So, How'd It Go?

I picked Sydnee and Quinn Galvin up at their house at 6:30am. Not much in the world gets me up that early in the morning, but I'd been awake with anticipation for hours already. Who would show up for church on our first Sunday? Would we be ready to give them a great spiritual experience? Would we be able to get out of the way enough to let the Holy Spirit have his way in people's hearts? The answers were just a few hours away.

Core Team volunteers started showing up as the morning progressed. Band rehearsal kicked into full gear. Kidzworks was buzzing with workers creating a great space for kids. Electricity tingled throughout the conference center all morning, filled with the anticipation of what was to come.  An hour before our first service, all of our volunteers got together to worship and get on the same page for the day, which turned out to be a great moment for me to quiet my heart, and remember what it is we're all about. 

And then it began.

People started to trickle in. Slowly at first, but as 10:30 approached, it was clear that our goal of 150 in attendance was a little small.  They walked through a transformed entryway, which volunteers had turned into an inviting space, hoping that people would feel immediately at home. I tried to shake every hand I could find and help them know how honored I was that they'd show up, but soon the time had come to start worship.

There are certain things in your life that, whenever you're engaged in them, a sense of completeness and wholeness comes over you, convincing you that you're in just the right place at just the right time.  For me, leading worship is one of those things. As the band kicked in, and my wife, Mandy, started to sing, I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that God had led us to just this place and time for just this purpose. As hands went up in worship all around the room, it felt like all of us sensed the power of God at work in the room.

Then David got up to speak... or better said, we put him up on the screen. I've got to admit, I was nervous.  How would people respond? Would they be engaged? Well, as with most worry, it was misplaced. As soon as David mentioned Janesville, people erupted in applause, both in Beloit and in the room we were in. From that moment on, I really don't believe that we missed much of anything with David on video. His sermon was compelling and energetic, and people laughed and clapped as if he was in the room.

Now, you might think that I'm saying that everything went perfectly, but you'd be very wrong. There were lots of glitches, although most people in the room might not have noticed. We had some problems with quite a few people not being able to see the screen well, which we plan to have fixed by launch weekend for sure. We spent a little too much time talking and explaining, which we'll shore up in the next couple of weeks. There were some technical glitches we'll be working on.  But overall, things went better than I could have even hoped for our first preview service.

So, I know the question I haven't yet answered is "How many people showed up?" Here we go... all told, we had 198 people... 126 in the big room and 72 kids and volunteers in Kidzworks. And while it's great to celebrate the fact that we were significantly over our goal, I also never want our success to be defined solely by how many people show up. Having said that, it was great to have a big group of great people all worshipping God together.

All told, I can't imagine any way I could have hoped that our first Sunday service could have been better.  I'm blown away by the work we've been called to do and the people I get to do it with.  God has been good to me in ways I can't even explain.  And the best part: we get to do it all over again next week, and I can't wait!

What Really Matters

Hey, everybody! So I thought I would recap some of the main themes that we’ve hit in our lead-up to launch. Take a few minutes to remind yourself of the real reasons we’re doing this whole thing, and pray that God will continue to be all over it.  Here we go…

At Central, everybody gets in. And when we say, “everybody,” we mean EVERYBODY. It doesn’t matter how far we’ve fallen, how ugly our lives have gotten, or how self-involved we’ve been.  What matters is that we’re a community of people who are trying to learn what it means to be loved by God in spite of our mess. We won’t shrink from the truth of Scripture, because it’s our lifeline to finding God’s will in our lives, but we won’t use it to belittle anyone or negate in any way the all-sufficiency of the cross in our often-wrecked lives.

We will meet the needs before us. We know that we can’t fix all the wrongs in the world or even in our city, but we know that we have been called to do something about that which is before us.  God will continue to call us to make a tangible difference for hurting children and hungry people here in our own backyard and around the world.


We are not a club for Christians… We exist to help people find their way back to God. Anything and everything we do can find its purpose in helping people find Life the way Jesus experienced it. So, we don’t show up for church because we’re hoping for somebody to serve us. We come expecting to bless God and somebody else. We come ready to live openly and honestly before people who are trying just like we are to find and live the life of Jesus in our every day.  Sometimes we’re good at it. Lots of times we fail. But we will always be a church marked by grace, because that’s how Jesus lived, “full of grace and truth.”

We will be friendly at church and connect with others outside of Sunday morning. When we come to church, we won’t be always looking for our little groups of friends.  We’ll spend most of our time looking for someone new to get to know.  We’ll regularly invite perfect strangers out to lunch with us, because we know what it’s like to come to a new place and not know anybody. We want people to walk in and immediately feel at home.

We will sacrifice our time, energy, and money to see God’s vision for Central in Janesville come to pass. One of the best ways to get connected to other people and our church as a whole is to join a serving team.  It takes a whole huge group of people just to pull off what will happen on Sunday mornings, let alone all the ministry that will happen throughout the week. No matter where you are in your walk, there’s always a place where you can plug in and make a difference.