The Browning's - Blog

Buying a Mother's Day Present

Thu, 06 May 2010 08:29:14 -0800

I've had this feeling before. It's the feeling I get after buying Tarah a gift; whether an anniversary, Mother's day or birthday gift - it's the same. I feel euphoric because, I THINK, I have purchased something that she is going to love. Now several years ago, after several mistakes, Tarah gave me this hint, "Will, stop buying me things that plug into the wall! You are not permitted any longer to buy anything with a plug." That comment came after buying irons, toasters, vacuums, and even hair supplies (which I thought she would love! Apparently, buying hair supplies implies that you don't like the way one's hair looks.)

This year I am trying something different - and again - I am feeling like I have gotten something she will adore! I am scared because, as I said, I have had this feeling before. What I am beginning to find out is that she wants me to find something that makes her feel..."Will put a lot of thought into this gift. He knows me SO well. He has listened to me about the things I'm dreaming of. He recognizes the things that I am passionate about." A vacuum doesn't even remotely say that - even if your wife has been complaining about your current vacuum not running correctly for months.

I will have to get back to you to tell you if I did well. I have my fingers crossed and my little heart is trembling, but then I think this is what love is supposed to feel like!

The Grand Opening

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:11:31 -0800

This will definitely be a week to remember for the Journey Church. After three months of back-breaking work, we were able to have our first public worship service in our new location, and by every measure it was a success. It didn't go without its own glitches (the air-conditioning in the foyer went out on Saturday night), but nothing held us back from worshiping our Savior on this Resurrection Day 2010. We felt it wise to have a Sunday Morning Service on Easter and that plan was well worth the effort. We were elated to see 191 worshipers come to our first ever morning service at 10:30am. The worship was awesome and I gave a very simple yet mission focused Easter Message.

A few hours later we had our second service at 5pm. Honestly, I feared that everyone we knew had already come to worship, but suddenly at about 5 minutes to 5pm all these new people started pouring through the doors. We had challenged our people to be missionaries in their circles of responsibility, and by the turnout it seems they took this challenge to heart. Once all was said and done another 196 people attended the second service giving us a grand total of 387 worshipers this Sunday, nearly tripling our monthly average for March.

I spoke openly about this on Sunday, that getting too caught up in finding our value in how many people come and sit in our building for a service is a dangerous trap. These are dangerous numbers for us to celebrate. The number that I am most excited about are the three people that I am talking with about following up their decision to follow Christ with baptism. Another point of celebration is that fact that our people were missionaries. Finally, it is certainly a moment to celebrate the many servant hearts of all our people who dedicated themselves to making this day happen. I am proud of you Journey Church and consider it a privilege to be a part of this family with you!

Easter Sunday 2010

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:59:52 -0800

Ten years from now I wonder what I will say about Easter Sunday 2010. The view of this weekend to come is currently filled with hope and excitement. This past week we had our first service in our new location, and it was awesome. We had nearly 200 people in attendance at this preview service, and this was without specifically inviting anyone. We are expecting God to blow the top off of things this week at our Grand Opening, but I am recognizing it is all on other people's shoulders. First and foremost, God in His infinite power will be the source of our hope. We have all been praying and pleading to God that He will move in our church and I am confident that He will do His part. Secondly, I am reminded that we have significantly placed our trust in our people to be missionaries in their circles of responsibility. I hope that if you are reading this, and are a part of our church family, that you have been making significant investments in the people that God has placed on your heart. My prayer is that you will take advantage of this opportunity to invite those folks to one of the two worship services this weekend. We will only have this day once and it is literally a once in a lifetime chance for all of us. Last Sunday I gave a few goals for each of us to shoot for and here they are one more time:

Come to both services (10:30am & 5pm).
Park in the least desirable parking spaces.
Come with a sense of excitement.
And again, invite the people that you have been investing in to join you at one of these two services.

Ten years from now I hope that I will tell the story this way, "On Easter 2010 our church family took seriously the idea of being missionaries in their own personal circles, and our church began to impact our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that we have never turned away from since that hallowed Sunday ten years ago."

Will <><

The Next Three Weeks

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:52:33 -0800

This is the blog that I have been waiting to write for more than 6 months. This is the blog post that describes our entry plan into our new building!

Now, a caveat is necessary: All things are subject to an inspection and we have no control over the inspection results. With that caveat in place, let me proceed. If we continue at our current rate of success we will be in our new building on Sunday, March 28th. Occupying the building by the 28th will allow us to have one service in the building before we go public. This service will allow us to get the kinks out before we have our Grand Opening Weekend on Easter Sunday, April 4th. On April 4th we will have our first morning service at 10:30am and our usual service at 5pm. This morning service will only happen on April 4th, but we hope to start offering a service on Sunday mornings starting in the Fall of 2010.

