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MOVING DAY at Vertical Resonator, update your subscriptions, RSS, and boomarks

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Congrats to Pastor Bucholtz and family

Welcome to our world Mya.

Topeka Light Show 2009 Survey Results

It's a good idea to evaluate an outreach effort. That way you can answer some of the questions:

1. What worked?

2. What didn't?

3. Who did we actually reach?

4. Should we continue or kill this?

5. Do we need to reinvent it?

Interesting...about 25% were from TBC. That means 75% were not from our church. That's a good thing. However, only 12% stated they don't have a church they attend. That leaves 63% who said they were from another church.

Another interesting view, it seems that attendance at the light show snowballed from the first night. That's a good thing.

Last good thing I'll point out - almost 50% saw the light show for the very first time. Glad we aren't reaching just the same crowd.

Here are the full 350+ survey results from the 1,500 people (of 6,000 total) who submitted email addresses. You can deduct some other positives/negatives from the survey.

Topeka Bible Church seeks Tech Director position

With five weekend worship times, three different venue locations, two synchronized bands, and a huge list of other audio/visual, IT, and tech team management needs - Topeka Bible Church is seeking a new "Tech Director" role. You can read that last "TBC Worship Matters" (worship arts family eNewsletter) to see what Nat said about this position.

Anyone interested in seeing the position description or submitting a resume can drop me a line. Pray that God would line up Topeka Bible Church with a perfect match so His kingdom would expand.

Why I took time off the stage leading worship

For the past month, I've made a conscious effort to be off the stage from leading worship. I've had some people ask me what's going on. So here are my top ten reasons why it was good for me to be off-stage...

1. You can help the sense that the worship experience isn't personality-driven (by me).

2. You can meet more people in your congregation off-stage than on-stage.

3. You can get a rare glimpse by hearing and seeing what the worshippers hear and see.

4. You can sit with your son for his very first 'big church' experience.

5. You can help your wife with the kids, because she's a "single-mom" the other 51 weeks of the year on Sunday morning.

6. You can develop leadership letting others lead in your place.

7. You can make sure the ministry still works, you know, just in case you get hit by a bus someday.

8. You can talk with the off-stage who supports the on-stage ministry (techs, security, ushers, recording techs, lyric operators).

9. You can learn an off-stage tech position for some cross-training (house audio, recording studio, etc.).

10. You can come back to the stage with a greater appreciation for all of the off-stage ministry that happens.

Topeka light show behind the scenes lightening tour

A lightening fast video tour of the behind the scenes at the light show.

Bible reference makes Google hot search trends tonight due to football

It's odd that scripture from the Bible would make it into the top
Google search trends. But it was #2 tonight for awhile, thanks to a
pro football player who put the reference in his black eye paint.

Question: What am I willing to do to influence the world around me
with Jesus Christ in 2010?

My boys, first day of 2010

Die hard 1st service attenders at TBC after blizzard

Congrats on the die hard award folks.

Guitarist, Phil Keaggy, in concert at Topeka Bible Church - Sat, Jan 23 at 7:00PM

I'm pumped about world famous guitarist Phil Keaggy coming to our church Saturday, January 23rd. The concert at 7:00PM will be $15 advance tickets ($18 at door) - tickets will be available soon at Lifeway Christian Store or Topeka Bible Church. And there will also be a FREE guitar clinic the same day from 3PM to 4PM. If you've never heard Phil Keaggy play - watch Phil Keaggy master the guitar here.

If you've never heard Phil Keaggy play...see him on this video...

You would have cried too...

Simply beautiful.

Gospel Per Ear: How much would you be willing to pay?

How much should it cost a church to get the Gospel into the ears of it's community? The obvious answer is that it will cost something in resources (funds, time, energy, personnel, etc.).

You've heard the saying...if just one person comes to Christ, all that effort was worth it.



I disagree if it means it was done inefficiently. Allow me to explain...

If I had a choice between spending $10 a person verse $5 a person to get the Gospel into their ear...I'd pick the $5 every time. Would you? So would any smart organization - that way they have more resources to do it time and time again.

For example, at Topeka Bible Church we had 2,075 vehicles come to our light show this year. That's a 13% increase over last year's traffic. How many people do you think were in each car on average. We use the figure of 3 people per vehicle...but let's be very conversative here and account for an average of 2 people per vehicle. If the budget this year was $6,000 for the light show...so do the math, $6,000/(2,075 vehicles x 2 people per vehicle) = $1.45 Gospel per person.

Some would say we didn't spend enough compared to the rest of the church budget. Yet others would say, invest more in the ministries which have the largest impact (this is what wall street brokers do). Yet others are content to spend just enough to feel like something was done, but not too much to be a sacrifice.

Is $1.45 per person worth the Gospel? If not, what is? If you'd have been willing to pay more, what's your ceiling? Well, if it help to have a frame of reference, it's one of the lowest cost per person I've ever been a part of. Historically, at other churches, it's taken $80,000 to get the Gospel to roughly 8,000 people. That's $10 a head.

Here's another question, "How much did it cost God to reveal the Gospel to us?"

A BIGGER QUESTION is WHO were those people that we just invested $1.45 in. Do they attend TBC? Do they attend another church? Do they already know Jesus? Were any of them guests that a TBC person invited? We will survey this week to find out just WHO these people where and what connections, if any, they have to TBC or other churches in our community.

THE BIGGEST QUESTION... "If TBC doesn't get the Gospel into the ears of the community, what will that void be replaced with?"
Take your pick:
1. No one will 2. Another church who cares people enough to throw resources at it 3. Another organization who might not communicate the Gospel

QUESTION FOR MYSELF Is Bryan Nelson willing to get the Gospel into the ears of the community? If not, why not? Is it costing me anything to do it?

Light show musicians, final night

Light show production room, final night

We did not coordinate this last weekend

Check out what the worship band wore this last week upstairs during
Christmas time.

My mom with our daughter

My parents drove in from WI this weekend to catch the light show this
weekend at Topeka Bible Church.

My dad with our youngest

Chime in: What should we do for next year's light show?

13 News Covers 2009 TBC LIght Show

Here's the 13 news clip with video...