Craig Groeschel, Chris Hodges, Perry Noble, Mark Batterson, Dave Browning, Dave Ferguson, Scott Chapman, Ron Hamilton, Dino Rizzo and, yes, your's truly (that alone may thrust it into the best seller list).

Ed Stetzer even calls it "pithy".

In honor of the release, I'm going to write about some really stupid things we've done at Seacoast over the years, starting with tomorrow's post.  Seriously, this could be a year long series...but I'm going to limit it to just this week.

If you are a pastor, what's the dumbest mistake you've made?

If you are a Seacoaster, what's the dumbest thing you remember us doing?  (Be nice...I reserve the right to censor :-)

Thinking about Easter

I'm thinking about Easter.

Now that's news, huh?

In five days we will begin an Easter marathon of sorts, with 43 services on 15 different campuses or venues.  Actually the race has already started, with nightly performances of the Thorn, 7 of them over the next 5 days.  I'm getting a little tired just typing about it.

But that's not what I'm thinking about this morning.  I'm reflecting on Easter past.  Really past.  Like, when we celebrated Easter in my home church when I was just a boy, in Colorado.  We'd wake up early, climb into our new outfits and head to church for the sunrise service.  There'd be maybe 50-60 hardy souls there for a few songs and an Easter reflextion by my dad, the pastor.  Afterward, we would all have pancakes together in the fellowship hall.  It was kind of like a cookout with all my friends.  Then off to Sunday School and finally the "big" Easter service.

Pastors love Easter.  It was always the biggest attendance of the year.  "How many you running in Sunday School these days?".  The answer was often the number of people that came last easter, although many of them only "ran" in the doors once or twice a year.  We call them "CEO" Christians.  Christmas and Easter only.  I remember we packed 300 people into our little building one Easter.  That was an exciting day.  The thought of doing two services didn't cross our mind.  Nobody was doing it back then.  If you were so fortunate to fill up the auditorium once, you'd build a new building.  That's how they did it.

Dad didn't have a video team, or a drama team, or much of a worship team, to be honest.  Most weeks you'd have a piano player, my mom on organ, a few out of tune guitars, and my dad on the ever present saxophone.  You could count on singing "Up From the Grave He Arose", I think it was page 161 in the old white hymnals.  We kids had fun with the words from that one, but that's a whole nother story.  Dad would preach a simple message on the cross, people would get saved, and we'd go home and eat a roast and some potatoes and listen to mom and dad talk about what a great day it was.  Dad would call his dad, his brother, and brother-in-law, all in ministry somewhere in the United States, and they would share the highlights of each others day.  It was a good day.

It was a lot simpler back then and the numbers were certainly a lot smaller than we'll see this weekend.  They were good times, at least from my perspective they were.  I wouldn't want to go back there, though.  I love the times that we live in.  But, I can't help but believe that our days and opportunities are built on the backs of the faithfulness of people like my mom and dad. 

It's still a simple message that changes the hearts of men. 

I hope I do it justice this weekend.

I've got to say it again...

     

"The Thorn" has been incredible. Just a couple of quick stories:

• Because of the pyro stuff in the play, we invited the fire department to preview it and give us a thumbs up or down on various elements.  After viewing it, the fire marshall said "How can I get tickets? I've got to get my family and friends out to see this."
• Here's an email I got after opening night: "After all these of these productions, you have to be able to say, 'We did our VERY BEST at presenting the gospel and trying to make sure every person walked out changed'!!! It just doesn't get any better than that:  and to reach so many peopoe in such an incredible way...Seacoast ROCKS!!!!"

At the risk of too much hype, don't miss this one.  Bring a friend, bring an acquaintance, bring your dog (no, on second thought don't bring the dog).  Bring anybody.  I think we are going to add a performance.  I'll let you know when.

(The pictures that I've used in this blog are from Gary McElveen.  If you'd like to see more, you can go here.)

Let the servolution begin...

I am proud of this church for all that you do to transform communities in your city daily.  As you serve, especially over the next week during Servolution, we would love to hear your stories.  We have created a Seacoast Facebook page that we would like for you to utilize for this purpose.  Here are 3 simple steps to posting your story and pictures on our page:

1.       Sign up on Facebook (www.facebook.com) if you haven’t already.

2.       Go to Seacoast Church’s profile by typing in “Seacoast Church” in the search box.

a.       Click on the “Become a Fan” button and then on the “View Page” button.

3.       To tell your story or post pictures, click in the “Write something…” box.

a.       If you want to post pictures, click on the “Add photos” after typing in story.

That’s it.  It’s that simple!  Feel free to use this page as a way to tell us of exciting things that are happening in your Life Group, to tell Servolution stories or any other exciting news.

It all starts tonight!

Tonight is the first of 11 live performances of "the Thorn" at our Long Point Road campus.  You are not going to want to miss this one.  Honestly, I've never seen anything quite like it.  

If I had to describe it...maybe "Cirque du Soleil" meets "The Passion of the Christ".  It's got great music, acting, acrobatics, gymnastics, dance, marshal arts, lighting and sets...plus hundreds of volunteers and actors. 

If you haven't done it yet, you can get your tickets online here.

5% with a bullet ^

Last week the ARC (Association of Related Churches) planted our 100th church. It looks like we are on track to plant another 70 NEXT YEAR!

Some lessons:

1. It's okay to dream oversized dreams. 7 years ago, 2000 seamed impossible. Still does, actually, but I doubt we'd have planted 100 without the XX dream.

2. Oversized dreams attract over achieving people. When I had the vision I didn't even know Billy Hornsby, Chris Hodges, Dino Rizzo, the Bezets and the rest of the ARC posse. They were attracted by the vision.

3. Over sized dreams stimulated out of the box creativity. Everytime Billy latches onto a new way of moving forward, he ties it back to the original dream. "Just trying to plant 2000 churches".

You know, I'm beginning to believe we just might be able to do this...

Very cool Dream Center story

Here is a link to a very cool story that a local TV station is doing tonight on the Dream Center Medical clinic.  Way to go Sam, Joan, Bill and team!!

A not so typical weekend at Seacoast

I thought you'd be interested in seeing how things go on a not so typical weekend at Seacoast (Long Point Road version).  Why not so typical?

We basically have 3 worship venues at LPR, with seating for a combined total of about 2200 people per service.  Normally, we teach live from the largest of the three, the Worship Center.  This weekend we switched it up for the new series, "Switch", and went live from the Warehouse.  

For the most part, things went well...for the most part...

Martin Chalk rehearsing in the Warehouse.

Martin and the team during live worship from the Warehouse.

Jeanne Radekopf leading in the Worship Center

In case you were wondering what goes on in the Bullpen between services...

One of 3 services in the Chapel, with worship leader London Weidberg Gatch...

Josh teaching live from the Warehouse...

Another view...cool vibe...

Lt. Governor Andre Bauer showed up to make a donation of blankets to the dream center. (One of us is either over dressed or under dressed ;-)

The brains behind the tech team that pulled it off...

Rumors that the pastor used bowling words when there was no sound in the Worship Center for the 9:30 service are entirely untrue.  The message was on repentance, and I did.