You may be asking, "What does that mean for this Sunday, March 21st?" This Sunday we will have a special Sunday. We will begin our service at 5pm at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, where we have been worshiping for the last 2 1/2 years. We will have a short service and then together we will all make our way to our new location for a prayer service. We will pray together that God will bless our efforts as we try to reach the surrounding area with the gospel of Jesus Christ. A FAQ this week as been, "Where will we do childcare this week?" Childcare will be done as normal at Pleasant Grove, but feel free to bring your kids along to see the new building as we make our way over.

Okay for clarity sake, here is the plan for the next three weeks

Sunday, March 21st - Prayer Sunday - Start at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church at 5pm with a time of prayer at the New Building
Saturday, March 27th - Invite Saturday - On that morning, we will walk the neighborhoods behind the church and invite people to our Easter Service.
Sunday, March 28th - Preview Service at 5pm at the New Building
Sunday, April 4th - Grand Opening with services at 10:30am (Easter Only) and 5pm weekly.

Very excited about the next three weeks!

This Week Will Make Us or Break Us

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:32:20 -0800

This week will be one of those weeks that either makes or breaks this project. I don't mean to make overstatements and I am confident that I am not. This week's teams will be working every night at our church and many people are even taking time off their day-time jobs to make this week a success. This week we need to put the final coat of paint on the walls, build our main stage, lay 1400 square feet of tile, install cabinetary, and paint the ceiling & air conditioning system. Sound like a lot? Well, the list keeps growing. We also need to finish running our data cabling, install our auditorium lighting system, and load in all of the chairs into the auditorium. I getting a little queezy just writing all this out. If we are able to get all that accomplished by the end of this weekend, we will have made a ton of strides.

So I am calling all hands on deck! If you can help this week, on a weekday or over the weekend, please come. I am looking for some Freds! Some volunteers who will serve and sacrifice for the glory of God with excellence and perseverance. Are you out there? Then come on down because your the next contestant on "The Time is Right Now!"

Will

The Plan

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:39:04 -0800

Wow! That has been the word on my lips lately. I have been in awe of how God has been moving in the life of our church over the last month. I have been encouraged by the response of people in our worship services. I'm so excited by the new people that have gotten connected to our church over the last few weeks. I have also been in awe of the volunteers who have sacrificed so greatly over the last month. Our team has accomplished so much. Painting walls, building a complicated riser system, installing lighting systems, building cabinets & info desks, and running data cabling have been all the workings of our people over the last few weeks. It has been awesome to see the overwhelming willingness to serve. The truth is that we have a long way to go, but with this dedication we are well on our way to being in our new location by Easter.

This Sunday we announced our plans which I would like to share with our family at large. We are planning on having our first public worship service on Easter Sunday, April 4th. Currently, we are hoping to have an "Easter Only," 10:30am worship service along with our typical 5pm service on April 4th. We are working towards trying to have a weekend or two in the building before Easter, but there are multiple elements that must fall in place to make that a reality. That means we have no more than 5 weeks to get everything accomplished. We need your help more than ever. If we can be productive each weekend, we can make this happen.

Our biggest goals are not to get people to just volunteer to work at the building. Our greatest goal is for you to invest in the people in your circle of responsibility and to invite them into a relationship with God and our church family. This goal far exceeds our attempts to have a beautiful building. Let's keep our eyes on the real prize: to see people transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Vision Coming Alive

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:54:26 -0800

It was early Summer of last year and we walked into our. soon to be, new location. A dream was being birthed inside our church that centered on the idea, "How do we take responsibility for seeing the people in our community hear the good news of Jesus Christ in a greater way?" That challenge has propelled us to our current position, now in the late winter of 2010, where we are planning, preparing, and praying that God will allow us to see a great movement happen in our beloved city. We see our new location as a tool inside our tool belt that will allow our people to have a greater impact on our community.

Over the last few weeks we have watched a tremendous amount of progress take place inside the building. Our ceiling has been installed, electrical has been run allowing for our lighting system to be positioned, and we have constructed a riser system that will make the worship experience more engaging for every seat in the worship center. For the next several weeks we will be focusing on painting, laying tile, and installing cabinets. We need big teams to accomplish these tasks. If you would like to help in these areas. Please send Clay an email at claysjourney@gmail.com and we will get you involved on one of our volunteer days.

While we have spent a great deal of time on our building project we have expended a greater amount of energy on developing our people, who represent the church not a building. Our small groups are doing great ministry this month and are growing by leaps and bounds. Our worship services have been powerful as we have dedicated ourselves to take responsibility for our circles of influence. I am so proud in the Lord for what God is doing inside our church. Please join our teams as we prepare for the next great vision of the Journey Church.

