Tag Archives: Gateway Church
Father’s Day @ Gateway
Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Kenny.
Sunday was Father’s Day and we were right in the middle of a series called, “Never Waste a Good Crisis.” It’s been a phenomenal series. This week one of the leaders from High School and College shared his story. It’s a powerful story for men to hear and it tied into our series so perfectly. If you want to see more, I attached the video of the entire service below. Enjoy!
Full service:
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Free Ugly Towel Sunday
Posted on 17. May, 2010 by Kenny.
Yesterday Gateway held it’s first baptism service of the year. What a great start to the year with 167 baptisms. Woo hoo! Going into this weekend, we had a little over 100 people registered, more than 30 of them being kids. Baptism Sunday’s are already a great day at Gateway. We understand that upwards of 30% of adults in our services are not yet Christ followers. Week after week, relevant messages challenge them to consider who God is, what he’s done for them and what a relationship with him would look like. We find that most people who come to faith at Gateway do so after wrestling with it for a while. Salvation isn’t always a split decision, sometimes it is a process. On Baptism Sunday, Gatewayers are challenged to take that final step. If they’ve recently made a decision, this is the day to make it public. If they need to take that final leap and make a decision, then there’s no day like this day. Every Baptism Sunday, we see people come out of the auditorium and get baptized totally unprepared as the Holy Spirit prompts them to do the deed. We also see a lot of groups get into the pool. We believe that life change happens best in relationships, so often times entire small groups jump in the pool to support the person getting baptized. It’s a beautiful celebration. Below is the video from yesterday’s message which consists of several interviews of people’s lives being changed who were also baptized yesterday as well.
There are so many great stories from yesterday that I got to witness.
I had one family that didn’t hear about the baptism class in time. A dad called me over the weekend to find out what they needed to do. Both of his kids, a 12 and 14 year old filled out the adult baptism packet and they really wanted to get baptized becasue their mom was coming up from Corpus Christi. I arranged to meet them during one of the services and walk through what it means to have a relationship with God and be baptized. I met with the whole family for close to 45 minutes and we had a great conversation. Because we met during the service, the 14 year old was insistent that they get baptized after the service but then stay for the 12:30 service. She really wanted her mom to experience Gateway. It was an honor to baptize these kids who truly had made Jesus their Lord; however, something peculiar happened. After the 12:30 service, I saw them at the pool again. I joked, “you back for more already?” In some way, the mom visiting from Corpus Christi was visibly touched by the service and felt prompted to be baptized as well. I don’t know her spiritual condition other than the fact that she does go to church and that she did sit through the discussion I had with her kids. It was obvious that something significant was happening in her life. What a beautiful thing for her kids to witness!
I met another guy right after one of the services. He was the first in line to be baptized. I asked him what prompted him to be baptized today. He said that he’d been attending Gateway for over a year, but didn’t come in today. He was watching the service online (woo who web campus) and felt like he was supposed to be baptized. So, he jumped in his car and drove up to the church to take this next step in his faith.
I could go on an on telling you other stories I heard or things that I saw, but I’ll spare you the details. If you’re having one of those days and want to read more, feel free to click here and here. Great stories from those who pre-registered for the baptism.
However, my favorite part is seeing others empowered to baptize. I love nothing more than seeing moms and dads in the pool baptizing their children. I saw husbands baptizing their wives and wives baptizing their husbands. It was very exciting to see my wife baptize her friend that she’s been walking with relationally and spiritually this year and had the distinct pleasure of leading her to Christ. She did great! We also have an 19 year-old intern serving in our Student Ministry. He’s overseeing a lot of the programming and teaching in Middle School and this kid is FIRED UP! He’s been in church his whole life and he’s been one of the lead teachers for five year-olds for many years. He’s had a significant impact on so many of these little kids. One of the kids being baptized this Sunday had been in his class all this year and requested him. Justin (the intern) was so excited. Probably one of my favorite parts of the baptism yesterday was seeing how excited Justin was to baptize a child he’d had so much influence over and to know that this is only the first of hundreds if not thousands of people Justin will baptize.
Enjoy some of the photos below.
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State of the Gate 2.0
Posted on 26. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
Every year my church has a “State of the Gate.” It’s really a gathering one evening of the week, usually at the beginning of the year where we share great stories from the previous year, share any exciting news and then cast vision for the coming year. This year we tried something new. Since we’ve recently launched our internet campus, we broadcast the State of the Gate over the interwebs. What a cool experience!
