Launch Pad 2015 Capital Campaign

Come and See: Launch Pad 2015 Capital Campaign
Sycamore Creek Church
March 15/16, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today is a very special day in the life of Sycamore Creek Church.  We’re launching a capital campaign today called Launch Pad 2015.  The theme verse for this campaign is found in the book of Acts just before Jesus “launches” into heaven:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
~Jesus (Acts 1:8 NLT)

Launch Pad 2015 is about Remodeling our “new old” S Penn Venue to be a Hub or Launch Pad from which we can launch seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week to reach out into the Lansing region and the entire world.

If you are a guest here today, then you get a very special look at the commitments that our partners are making with us to launch into the future.  We’re not asking you to make any financial commitments today.  So no pressure.  For those of us who are committed partners in the mission of SCC we’re asking you to make three commitments today:

1. A Miracle Cash Offering – If we receive $50,000 in the offering today, the West Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church will give us a $10,000 matching grant.  This will also help us start remodeling without taking out any more debt than we already have in the mortgage of this building.
2. Two-year Pledge – We’re asking our partners to make a two-year pledge to continue remodeling this venue.
3. Annual Tithe Pledge – Lastly we’re inviting our partners to make their regular pledge to give to the church’s mission and ministry.  This is the money we use on a regular basis to touch and change lives, to ignite authentic life in Christ and fan it into an all-consuming flame.

We’re also in the middle of a series called Come and See.  Come and see what Jesus is doing at SCC.  Today we’re going to take a little walk back through our history and into the future.  Come and see what has happened.  Come and see what is happening.  Come and see what will happen.  So let’s dive in.

1. Come and See What Has Happened

SCC was founded by Barb Flory, a rebel grandma who had a vision to start a church for people who don’t like church.  Barb likes to say she’s the only grandma who ever launched a church, and I think she just might be right.  Let’s go all the way back to the very first service that SCC ever held.  On June 25, 2000 Pastor Barb Flory gathered a launch team around her backyard pool to begin to live into that vision.  Here’s a little taste of what that moment was like:

A key theme verse at that time in the life of Sycamore Creek Church was Psalm 1:3:

They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
    and they prosper in all they do.
~Psalm 1:3 NLT

Sycamore Creek Church wanted to be like a tree planted along the banks of the living water of Jesus so that it would bear the fruit of transformed lives.  It sought to break the odds of church planting and not wither.  The vast majority of new churches don’t make it.  SCC sought to not only survive but also to prosper and thrive in fulfilling its mission to ignite authentic life in Christ.

If you want to get to know Pastor Barb a little better and the history of SCC, check out the sermon she preached on our thirteenth birthday.  You can find it here.

Come and see what has happened at SCC and you’ll see a church that has met the natural ups and downs of ministry with a consistent dependence upon God to fulfill its mission.

2. Come and See What Is Happening

In July 2009 Pastor Barb Flory retired from SCC and I was appointed by the bishop as the second pastor of SCC.  SCC was my first appointment right out of seminary.  When I showed up at SCC it became very clear to me that SCC needed to begin to get ready for the future by beginning to save money the day it would own its own building.  In November 2009 SCC ran its first building capital campaign with the very unsexy goals of paying off debt from the parsonage (pastor’s house), saving for a new building, and tithing to local and global missions.  That campaign was called 20 Years Deep because we were  imagining how deep the “Sycamore Creek” would be in twenty years.  The theme verse from this campaign was from Jesus’ statement while talking to his followers who were fishermen:

Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.
~Jesus (Luke 5:4 NIV)

We did put out into deep water and $370,000 was raised over the four years of the 20 Years Deep campaign which allowed us to pay off the parsonage mortgage in three years (yes we bought and paid for a house in three years!) and put a significant amount of money into savings to buy a building.  We’ve also been able to do some amazing things to meet both local and global needs with the tithe from that campaign.

After putting out into the deep waters of that first capital campaign, the leadership of the church was given a new vision.  We weren’t content just waiting for a building to reach new people.  We wanted to go out and reach people where they were at.  A vision was given to us to launch seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week.  This vision came from several sources.  First, I attended a conference at the largest United Methodist Church in America, Church of the Resurrection (CoR), in Kansas City.  CoR was reaching new people by launching satellites in surrounding communities.  It was impressive but it also required a lot of resources we didn’t have.  Around the same time I met John Ball, a pastor in Brighton who was creating a faith community in a pub.  They met for FREE in this space.  Free is compelling.  It was a win win for John’s faith community and for the pub.  Add to these two experiences a conversation I had with an MSU student.  She asked me if we had services on some other day than Sunday.  She worked on Sunday.  I began to notice that many people worked on the weekend, or traveled, or participated in sports or some other extracurricular activity.  Out of these experiences came the idea to hold a worship service somewhere in the community on a day other than Sunday and Church in a Diner was born:

What a ride Church in a Diner has been.  We have met more and more new people just by offering a faith community in a place other than a church building and at a time other than Sunday morning.  Church in a Diner has been a huge success with other churches around the nation launching their own Church in a Diner.  But that’s just the beginning of our vision, because we want to turn this South Penn Venue into a hub and a launch pad for launching seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week.