The Big 'Mo'

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:19:12 -0800

If you watch very much football or basketball you will hear commentators talk about, "The Big Mo." "Mo," is a shortened name for momentum which every sports team tries to seize at critical moments in a contest. I feel like our church is gaining a little "Mo" - mentum with our building project which is spreading throughout our church. Excitement seems to be high on all the lips of our people.

This past weekend was a great success for our church on so many levels. Thursday evening we had a team of a dozen volunteers meet at the new building to run Data Cabling. This cabling is CAT 6 cable that will allow us to have internet, tv, & phone lines throughout our building. This project was critical to several of our future plans for the church's functionality. On Saturday afternoon, a team of ten volunteers helped finish this project with great success.

On Saturday, we also took on another big project laying the black ceiling insulation. A team of 8 volunteers worked diligently from 9 a.m. until well into the night to accomplish this task. This was a critical project and with its completion our contractor can put in the HVAC and our electrician can now install our lighting package. Once these items are installed we can start building our stage and riser system. I am so grateful for these volunteers and proud of our team's commitment to this project.

NEXT - 1/24/10

In turn, this excitement has spilled over to our church. We had our first NEXT session where 29 people gathered to get answers to the question, "What's my next step into the Journey process?" It was a great evening of conversation and getting new faces plugged in.

This week our small groups start back, which we have all been looking forward. On top of all this, we had 152 people come and worship Jesus and talk about our city vision this Sunday evening at our worship gathering. Maybe God is allowing us to see the Big-Mo come our way!

Progress...Yes, It Feels Good!

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:00:52 -0800

Ah Progress, oh it feels so good. I have been dreaming of these days for so long. Like most men, I need something to work on. I think we all experience this in one way or another. Some men want to work with their hands, some want to work on their computer, and some waste their time working on a new high score on their video games. But this desire is inside all men, we want to accomplish something. Working in the building this week brought that emotion out for me. Most of you know, I am not a very handy person. The common joke is that I only know how to work a hammer and a piece of rope.

Even with my lack of ability, I could feel the excitement welling up in my soul to experience accomplishment. It is thrilling to know that we have many more days to experience this comradery together. Over the last two days a team of about 15 volunteers painted the beams inside our church. (Make sure to check out pictures of our work weekend and the building's progress at re-built.org). To some, this may seem like a slightly insignificant task. On the contrary, this action item will allow for our installer to run our insulation and it also allows for the HVAC company to install our air condition system. This weekend really helped us continue to move the ball down the field.

As we worked, our contractor had a team laying our plumbing followed by the pouring of concrete. Now that these two items have been completed, the remainder of our wall studs can now be raised. Once the walls are up we can run our data cabling, which is next weekend's task. John Mills will be leading this team who will be working Thursday-Saturday. We are also now gathering materials for our stage and riser system; our next big projects. So get your hammers out, your work gloves on, and let's get ready to do this job. We need all of you to help. Painting walls is coming soon and we are going to have some very tall walls. So excited and I hope you are too!

The Good & The Bad

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:18:58 -0800

I am learning that in every building project there are ups and downs. They can never be foreseen, but these emotional highs and lows are to be expected.

For the last four weeks we have been waiting for several small issues to be resolved. First, we dealt with a parking issue, which was resolved but then our excitement was halted by a mechanical engineering issue. This issue was corrected just before Christmas week and then we began waiting for Berkeley County to release our permitting. I am happy to announce that our builder has our permits in hand and our project is now moving forward!

Now everyone knows that in America not a lot gets accomplished over the last two weeks of the year with Christmas and New Year's, but I am happy to report that construction crews are in our building and working diligently this week to get our framing walls up. Below are some pictures of their progress. We also expect that our frontage sign will be installed in the next seven days. This has all been such good news to my ears and I am looking forward to our church getting our hands dirty together as we get to work on our part of the project.

Now as to our timeline, we had always hoped that we would be in our building and holding worship services at the beginning of 2010. Our original timeline suggested that we would have access to the building in January and we would probably have our first service in the building in early February. Now that we have waded through all these delays, we are recognizing that our initial timeline has been shot. We expect that we will have more planning hickups along the way, so giving another possible move-in date may be premature. Our contractor has told us that he needs at least 90 days from permitting to get this job done. We also have some work that we are responsible for as well. All I can tell you is this: God is in full control and He knows the exact date that He wants us to be in the building. We will work diligently to make it come as early as possible, but God is ultimately in control. Please join me in praying that everything will go smoothly and that God will work mightly through us over the next several months.