Tag: Romeochurch.com

  • Easter Egg Hunt Video

    This is pretty raw. But it shows what we were up to and how much fun it was. Again, thanks to all that helped pull this one off. I think there were about 25 volunteers… awesome!

  • Easter Egg Hunt | Slam Dunk

    Gosh, I just got home and I’m having a hard time controlling my excitement. Today was a blast!

    The teams were all awesome. Set-up/Tear-down team… excellent. Band team… excellent. Hospitality team… excellent. We had never been a part of an event quite like this one.  Joyce from Park & Rec and her team seemed very pleased with how we complimented the event. She told one of our team, “I wasn’t sure what to expect with the band… they were great.”

    As parents and kids filtered in, the weather was perfect for what we had planned. (Sunny and mid-30s) Our hospitality tent was ready [big thanks to the folks at Caribou for all their help!] and people were thirsty for great coffee, hot cider, and hot chocolate. Oh my… we went through a lot of hot chocolate. (150 cups!) We had just enough as the last cups were poured with only 2 packets left in the box.  Autumn and Bob (our senior pastor) had a hard time keeping up with demand. Bravo to them for keeping their cool! They had a constant line the entire time… amazing job.

    What was today all about? It was all about changing minds. Forever we’ve been the “old baptist church” in town. Those who have lived in Romeo a long time think they know who we are, what we’re about… in marketing language the typical person in our community thinks they know our story and they’ve made up their mind. This was about us partnering with the community and showing them that we aren’t who people think we are. We aren’t fuddy-duddy. We aren’t old-fashioned. We don’t wear skirts and ties or are stuffy. We aren’t “against the world” and judgmental. Basically… we want to tell people the truth… we’re just like you. We’re parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends you know from school. We like the music you like, we have the same dreams you have, and we like to give back to the community as much as everyone else.

    I loved the way we came alongside of the Parks & Rec department and worked with them. I hope we made them look good!

    I loved the songs that the band selected. They did music right off the radio. Switchfoot, Rascal Flatts, John Mellencamp, Daughtry, etc. I kept hearing people ask, “Is that the band from the church?” Yup. Jimmy and his gang are really, really good. I loved seeing people smile as they sang along to the music.
    Over at Romeo, we’re entering into this new phase we’re calling “God of this City.” It’s not about us and serving ourselves. It’s about bringing God to the city.  And we’re doing that in fun, unexpected ways. Today was one of them. Awesome job to all who helped. Thanks!

    I’m working on a video. It should be up later today.

    For now… rest.

  • Easter Egg Hunt | Today!

    The day is here already. In about 45 minutes I’ll head over to the church to pick up the last of the stuff to head over to Barnabo Field. Despite the fact that it’s only 28 degrees right now, we’re hoping that it is going to get up to the mid-30s for this year’s community egg hunt.

    It’s going to be fun to add to this event. I think the community center does a great job… it’s our hope to add just a couple of small elements to make it even more fun for children and parents.

    Hopefully, later today I’ll have pictures.

  • God of This City, update 1

  • We need a heat wave!

    This weekend is Romeo’s annual community Easter Egg hunt. (see video of last years event) This is put on by Romeo Parks & Rec department and has become a favorite of my kids. They only thing that they like doing as much is the first high school football game when they have a big party with face painting, inflatables, and games.

    Going into this year the staff at church was looking for an event like that to either put on ourselves or somehow compliment to make better. So I contacted the community center to see if we could help. (Why reinvent the wheel?) To my delight they said yes.

    On Saturday morning we are doing a couple of simple things to make the event just a tad more fun. We’re providing live music (Jimmy’s band) and a warming station with coffee/hot chocolate/apple cider. This is part of our new “God of this City” emphasis.

    The problem: Let’s state the obvious. It is still winter in Romeo. My backyard currently has 6 inches of snow. We need a few days of 40-50 degree weather to have a shot at the field being clear of snow. More importantly, if it is 15 degrees I think that will dramatically lessen the attendance at this event. And we’re looking to warm up and meet as many parents as possible!

    The solution: Right now we’re just watching the weather and hoping it all comes true! We have 3 days forecasted to be in the 40s and Saturday is currently forecasted to be about 35.

    Wanna come? It’s at Barnabo Field at 1:00 PM.

  • Our Vision for Our Community

    I’ve had this video ready for a couple of weeks. Below is a description video for our churches vision.

    Since I already had a couple of people ask me how I made the video, here are the details.
    – Obviously, the animation is from Google Earth. I set up the points as a tour and clicked through when it came time to record. (Just timed it out in my head)
    – I recorded the Google Earth presentation using IShowU. This is a simple video screen capture tool available for OSX.
    – I used the Google Earth video as the background in Adobe Premier.
    – I did the voice over at the sound board at church. I recorded it using Garage Band, using some effects to make my voice more “voice over” quality.
    – The rest is just done in Premier. Titles, video layers, etc.

    It was a lot of steps. But I was pleased with the results. The fun part was doing some parts of the project in Premier (PC) and some with Garage Band and IShowU. (Mac) Before I started I actually took the time to make a project list… which helped me keep all of the parts in the right place.

    Where did the idea come from? I saw a video similar to this on Granger Community Church’s website. I based the outline of the script on that video as well as the idea of using Google Earth as the animation tool. Anything beyond the concept I came up with. It was a fun project!

    Since I’m sharing videos, here is the bumper video we made for the service too.

    Someone asked me today how long these videos take. Here’s a ballpark.
    Our Vision for Our Community: 20ish hours. (Conception through completion)
    Lean In Bumper Video: about 1 hour (Conception through completion)

  • God of This City

    Here’s the video I sent out with our weekly email update. Seriously, if you aren’t a part of a local church and you are looking to connect somewhere… this Sunday is a great place to jump on board.

  • The new signs are here!

    church signI can’t even say how long we’ve worked on this. We started talking about new signs for the church about a year ago. And I think we went through 40-50 revisions. So, here is what one side looks like.

    Best part, within 2 hours of them being installed I already received a phone call asking about our kids ministry. The signs work!

  • The Heart of Worship

    On Sunday I mentioned that I got chills during our rehearsal as Jimmy began practicing with a new vocalist. I thought I’d back that up with this clip from our worship service. This new person is going to add so much to what we’re doing! I’m totally excited… here’s a sample of why.

  • Interior Signs are Here

    This is something someone like me gets excited about. We ordered new interior signs for the church building… and they are here! The pictures here are from my phone so the quality doesn’t do them any justice. But when we get them mounted it’s going to look smoking cool.

    kidstown welcome signinterior signs 3

    The big one of the left will go behind the welcome counter to our kids ministry. It’s HUGE and the quality of it doesn’t come through in the picture. It’s so much cooler than we thought it would be. When Jimmy and I picked it up we sounded like broken records… “That is so cool.” “Wow, we love it.”

    The picture on the right are the signs for the elevator. Obviously the one on top goes in the “adult area” and the one below is for down in KidsTown.

    And for those who live locally, you’ll be seeing stuff that looks like this around town soon.  If you haven’t been to Romeo in the last two years or so, the interior is not like you’ve seen before. Most of the public areas have been completely remodeled. Shoot me an email and I’ll show you around.