Sunday, April 15, 2012 was a very meaningful day for MCA Church. Very few people are in on the details, yet it was significant.
Several years ago our MCA Church leadership team decided to redesign the weekend message processes. In addition to updating our speaking styles and the ambiance around the messages, we decided to have all MCA weekend age groups receive essentially the same message. Our goal is for everyone, from the nursery to the senior adults, to study the same Bible text and concepts.
Yesterday’s services were the first in this genre of ministry. All but one of our weekend services brought insight into “Eucharisteo: Fully Alive. Here. Now.” by opening the concepts behind Jesus’ Passover experience, “and when He had given thanks, he took the bread…”
Pastor Greg Jones (MCA Children), Pastor Howard Hansen (MCA Youth), Pastor Moe Tali (MCA Island Revival), and all of the venue services joined in the initiative. Yesterday, ten weekend worship services all presented the same big idea.
We are continuing to seek ways to reinforce the selected weekend message from the “street to the seat.” The first six minutes of your weekend worship experience is designed to magnify the weekend message. Your parking experience, entrance into the buildings, hallways, and time seated prior to the service start are being designed to make the main point of the weekend.
The name we are giving to this process is taken from the book, “The Big Idea: Aligning the Ministries of your Church through Creative Collaboration.”
Everyone involved in creating this message delivery system is to be complimented. For the audience, it is a small shift. For those preparing the messages, it si a significant departure from our deeply entrenched methods of ministry preparation.