Dave Bowman

We Love Kids Pt. 2

Picture this with me. You’re sitting in a restaurant enjoying your meal when all of a sudden, this cute little pixie-like face peeks over the booth next to you and smiles a big smile. I mean, it’s one of those kids that’s just too cute for her own good. What are you going to do? You can’t resist, can you? You smile back. You wink. You make a funny face to make her laugh. And you totally forget about your meal.

Picture this with me. You’re sitting in a movie and you’re locked into one of the most riveting moments of the movie when all of a sudden a 2 year-old, who shouldn’t be in the PG-13 rated movie to begin with, starts to absolutely scream his little head off. The parent can’t seem to get the situation under control, and to make matters worse, they just sit there with the screaming kid. And you totally lose track of that riveting moment of the movie.

Either way, you’re distracted. And so are other people around you. You paid good money to enjoy that meal. You were looking forward to that movie for weeks and now the experience has been less than you expected.

Yesterday I posted about NHC’s Pro Kids policy that breaks out into 2 parts: Part 1 -  Provide a rockin’ kid’s ministry. We go all out on this one and it’s working. We actually hear stories about kids who want to come to church DURING THE WEEK! They get upset when they hear that they have to wait until Sunday! We must be doing something right. Part 2 of our Pro Kids policy is to ask parents to drop off their kids in Uhambo.

The benefits of this policy are huge. First, it gives both the children and their parents the best possible chance at spiritual development. But it also has another effect: it cuts down on the amount of distraction in the service. Let’s be deadly honest – a cute kid or a crying kid causes distractions; not because they’re evil little monsters but usually because they’re bored. And those distractions can come at the most crucial times in a service.

None of us enjoys it when there’s a disruptive child in the movie or the restaurant, and what we’re talking about here is so much more important. Every week someone comes to NHC and their eternity is literally on the line. We need to do everything we can to provide a distraction-free worship environment where those decisions can be made.

Once again, I know this will be tough for some parents to understand. But let me ask you this: if you needed some time with your spouse for a heart-to-heart conversation, what would you do? I know what I do – I hire a babysitter. I take my wife to a nice restaurant where we can talk and listen to each other. If I want intimacy with my wife I don’t involve the kids. First, it’s not fair to the kids. They don’t want to be involved in our “intimate conversation.” They’re going to get bored quickly. Second, it’s not fair to me or my wife. We need that distraction-free time together.

So it goes with our worship environment. It’s not fair to expect our kids to sit for an hour and fifteen minutes and not do anything distracting. And it’s not fair to the folks who might be sitting around us to let our bored kids distract them from what God may be wanting to do in their lives.

So, let me bottom line this – WE LOVE KIDS AT NHC!! We love them so much that we have provided an awesome experience just for them. I love it when I hear stories of parents whose kids literally drag them to church because they can’t wait to get here. (For a really cool story like this, check out Leah’s blog.) Every week at NHC we want to do our best to partner with parents as we continue to help more and more people (kids included!) to encounter God and engage in community!

We Love Kids!

I grew up in church. Most of you have heard me talk about it. Some of it is funny, some of it isn’t. The part that isn’t funny is that I remember how boring it was most of the time. I remember my parents bringing notepaper so I could play tic-tac-toe, making airplanes out of the church bulletin and how I couldn’t wait to get outside to play in the church yard until we finally headed for home. And I know from conversations with some other NHC’ers that they have similar memories.

Unfortunately for many of us, it led to us bailing out on church. I personally couldn’t wait to bail out as soon as I left home for college. I saw the church as irrelevant, out of touch and basically a waste of my time. I still believed in Jesus, but I just couldn’t stand to sit in church any longer, so I was out of there.

Thank God I made it back, but many don’t. It’s a story we hear over and over at NHC. “I bailed out on church when I left home and now I’m 35 and my life is a mess. Is there a way for me to come back?” Thank God for his grace and mercy, but wouldn’t it be better if we’d never bailed out to begin with?

So how do we work against that in a positive way? At NHC we have developed a Pro Kids policy that we’re rolling out in the next few weeks. It’s comprised of two parts.

Part 1 – Have An Absolutely Rockin’ Kid’s Ministry

We talk a lot about being relevant at NHC, in fact, it’s one of our values. So when it comes to our kids we want them to have an experience in an environment that is relevant to them. We want them to learn about Jesus in a way that they can understand and relates to their world. Most of all, we want to partner with parents in teaching their kids about God’s love and God’s word.

To that end we have invested lots of time, money and energy in creating the children’s spaces, providing the best staff available and equipping them with what they need to communicate the gospel to our kids. Our goal is very simple – make it fun so they’ll want to come back and help them to understand that Jesus loves them and wants to be their friend.

Personally (and I have one grandkid who just graduated out of Uhambo and one who’s still in it) I think we’re doing a great job with kids. Our kid’s pastor, Cathy Heitzenrater, and her team are knocking it out of the park every Sunday, and it’s just getting stronger every week. (Props to Cathy and the Uhambo gang!)

