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Welcome to Pursuit.users
Welcome to the place for news and support related to the ministry of Pursuit in Las Vegas, NV. We’ve designed this site for users and friends of our ministry hoping it will contain the help and information you need. It also offers an opportunity for you to connect with others and share your experiences.
Our BLOG will give you an inside look at Pursuit and keep you up to date with the latest happenings and developments. The FORUMS are a place to connect with others and find practical ideas about adapting our resources to fit the needs of your church. And the PURSUITS area is dedicated to supporting our church-wide resources with bonus files, support e-mail sign-ups, and more.
You’re our most valuable asset. Thanks for stopping by and contributing. If we can be of any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail us.
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| | | | Ministry Partners Can Help with Campaigns
8/14/2008 5:16 PM | Campaign Stories In an effort to see you get the most out of a Pursuit Campaign, we’re proud to have linked up with some of the best church support in America. They are professionals at helping churches and meeting their unique needs. Here are some links if you want to find out more:
Supporting Pursuit Campaigns and with bulletins, mailers, posters, banners, invite cards and more.
Supporting Pursuit Campaigns with banners, posters, large format graphics, and more.
Supporting Pursuit Campaigns with additional service programming content including award-winning videos and more.
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| | | | Great WHY> Story: First Saints Community Church
8/12/2008 5:52 PM | Campaign Stories Here's a story from a church that recently went through the WHY> Campaign. These notes keep us going!!
The Why> Campaign went extremely well and was well received by all. Our church has an average worship attendance of about 425 – 450 and we have consistently maintained about 25 small groups. For the Why> Campaign, an additional eight (I think) small groups were added and most of them continue to meet regularly even though we finished up with the Why> Campaign back in mid-June. We worship at three different campuses and at the two smaller campuses small groups have never been an effective tool for discipleship yet during this campaign, we had leaders/facilitators travel from the main campus to the geographic vicinity of the other two campuses and discovered some wonderful ’cross-pollination.’
Prior to the campaign we stressed repeatedly that the Why> Campaign was a two-pronged initiative: (1) to equip those already connected into the life of the church to share their faith more effectively and (2) to explore issues of faith with those who had/have virtually no church connection. I believe we meet both objectives. There was a lot of ‘buzz’ after each week’s worship and the discussions seemed to be lively and right on focus.
In all honesty, we were not as well prepared to launch Why> as we would have liked to have been yet we saw God at work during this campaign in spite of us. Members of our church family have many new stories and testimonies now. The materials from Pursuit are very effective and pointedly address the questions people are wrestling with in their lives today.
Thanks for your prayers during our campaign and may God continue to bless your ministry,
Keith Schukraft
First Saints Community Church
Leonardtown, MD
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| | | | Fresh Resources for a New Season
7/24/2008 1:18 PM | Campaign Stories If you're like most pastors, you'll soon be researching topics and resources for the coming ministry season. You'll want to check out our sermon and service resources at Ministry Direct if you're looking for some great service content. It's all from Central Christian Church, and they do a great job keeping it fresh and relevant.
We've added several series and graphics packages that will allow you to use our content as a basis for a sermon or series of weekend services. The graphics packages include the core artwork for the series and allow you to make the series your own.
We're also about to go live with full blown support from Outreach Media Group for most of our sermon series, including the very popular Happiness series. Keep looking for the official announcement to come soon. An easy way to stay up to date with developments is to sign up for our eNewsletter.
Check the stuff out, and let us know if you have any questions.
Peace,
Bart Rendel
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| | | | An Incredible Year at Central Christian Church
6/20/2008 1:36 PM | Campaign Stories As many of you know, Pursuit is a ministry of Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, NV. I've written several times about our relationship here in the blog.
This week, Jud Wilhite, Senior Pastor at Central, shared some stats and information about the 2007/2008 ministry season that are really astounding. As he told the staff, it's important to remember that numbers represent people.
This past year at Central:
• 15% Growth in Attendance (Now Averaging over 13,000)
• 1,415 Baptisms (4,593 Baptisms Since September 2003!)
• 2,150 Decisions for Christ (11,684 Decisions for Christ Since September 2003!)
• 8,400 Small Group Gatherings Throughout the City
• 16,956 Homeless People Fed
• 24,810 Nursing Home Visits
• 11,925 Bags of Food Donated
He also envisioned the future:
• 3 Additional Campuses around Las Vegas
• An Internet Campus (Coming Very Soon!)
It's incredible what God is up to in Vegas. Jud and the team at Central are serious about telling as many people as possible about God's uncensored grace in one of the craziest, most unlikely, places on the planet.
We're proud to be linking arms - telling their story to as many pastors and churches as possible. We also feature many of the resources that are a part their incredible ministry to Vegas. (Excellent, creative, and practical to the core!)
If you want to learn more about Central and hear directly from their leaders, think about attending Central Uncensored on Nov. 9/10, 2008. It's a behind the scenes, all-access look at what one national magazine editor called "the most evangelistically successful church in America." I interviewed Jud and Mike Bodine, Central's Senior Leader, about the event. You can hear it here.
Give us a shout at Puruit if you have questions or we can help your ministry in any way.
Peace,
Bart
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| | | | WHY> Helps Another Church
6/2/2008 3:41 PM | Campaign Stories If you're thinking about a church-wide journey of some type, our Pursuit Campaigns offer a great option. We continue to get stories back (although it's tough sometimes because everyone in ministry is so busy!!) about how the campaigns have ignited some really cool stuff in churches.
Here's another one from Wentzville Christian Church in Wentzville, OH:
To Pursuit Ministries,
I wanted to thank you for assembling this curriculum. The WHY> Campaign was a huge success in our church. We were able to get a lot of people involved in small groups who had not been involved before. It opened doors also for a lot of communication and discussion with individuals who were closed to some of the topics we discussed.