I still don’t know how many actually participated, but a pretty large group of people logged in with their facebook and twitter accounts and interacted with each other during the broadcast and asked questions during the Q & A. It was a totally unique environment. The people who watched live had a much more engaging experience than any State of the Gate in the past. In addition, the video content will remain online for people to watch later. In a tech savvy, DVR and overwhelmingly busy culture we live in, this format for special services like this seems the way of the future.
Click here to check the live site, you can read the chat dialogue until Sunday when it will be replaced by Sunday’s chat log. Feel free to watch the videos below, they illustrate our church’s current restructure to better engage our body in serving the community.
State of the Gate 2010
State of the Gate 2010 | Intro from Gateway Church on Vimeo.
State of the Gate: Attend, Grow and Serve
State of the Gate 2010 | Attend Grow Serve from Gateway Church on Vimeo.
State of the Gate: Q & A
State of the Gate 2010 | Q&A from Gateway Church on Vimeo.
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Kidmin in Portables: Final Details
Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
I’ve written all of this to be a resource for those who are either in portable buildings or are heading in that direction. Mostly, I want to encourage you that moving to portables doesn’t have to suck. I highly encourage you to pass these pictures and content to your pastors or decision makers. We spent a little extra money than we had to, but be got a much bigger bang for our buck. There’s no way getting around it, portables are less than ideal. However, you don’t want parents or kids to feel like they’re getting a second-class experience. I highly encourage you to make a few minor upgrades and make your portable space a place where both kids and volunteers want to spend their Sundays.
Here’s where we got the stuff for the insides:
- 12 inch plastic chairs for preschool kids: $18.99 from ECMD
- 12′ x 18′ carpets for story time and worship: $371.98 from Bizchair (these are durable and high quality carpet. You can get cheaper carpets elsewhere, but you’ll be replacing them much sooner.
- 30″ x 72″ Plastic folding tables” $150.34 from ECMD (These are very lightweight which makes them fantastic for a mobile campus)
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Kidmin in Portables: Interiors
Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
So we have two buildings which each have two rooms. Each room has a capacity for 30 children bringing our Backyard capacity to 120 children. On average, we probably have 85-95 kids in these four environments. They consist of:
- Beach Boulevard: Four year olds
- Amazon Avenue: Four year olds
- Treehouse Trail: Fives and Kindergarten
- City Circle: Fives and Kindergarten
As you probably saw in the first post, we had some ugliness to overcome. Nasty brown carpet with ugly brown wood panel walls. Thankfully the powers that be made the decision to spend just a little more and hang drywall over the wood paneling and put down some bright white tile flooring. The rooms went from dark and dreary to instant brightness. Originally we talked to a big church decor company we’ve all heard of to mural two wall in each classroom. I can’t remember the quote, but I remember our response… “heck no!” We decided to paint three walls a bright (not primary bright though) color and hire a muralist paint the remaining wall. I’m really not a fan for murals, but these walls are fantastic. Honestly, I like them way better than what the decor company was going to do and the muralist was a fraction of the cost.
To give us some storage space and make the rooms a little bit more versatile, we added a closet and some cabinets. The cabinets are absolutely beautiful in the rooms and give us more than enough storage space. The closets give us room to store 20-30 folding chairs for other meetings making it pretty easy to turn the classroom around into a great meeting spot for other purposes.
We hung a 42 inch TV in every classroom so the primary lesson can be taught via video in each classroom. We usually combine the two classrooms in each building for the teaching time and it seems to work great. Oh, that was something we did as well. We added a door between the two classrooms so kids and adults could go between rooms without having to go outside.
Last of all, we purchased some new tables and chairs for snacks and crafts and a over-sized carpet for the Bible Story. I love just about everything in these rooms and once you’re inside, you don’t “feel” like you’re in a less important classroom just because you aren’t in the main building. Our Backyard leaders love where they serve and the kids love where they attend church.
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Kidmin in Portables: Exteriors
Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
In truth, there are only one or two things I don’t like about our portables.
- They’re outside. When you have a nice building that’s all finished out, it’s just great to all be under one roof. With the portables being outside, it’s like having a section of your ministry that’s completely disconnected. We do have phones out there, but it’s just not as natural to visit those classrooms like it is with our other classrooms. Also when it’s cold or when it rains, the portables are kind of a bummer. Since it rarely rains and is only cold for a few weeks, it’s really not that big of a deal.
- The crushed granite pathway. Actually I have a love/hate relationship with the path. I love it because it really looks nice. It feels more natural and seems to fit with Austin and our church. However, I’m sometimes irritated with this pathway. Weeds like to grow through the path at certain spots (it’s not over run by any means, but at times a pesky weed will poke through) and when it does rain, it gets tracked into our portables (although, it doesn’t really rain that often).