Part 2 – Ask Parents To Leave The Kids In Uhambo

This is where it might seem a little controversial. We are going to ask all parents to leave their kids, 4th grade and under, in Uhambo. Over the next few weeks, our Welcome Team will be asking parents to drop off their kids, rather than bring them into the auditorium.
This will do 3 things:

1) It will help ensure that our kids aren’t bored out of their gourds

2) It will cut down on distractions in the service (more on this tomorrow)

3) It will free up parents to really concentrate on the service (most parents will thank us for this!)

Now this is where the critics will kick in…

• We want to worship as a family

Fine. You have Monday through Friday to do that. Honestly, that’s where your kids will learn more about worship from you than anywhere else. If you’re not living a worship lifestyle on Monday through Friday, but you show up here on Saturday night or Sunday morning with both hands in the air, you’re just teaching your kids what a hypocrite looks like.

So if you want to worship as a family, try having a family Bible study at home. Pray with your kids at home. Make sure you live your faith in front of your kids Monday through Friday.

• My second grader gets more out of the main service

Do you seriously believe that? They can’t possibly understand the issues we deal with, not to mention the fact that sometimes we talk about things that are inappropriate for young ears.

• I’m not sure that my kids will be safe

Because the safety of ALL of our kids is imperative to us, we have invested in a state of the art check-in system to ensure that no one but the parents who dropped the kids off will be the ones to pick them up. We also have a way to page parents during the service if a child becomes sick or gets injured. And we have a security team to make sure that only those who are authorized can enter the children’s ministry area.

Speaking of authorization, we don’t just let anyone volunteer to work with our kids. They are interviewed and must submit themselves to a criminal background check. If you don’t do the background check, you don’t work with our children.

• You just don’t like kids

WE LOVE KIDS!! We love them enough to want them in the best environment for them.

Bottom line – we want the best for both our kids and our parents. It’s a Pro Kids policy! More tomorrow…

Sunday Mind Bullets

• Today we left it all on the floor! That’s sports terminology meaning we didn’t hold anything back. We left all we had out on the playing floor. At the end of the morning today that’s how I felt. We’ve prayed…we’ve preached…we’ve invited…now the rest is up to God.

• Today was our last Sunday as a Sunday-only church. Next week – Saturday Night Live at NHC!

• Today these are the people who told me they love NHC – teenagers who drive from another town to attend NHC…high-powered business leaders…a single mom…a young couple with multiple tattoos and piercings…a 20-something young lady who comes with her boyfriend…a woman in her 70’s…a recovering addict who will soon be leading a recovery group at NHC – Man, I love our church!

• Be prepared for some new looks at NHC next weekend! Work began this afternoon on rearranging the whole lobby with a totally new look. I stopped by late this afternoon and it’s already looking great! I think you’re going to like it. I’ll post some pics later.

• New video technology going in this week too. Over the next few months we’re working our way towards HD technology to get us ready for multi-site. It’s one of our first steps towards the vision of 5 locations.

• Tons of new volunteers around this week! If you’re new to the team – glad to have you on board!!

• Stopped in a hung out at Spiked for a few minutes this afternoon. Adam and his crew have done a great job of transforming our Student environment, and the Spiked band rocks! Remember, Spiked moves to 11:30 next Sunday morning.

• Can’t wait for next weekend!!

• On another note, Duke won another one! I don’t know how to handle this. Coach Cut has absolutely transformed the culture of football at Duke. We’ve got to be talking ACC Coach of the Year!

• INVITE EVERYONE YOU KNOW…INVITE EVERYONE YOU RUN INTO THIS WEEK…GET THEM TO THE PARTY! I’m out…

Shake, Rattle & Roll

A few weeks ago as we began the run-up to October 4th and 5th, I decided to go back to the book of Acts. I just felt like I needed a refresher course on the New Testament church. One of the references to the early church that struck me was Acts 4:31 - After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

That week our staff decided to starting meeting every Thursday afternoon at 4:31 to ask God to shake NHC. We’ve met for “4:31” prayer now for 4 weeks. We’ve prayed together for our Sunday services, for our Uhambo Kid’s ministry and for Spiked/Club 56. We’ve prayed for our volunteer teams and leaders. We’ve physically prayed IN all of our ministry areas. Today we walked the parking lot and prayed that God would surprise us with the number of guests that show up on our big weekend.

We’re believing that God is going to do something awesome that we’ve never seen before. We’re asking God to bring couples whose marriages are on the rocks and that those marriages would be healed. We’re praying that eternal destinies would be altered and that large numbers of people would surrender to the Lordship of Jesus. We’re praying for kids whose parents are causing an atmosphere of fear in their homes.

Bottom line – we’re praying for God to shake this place! We believe he’s going to do that. Do you?

It's A Party!!