3. Come and See What Will Happen

Are you ready to see what will happen in SCC’s future?  Well, this building is part of it.  SCC was a nomadic church for fourteen years setting up and tearing down every Sunday at Lansing Christian School.  It was tiring and it used up a lot of energy that we really wanted to focus outward.  I liken it to car camping in the same campground every Sunday morning for six hours for fourteen years.  Set up.  Tear down.   Set up.  Tear down.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

In March of 2013 I felt like God was calling me to preach a sermon series through the not so popular book of Numbers.  “Numbers” is the Latin name for the book, but “In the Wilderness” is the Hebrew name for the book.  Numbers is the story of God’s people, the Israelites, wandering through the wilderness setting up and tearing down camp for forty years!  They followed God’s lead through a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night:

Sometimes the cloud would stay over the Tabernacle for only a few days, so the people would stay for only a few days. Then at the LORD’s command they would break camp.  Sometimes the cloud stayed only overnight and moved on the next morning. But day or night, when the cloud lifted, the people broke camp and followed.
~Numbers 9:20-21 NLT

Forty years they did this!  That makes fourteen years seem pretty short.  As we began to accumulate savings in our 20 Years Deep Capital Campaign Fund we began to feel that God was leading us to look for a building.  While we had saved over $100,000, we began to realize how little that was in relation to the needs our church had for a building.  Some estimates for buying and remodeling non-church buildings to house a church ran over $1,000,000!  Sometime around this time we were informed that the old Calvary UMC building at S Penn and Mt Hope was going on the market.  We had looked at this building before but concluded it was too traditional for our church’s culture.  So we passed on it.  But then I attended a conference at New Life Church in Chicago that began to reshape my vision.  New Life Church was adopting and relaunching old dying churches in the Chicago area.  They now have 21 satellites on Sunday morning.  You can see what they’re up to here.

I saw seven of those satellites during that conference and saw new young thriving churches in old buildings, sometimes remodeled and sometimes not yet remodeled.  My vision for what was possible began to shift and change.  I came back from that conference, showed some videos and pictures of my experience to the leaders and suggested that we take another look at the Calvary UMC building.  When we looked at it again, we could begin to see ourselves inhabiting his building.  We could see some remodeling that would accommodate our culture.  We could see our mission thriving in this location.  The money we had saved from 20 Years Deep was not only enough for a down payment but also to begin remodeling.  And so in November 2014 we closed on the building and on Thanksgiving weekend we had our last worship service at Lansing Christian School and on Dec 7, 2014 we had our first worship service at our “new old” building.

We kicked off our time in this building with a Christmas series that led up to Christmas Eve where we were 1 Church, in 2 Locations, on 3 Days, with 4 Services.  This past Christmas Eve we broke a SCC all-time record with 410 people attending one of our four services.  It was exciting to see a glimpse of what God was going to do in our future.

As we moved into this new building we began to wonder, who lives around here.  And so in December we hired a demographics expert named Tom Bandy to help us learn about our new community.  We found out two very important things.  First, the current largest group we currently reach is a group that demographers call Singles and Starters.  They make up about 14% of our attendance.  Here’s the really fun second thing we learned: the largest group immediately surrounding our building is that same group!  They make up 28% of the population right around our S Penn Venue.  Thank you God!  We couldn’t have planned it any better.

From Tom Bandy we learned some things about the Singles and Starters.  When it comes to hospitality they expect multiple choices and takeout.  When it comes to worship they’re looking for a missional, educational, and coaching experience.  When it comes to outreach they’re dealing with health and quality of life issues.  When it comes to facilities, they prefer utilitarian over churchy.  And when it comes to leadership, they’re looking for pilgrims and mentors.  These expectations of the Singles and Starters right around our building have guided our decisions about how to remodel the building and what to remodel first: the Connection Café.  It’s our sense that this group is looking for people and a place where they can build significant relationships with people who can mentor them and be a pilgrim in the journey of faith alongside of them.

Over the last several months I’ve been networking in these neighborhoods to see if the reality on the ground meets the demographic stats.  Over and over again I’ve met community leaders who are  excited to have our church in the neighborhood and excited about vision for remodeling this building and making it an asset to meet the needs of the community.  And that brings us to today: Launch Pad 2015.

So what are we asking you to do today?  Here it is:

Launch Pad 2015 isn’t the end.  It is a beginning.  It is the beginning of fulfilling a vision.  This vision won’t happen overnight.  It won’t even all happen with this capital campaign.  But if it is God’s vision, and I believe it is, then it will happen even if we have to wait forty years for it.  I leave you with this word from the prophet Habakkuk:

But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.
~ Habakkuk 2:3 NLT