Other than my two little complains, I love what we’ve done with these portable buildings. The stairs, ramps and walkways are beautiful. Too often I’ve seen churches that just add a janky and rickety set of metal/wood steps up to the doorway. Because we painted the portables different colors, it’s really easy to describe which building to go to. I don’t know that anyone loves the thought of portables, but if you’ve got to have them, I totally recommend doing them like we did. We call the area “The Backyard” and don’t describe them as portables, but additional environments outside the main building. I then usually like to say they’re some of my favorite environments because of the interiors, but that’s in the next post.
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A little spoken word, a little bass and a little tap
Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by Kenny.
One of the things I do really love about Gateway is that it’s smack dab in the middle of Austin, TX, a powerhouse of performance creativity. Since our church exists to raise up the church out of the culture, we often see some unique artistic elements in our services. Sometimes I simply take it all in just wondering where they find these people.
So today they opened the message with a little piece called, “I’ve got your back.” I can’t really describe it, you just have to see it.
I Got Your Back from Gateway Church on Vimeo.
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Save me from this kingdom of comfort where I am king
Posted on 26. Feb, 2010 by Kenny.
Kingdom Comfortable from Gateway Church on Vimeo.
Save me from this kingdom of comfort where I am king and take me to the kingdom of life where the King is king. It’s the final and most powerful line of this poem from local Austin slam poet, James Wilson. It’s a profound message our culture needs to hear. It’s a profound message we all need to really get.
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New family registration form: Redux
Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by Kenny.
Okay, you’re going to start thinking that I like to re-design registration cards for fun. Actually, it is kind of fun. So back in October, we redesigned the registration card we were using. Functionally speaking, it was just about perfect. However, as soon as it was done and after I posted it here, I realized something I was missing. The Children’s Ministry at Gateway has had somewhat of an “old world” feel thing going on. It looks great, but we’re wanting to move the look and feel in a different direction. Something more vibrant, fun and colorful. So I don’t know what I was thinking by redesigning our registration card to look “old world.” So, I sent this back to our graphic artist and she changed the feel. It’s a two sided card (doesn’t cost hardly anything to print on the other side) so we had our logo (the one we’re using now until re totally re-brand) splashed on the back. Let me know what you think.
BTW, on the last post, someone asked about what we do if a friend brings someone and how we handle that. Next week I’m working on a supplement to handle that as well as keep our records accurate.
To see my beautiful and growing collection of registration cards, click here.
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Helping volunteers grow
Posted on 12. Jan, 2010 by Kenny.
One of the things I love most about Gateway is that central to the mission of our church is the fulfillment of the Great Commission in EVERY aspect of ministry. For year, my focus as a Children’s Pastor was to help kids know and follow Christ. It wasn’t until coming to Gateway that I really began considering the spiritual health and growth of those serving kids. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been concerned about my volunteers spiritual condition, it just wasn’t my job. It was their responsibility to be in a small group or accountable relationship to be growing. I just needed them to help me reach kids. Sure, we could debate the pros and cons of this setup, but Gateway challenged my thinking about caring for and leading volunteers spiritually.
The problem is that many of the volunteers and leaders serving in our children’s ministries aren’t in small groups. Many times it’s for good reason. So what about their spiritual care? Who’s responsible? If I’m leading my area at the pastoral level and Ephesians 4 tells me it’s my job to equip the saints, then perhaps the spiritual condition of my volunteers is my responsibility. Think beyond that for a minute. What if my elementary small group leaders at the 9:30 service were growing together spiritually in the same way a small group would? Wouldn’t that make my team more united, consistant and effective in working together? You bet.
So the diagram above was developed by Gateway several years ago to show how people at Gateway can be cared for spiritually. The stars represent people who are not connected spiritually at Gateway. The idea is to get those who are not connected to link up either with a small group or join a serving team. We all know there are many who gravitate toward serving before they would a small group. However, either path is good. As you can see by the diagram, many people on serving teams are also in small groups. Nothing wrong with that. However, directors and coordinators also try to create groups within the serving team. Maybe 5 of the 9 small group leaders at a service will decide to do a study together. So within that serving team, 5 people who serve in the children’s ministry begin receiving spiritual care and support by a serving group. They serve together and grow together.
It’s a great model and were seeing some great things happening spiritually in the lives of our volunteers. All this helps us make a greater impact on the lives of kids. It’s modeling what we expect to see happen in the lives of kids as well. What do you think?
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