Just a few quick hits about this Sunday…

• NHC’s gettin’ funky this Sunday! Get here early, fill the front and don’t miss the first song!

• Can’t wait for Sunday’s message! God loves parties and he wants his church to PARTY! And we’re getting ready to throw a big one next weekend.

• As usual, Uhambo Kids will be off the charts and Club 56 will be rockin’. And don’t forget Spiked Student Ministry.

• This will be our last weekend as a Sunday-only church. Everything changes next week – Saturday, 6:30 and Sunday at 9:30 and 11:30.

See you Sunday!

New Music

Lincoln Brewster's new album Today Is The Day has just been released. I don't hype too many albums on my blog, so when I do it's something I'm really excited about. I love this guy's music. It's great worship music by one of the real gems of Christian worship leadership. And if you're into really great guitar work, Lincoln can seriously shred!

The album is already the #1 downloaded Christian album on iTunes and #21 overall! You can check it out here. Enjoy!

Top Ten

OK, NHC’ers, we’re coming down to the wire. Now’s the time to invite our 5 friends for the weekend of October 4th and 5th! This past weekend we gave everyone 5 packets of red hots with a special label for our new Hot marriage series that is kicking off that weekend.

So, let’s talk about the Top Ten Ways To Invite Your Friend To Church…

1. Send your friend a link to the website with a note telling them what they can find there about the church, i.e. info about kid’s ministry, youth ministry, videos of Sundays, etc.

2. Send them a link to a podcast with a note that says, “When I heard this message, I thought about you and what you’re going through…”

3. Take an info guide to work and say, “When I heard we were doing this, I thought about you…”:

4. Invite them over for a cookout on Friday evening. Inevitably the question of what you’re doing the rest of the weekend will come up. It’s a great opening to talk about NHC and what’s going on.

5. Invite them to eat lunch on Sunday (or dinner on Saturday) and then say, “Hey, why don’t you guys join us at NHC and THEN we’ll go eat together.”

6. Think of someone who’s having a tough time, pick up a sermon DVD and take it to them and say, “When I heard my pastor preach this I thought about you and prayed for you.” (Make sure you actually do pray for them!)

7. Have your kids invite their friends to spend the night and bring them to church. Our kid’s ministry rocks and their kids will turn into one of Jesus’ biggest advertisers.

8. Give them a pack of your red hots!

9. Take them a worship CD and tell them that church music really can rock!

10. Just say, “Hey, you won’t believe what my church is doing this weekend…” (That’s something you can always say about NHC!)

Sunday Rewind

• What an ending to both services today as hundreds filled the front of the auditorium and turned it into an altar of commitment to God's call! Powerful ending to a powerful day. Praying with folks was great too. We need to do that more often.

• Change - to borrow a popular campaign buzz word - is exciting, energizing and engages people when it's done in the right way, for the right reason and at the right time. Lots of things are changing right now at NHC and there are more changes on the way, but it's a good thing! It's obvious that the people of NHC get the vision of NHC!

• Gary and the band nailed it today. And props to Anna for her version of Come Just As You Are. Absolutely awesome!

• TONS of folks today indicating that they want to make the missionary move to the Saturday night service. The principle behind this is pretty simple: you free up seats at prime inviting hours. For unchurched people, the prime attendance slot is still Sunday morning, and usually in that 11:00 time slot. That's our biggest service, and it's the one that most of our unchurched guests come to. So when you shift to Saturday night, you're freeing up space on Sunday morning so more unchurched guests can slide into that slot. Freeing up seats creates growth potential and then God is willing and able to bring the growth.

• Props to everyone who is filling the front and getting here early! You're helping us create a whole new atmosphere!

• We introduced the Hot series today and everyone seems pumped about it. We're going to talk about how to make your marriage sizzle, and then on the 5th week we're topping off the series with a Vow Renewal Service.  It's going to be HOT!

• Singles, don't think we've forgotten about you. Every time I do a marriage series you are in my heart and mind. We'll have some stuff thrown in there for you too!

• Next weekend we're wrapping up the 5ive series with It's A Party! You may not know this, but God loves parties and we'll be talking about the party atmosphere at NHC. Can't wait!

• The U. S. Golf team finally won the Ryder Cup again! And they did it without Tiger Woods. U-S-A!!

• One final thought - I love being your Pastor, NHC! I may be a little biased, but I can't think of any group of people I would rather make the journey with! Thanks for the privilege!!

Another One...

Last week's featured video was such a hit, I thought you'd enjoy another one...

Sunday's gonna rock! Be there FIVE MINUTES EARLY AND FILL THE FRONT!

Kids...Kids...Kids!

Look at what's happened to our office wing! It's been taken over by kids, and lots of them! Over the last couple of weeks we've rolled out the re-do of our office wing to make room for the growing number of kids at NHC.

And we're not quite done yet. I hear there's going to be some cool new video screens installed in the nursery so moms can still see the service, even when Jr. is a little fussy.