Connexus Community Church

Next Baptism Service - August 10th

So excited to announce that our next baptism service will happen on Sunday, August 10th at 6:30 p.m. at Bass Lake, (click here for directions).

If you want to be baptized...let us know.  You can apply on line now.  We would love to be able to mark your decision to follow Jesus through baptism. 

And naturally, we know many of you are marking the date right now because you want to be there to watch it all live.

Watch for video play backs of our last baptisms all summer long at Connexus on Sunday mornings.  The August baptisms will be played back on Sundays after Labour Day.

Man, I never get tired of seeing Jesus change people's lives!  Can't wait for the 10th!  If you're thinking baptism, why not take the plunge?  I promise you it will be more pleasant than a December baptism service. :0)

- Carey

Hey Families - Connect Here Today

Summer is prime family time.  Question - how are you connecting spiritually as a family this summer?

Coming to Connexus on weekends is a great start.  This summer, UpStreet is being transformed into Superhero central (the party started this past weekend).  Your kids will love it!  Waumba Land is a wonderful place to for your pre-schooler or infant this summer, and Xtreme and InsideOut are hosting some great summer events Sundays and otherwise.

But at Connexus, we believe the dialogue only begins on Sunday.  Have you seen our Parent Connection pages on the Connexus site?  The parent connection pages are designed to facilitate a lasting dialogue between parent and child. 

Think of them as resources we give you every single week.  Why?  Because we believe that what happens at home is more important than what happens at church.  No one has more influence over the life of a child than a parent.  So each week, our team works hard to put resources into your hands as a parent to help you shape your child spiritually and morally. 

Check out what's happening at the UpStreet Parent Connection page, for example.  Stuff for you as a parent week in and week out this summer.

Get familiar with these pages for every child in your family.  That way, next time your daughter says she's bored and your son is burning bugs with a magnifying glass or wants to rent Rambo, you'll actually have an alternative activity and conversation for them!  The investment you make today will yield results for the rest of this life and on into the next.

If you have questions, please chat with Jenn Bailey (Waumba and UpStreet) or Nadine Russell (Xtreme and InsideOut). 

- Carey

Save the Date! September 7th

What are you up to today?  Tuesday is the day at Connexus where we pull our staff leadership team together for a series of meetings.  It's always fun to hear what's going on around the life of the church.  Even in a church of our size - it's impossible to know all the various ways that people are being helped by Connexus. I'm glad that we have a series of the "baptism videos" lined up for the summer - a great way for us all to hear what's going on!

On Sunday have an announcement about a new environment that we're launching this fall called "engage".  As a leadership team we're pretty pumped about this environment and the chance to talk about it on Sunday.  We think this new environment will help us continue to round out our mission of leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus.  We think that is "add" is a strategic investment for us as a church into the people that call Connexus home.  We're pumped about it!

We're so pumped that we're not going to talk about it now!  We want to make sure we get it all lined up for the weekend . . . so when we do go public we can let you know all about it.  So make sure that you are at one of Campuses this weekend to learn more!  In the meantime - clear your calendar for September 7th - we don't think you're going to want to miss it.

Rich Birch
rich.birch@connexuscommunity.com
Connexus Community Church
twitter.com/richbirch

Fill The Truck! Countdown

Hi-dee-ho there!

I trust that your weekend went great.  My mom is in town from Nashville.  Always great to have the USAmerican Birches at our place!  Thanks for all the kind words about the new part of my job that was announced yesterday, I look forward to focusing my energy in helping our Orillia campus exceed at becoming a place where people regardless of their spiritual background, can move into a growing relationship with Jesus! Thanks for the chance to serve!

   
So in just a few weeks we are having our first "Fill the Truck" Challenge at Connexus.  Why are we are doing this?  Take some time to read this passage: Matthew 25:31-46.  This is one of times when Jesus is being so clear it freaks me out.  Jesus is saying here that when we serve the poor in our world we are serving Jesus.  If I want to see Jesus - I need to serve the poor So as a church we need to provide practical ways for our people to serve the poor.  Often in the church we think that people can learn more about Jesus by listening to sermons or singing musical worship - although this might be true according to Jesus the way to see him more clearly is by serving the poor.  If you want to get to know Jesus better - find some marginalized people and care for them.

So "Fill the Truck" is a just a tiny step in helping our community getting a better sense of who Jesus is by serving the poor.  We want to help people in our communities less fortunate than you and I.  We know that it's just a small step but rather than do nothing we need to do something.  We have the opportunity to help and serve people - so we will.  Our hope is that we can help more people from our church intersect with poverty in the months and years to come but this is a small introduction.