In Christ's Service,
Kris Hagemeir
Short and sweet, but a great story. We continue to hear about how a campaign can really move people into classes and groups. And the "sticky" rate for people after the emphasis continues to be high - over 70% in most cases stay in the class or group. Very cool.
Send us your story if you get the chance. And check out the campaigns if your looking for a great spiritual emphasis this year.
Peace,
Bart
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| | | | WHY> Story: Connection Pointe Church
5/21/2008 4:42 PM | Campaign Stories So here's another helpful review and story from Connection Pointe Church in Brownsburg, IN. Their review is helpful because they give you insight into what they did to make the campaign their own. In case you wonder, nothing was edited in or out...it's straight from the church.
Thanks to Denise and Buddy for the comments.
BR and RB
The WHY> Campaign overall was a huge success for Connection Pointe. We were able to make a strong connection between being engaged in the weekend worship service and meeting weekly with your small group, and then seeing how it all fit together. We successfully grew new groups and connected new individual into existing groups. Overall, during the WHY> Campaign we connected 400 additional people into our small group ministry. It was a great experience for the members and guests of Connection Pointe.
Weekend Services
- Used all of the sermons, but our Pastor tweaked content to fit a multigenerational church
- Dramas were outstanding and had a huge impact in complimenting the messages
- Jud’s visuals were very effective, i.e. lab coat with science experience, treadmill-sermon illustrations
- Didn’t use any music-we selected our own music which we thought complimented our service better (Pursuit placed samples of their service orders in the Samples and Ideas from Other Churches section of our support site)
- Shot our own man on the street videos to be more geographically relevant to our population
- WHY lights on set
- Intentionally selected timing to end Why Jesus week on Easter-HUGE Benefit
Communications
- Created our own graphics-utilized Vegas theme. This included direct mail and church wide signage and web.
- In house graphics fit our overall look/brand
- Each piece placement was strategic
For our Campaign Director, all of the information was easy to reproduce and delegate responsibility. Very user friendly with the ability to customize to the culture of our church.
Groups
- Video content good
- Very seeker friendly-you could invited non churched people
- For those who thought “they were past that” it created great conversation
- Length of video was very good and content for discussion
- Devotion was a good supplement
- Think questions facilitated great discussion and thought
- Good for new or growing groups
- Great to launch new groups
- Had a Group Open house that built brand new Why groups
- Assimilation process-placed at our lobby kiosk and through Open House
- Utilized our Groups Kiosk in the lobby to place a lot of people
Submitted by Denise McCleese, Groups Director, and Buddy Faulkner, Executive Pastor and WHY> Campaign Director.
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| | | | Cool Take on Central Uncensored
5/15/2008 11:40 AM | Pursuit News Ryan Russell attended Central Uncensored a couple of weeks back, and then blogged about his experience. It's pretty cool because he chose to use his takeaways as a launching pad for some great ministry discussion.
Check it out, and post a thought or two on his blog. He raises some really good questions.
Peace,
Bart
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| | | | Check This Out: Miamisburg Wesleyan Church
5/15/2008 11:32 AM | Campaign Stories Another great story. This is the stuff that keep us going. Thanks to Pastor Jan for sharing. BR
We received our books yesterday. Thanks so much for the fast shipment!
I also greatly appreciate your small church kit. We could not have done the Why series otherwise. We are a church restart - we started in the teens 3 years ago. I wanted to kick off Why on a special Sunday, so we started on Mother's day. We had 70 people there - a new record high for us! Between the Why mailers we did and the "power of moms" we had a great day. The interest in the 40 days readings far surpassed my estimates.
I also enjoyed reading the free book "Uncensored Grace on the Streets of Vegas." I couldn't put it down once I started it. I want that kind of ministry in my church! Our slogan is "We're a safe place to learn about God." I have been blessed with people who are open and really have a desire to reach out to those who are hurting in our community. We started Celebrate Recovery a few weeks ago and it will be a major outreach ministry for us.
I think you mentioned that you pray for churches as they go through the 40 days. Please pray for us. You could even keep praying beyond the 40 days and it would be okay with me ;-). We want to see God's power released to change lives.
Blessings,
Pastor Jan Toft
Miamisburg Wesleyan Church
Miamisburg, OH
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| | | | Date Set for Next Uncensored Event
5/13/2008 5:17 PM | Pursuit News The next date for Central Uncensored has been set for November 9/10, 2008. It's on the heels of the National Outreach Convention in San Diego. It could make a great combo trip out west if you're planning on coming to either.
If you need more info, the blog contains an interview and a couple posts about the event. It's a very practical and down to earth look at Central Christian Church in Las Vegas.
Hope you can make it. You know you've been looking for a reason to come to Vegas.
Peace,
Bart
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| | | | Central Uncensored Update
5/7/2008 2:23 PM | Pursuit News So Central Uncensored, an inside look at Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, happened last weekend. We were excited to host, along with Central, churches from as close as California, and as far away as Indiana. While we're still learning a bunch about hosting such an event, it went well and the pastors and church leaders that were here seemed to have some good takeaways.
Here are some of the practical ideas and parts of the event that seemed to impact people the most, as noted in their evaluations:
- How to do ministry simply, with clarity.
- A picture of alignment and how that works in a church.
- Seeing the Children's Ministry in action.
- Core strategy must have movement, focus, and clarity.
- Thinking outside the box.
- Direct contact with Central's ministry leaders.
- Seeing an example of an effective video campus.
- Hearing about Central's multi-site strategy.
This stuff comes straight from the evaluations (along with some stuff we'll be working on!!). It makes for some good reasons to considering coming to the next Central Uncensored event in the fall.
The date will go up soon. We'll post it on the site and in the blog.
Peace,
Bart
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