We also want this to be a lot of fun.  I've found in my life when I focus on serving other people I find real joy.  As we stop being self absorbed and move towards being other-centered in some weird way we find happiness in our own lives.  We hope that "Fill the Truck" will be fun because of that!  (I also heard some trash-talking going on at Orillia yesterday - about how they are going to do WAY more than Barrie!)  What can you do to help encourage people from your campus to get ready to "Fill the Truck" on July 27th?  Let's see how much food we can pass along to agencies in our community that do incredible work with the poor. 

Thanks so much for your in helping us "Fill the Truck" at each of our Campuses.  Pass on the news about it.  Just a few more weeks!

Rich Birch
rich.birch@connexuscommunity.com
twitter.com/richbirch
Connexus Community Church

p.s. We are needing a handful of people at each Campus on July 27th to help us collect the items and then go after the 10am service to our distribution partners.  Wanna help?  Drop me an email.

Annoucing a Campus Pastor for Orillia

I'm so excited to announce that Rich Birch is going to serve as the Campus Pastor at Connexus Orillia. 

In many ways, this is a natural evolution.  Since joining us in August 2007, Rich has spent many weekends already at the Orillia campus, and he will add this to his responsibilities as our Executive Director of Operations, where he oversees our service programming, site development and some areas of finance.  Rich takes over from Nadine Russell, who has served so well as the Interim Campus Director for Orillia.  Nadine will continue to serve full time at Connexus as our Executive Director of Family Ministry and member of our senior leadership team. 

Rich brings a wealth of experience with him, and we think he knows more about multi-site ministry than anyone in Canada. 

Rich is really looking forward to getting to know the Orillia teams better, and he's hosting a town hall style meeting at the Orillia Opera House (small theater) on Tuesday, July 29th at 7:00 p.m..  Everyone who calls the Orillia campus home is invited to attend. 

Rich, his wife Christine, daughter Haley and son Hunter make their home in Orillia.

Some fun facts about Rich:

• He was the first employee Connexus ever had, joining our team two months before we launched.
• He is a crazy dancer (just ask him).
• At restaurants, he often asks the server to surprise him instead of ordering off the menu.

I will continue to serve as lead pastor of Connexus Ministries and as Campus Pastor at Barrie.

Please welcome Rich into this new role!

- Carey Nieuwhof
Lead Pastor

Joan Martin - Baptism

If you can't see the video above: Follow this link.
For more information on baptism at Connexus: Follow this link.

Sarah Martin - Baptism

If you can't see the video above:  Follow this link.
For more information on baptism at Connexus: Follow this link.

Book Club - #'s are in!

Well friends!

The people have spoken!  The numbers are in for our summer book club.  Check out the results below:

Faith Builder:
The End of Religion by Bruxy Cavey
Amazon   Chapters   AudioBook

Leadership Development:
Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley
Amazon   Chapters    AudioBook

Just for Fun!:
The Shack by William Young
Amazon   Chapters    AudioBook

Ok . . . so we're going to start with "The End of Religion".  Our target is to have it read by Monday August 11th - when we all post a "book report" to the blog.  It can be as short or as long as you want to make it.

So?  Are you in?  If you're up for the book club - let us know by posting a reply to this post!

Here's to a summer of good reading!  We'll do some check-in posts over the coming weeks as we're reading Bruxy's book.  Remember - posting and replying will make this fun!

Rich Birch
rich.birch@connexuscommunity.com
Connexus Community Church

This Weekend @ Connexus

Really looking forward to Sunday.  For starters, I'm pumped because I'll be preaching live in Orillia on Sunday with the final message in the I Doubt It series. Can't wait to see everyone in Orillia again on Sunday! And one of the best preachers going is beginning a new series in Barrie Sunday (hint, it's not me!). And, Barrie, you'll have some really cool people to host the service Sunday.  Some of our Orillia team is heading to Barrie to say hi. It should be a great weekend at both campuses!

Second, we've got some big stuff coming down the pipes for the summer/early fall.  Just when I thought June was a big month, our team did more planning.  Stay tuned!

So, I'm hoping you'll be here this weekend with some friends.  Hey, I'm even interrupting my holidays to come back to preach Sunday, and happy to do it (there's a neat story behind it)....

Here's the skinny:

Orillia Campus | Sunday July 6th 2008   

I Doubt It | Part Four: I Just Doubt

Are doubts an inherent part of the Christian faith? Do people ever reach a stage where we just stop doubting? Why is it that sometimes as we grow spiritually, we question more, not less? What does God think of our doubts? What do we do with our doubts? Join us as we see how doubts are an essential part of a life of faith.

Music:
I am Free
Filled with Your Glory
Blessed be your name

Barrie Campus | Sunday July 6th 2008

Simple | Part One:  Follow Me

There is a common misconception that the church is a gathering place for saintly, perfect people. Moreover, some think that being a Christian means observing a set of rules or commandments. The reality is that the Christian life is about a relationship with Jesus Christ. And at the heart of that relationship is an invitation that Jesus extends to people from all experiences of life: "Follow me."

Music:

Sing to the King
Blessed be your name
Rain Down

See you Sunday!

Carey

Christmas in July

Hey friends,
(Hopefully we are friends after this post . . .)

So we've started working on Christmas eve at Connexus already.  I know  . . . I know . . . it's July.  We want (need) to get the ball rolling.

We're working on some great creative concepts and have started to block out some big ideas.  Our goal for Christmas Eve is to present this incredible message that God came to earth in Jesus.  We want to create the kind of service that we all can invite our friends to and clearly present this idea that God isn't passively waiting for us to find Him but that He took the first move to come to us.

We've started looking into locations and are running into some snags.  We originally were thinking about the Barrie Molson Centre and doing a "kidstuf" sort of event where we would invite families to fun/wacky/great family experience.  We liked the BMC because it's a neutral space - the kind of place we think folks who don't normally attend church might be less creeped out with attending at - we want to keep the spirit of that in whatever location we end up at.  Turns out BMC is closed for Christmas.  (We've tried being annoying and asked lots of people - to no avail.)  After the BMC was gone . . . we started looking into other locations.  Orillia Opera House - Nope  ... Gryphon Theatre - Nada ... East Bayfield Centre - Zip  ... Barrie Sports Dome ... Zero   Any Highschool in Barrie/Orilla ... Zilch    So as you can see . . . we started running out of good (obvious) options.   We could ask a to borrow space on an "off time" from a couple churches - haven't explored that option yet.

This where you come in - the reason for this blog post tonight.  We are thinking about a couple different options at this point for Christmas eve . . . and we're wondering if people would be up for weighing in with your thoughts.  WARNING: My bias is going to show through in this.  I'm not pretending to be impartial.

Idea 1 - We could rent two elementary schools in Barrie and Orillia and host two services.  We'd need to go through the hoops with the people at the school board to open up the facilities for us but we feel pretty confident that we could find space in some schools.  We like this option because it's community oriented - it's in the heart of the cities we are attempting to serve.  It would also be nice to have something close to all of our people this year - rather than a central (outdoors or otherwise) event like last year.

Ideal 2 - We host a single Christmas eve event at the Convention Centre at Casino Rama.  (Wait!  Hear me out before you send your cards and letters.)  When I think of the Christmas story I am struck by a number of things.  Jesus arrived in a completely unexpected place - a barn - a Casino is close to the last place I could image people thinking a Christmas Eve service would be.  I am also struck that God "risked" coming to earth as a child rather than coming as a full grown man - we could probably use the location to talk about why God took that "risk".  It's also an incredible conference centre attached to the hotel (so kids can attend) with virtually free busing from all over central Ontario.  (Plus I "bet" that there are more people in Casino Rama on Christmas eve than in all the churches in Barrie & Orillia combined - a sad state of the communities we live in.) 

So now . . . it's your turn.

Some possible questions to answer:
1) Do you know of some great mystery facility we should be thinking about that we should be exploring?
2) What do you think of these two options?
3) What could we do to craft the sort of Christmas eve experience that would have a shot at reaching those 90% of people in our cities that didn't attend anywhere last year?
4) Do you think I'm totally nuts for thinking about Casino Rama . . . and may need to get my head checked?

Please fill in your comments below.

Rich Birch
rich.birch@connexuscommunity.com
Connexus Community Church

p.s. We're going to post stuff about the Summer Book Club tomorrow. Stay tuned, friends.
p.p.s.  We're pulling together an event for the end of August that I am totally pumped about.  It's not the "Fill the Truck" event that we're going to talk about this weekend . . . this other event is going to be at the end of August and a lot of fun.  Keep your ears to the ground!