Wrapping Up madatchurch.com - Part 3

Last one for this topic (unless someone writes me with more that makes me want to share). There are always consequences to our actions. Some are intended, some are unintended. Here's some of both:

• Intended: We wanted people to bring friends who had a problem with church so that they could hear that we knew we weren't perfect, and we were trying to chase after God even in our imperfection. That really worked for some folks. One woman spoke to me after the message about rules vs relationships and said she was so glad to have the CD to give to her husband. He had been part of a very rules-heavy church, and every time they found a new church, there would be some weird, unexplainable rules come up and he'd bail. She was fired up to have him hear that there were rules that mattered, but that mad made rules weren't as important as loving God and loving others. Easter Sunday, I saw here with her husband in church, both smiling and glad to be there. A great beginning!!
  
• Intended: we learned a ton about using media to share Christ! The website went up and stayed up, no glitches, but some of the things we wanted to try, like posting comments to the madatchurch.com site, we found were just too advanced for us. Maybe next time. The billboards worked, but where they were in town wasn't as visible as we'd hoped they'd be, so it limited our exposure. Turns out that when you only want a billboard for a month, they are harder to get than if you want them for 4 months or even 6. But the connection from the billboard to the site to the fbcpoky.com site to the staff blogs all increased traffic, so people looked, they clicked, they learned, and some of them came. Yeah God!
• Intended: there was buzz! I had several conversations with people about the talk in their offices about the signs. The Chubbuck City offices were all abuzz when the first sign went up just down the street from them. A couple of folks from FBC work there, and they heard people talking all about it from day one. I also got a call from a leader in another church here in town that overheard a conversation between two coworkers at his office. He interjected that they site wasn't bashing anyone, and invited them to check it out for themselves. He and his pastor were both very excited about our attempt to get the message of Jesus out to the culture, and he wanted to tell me that it had connected in his office.
• Unintended: Inside issues. There were people inside our church family who were upset by the series. I was somewhat surprised by the anger it generated in some of our people. I have tried to say we're not perfect as a church, and we're not always going to get it right, but even with that, folks were upset that we would talk about rules vs. relationships, etc, knowing that we have messed that up in our life together as a church. In a way, I was glad that it stirred up some folks, because some were willing to talk through their issues and disappointments, and for some, the messages could begin some healing from hurts they've had in our own church, not just somewhere else. All in all, while aimed at helping the outside world come closer to Jesus, I'm glad to say that it helped some people in our FBC family get closer to Him and to each other, too.
  
• Unintended: God smack. I wasn't really prepared for the way God was going to smack me in this series. Don't get me wrong - every time a pastor steps up to preach, God has been at work in their life and stirring them in whatever area the message is about (unless of course they are so cut off from the Holy Spirit that they are just on autopilot, which can and does happen), and I was expecting some of that. But what I got was more. I was really pushed around about my lack of faith in God's ability to draw people to Himself through our church. I kept seeing the reason we put rules up, the reason we get our agenda in God's way, the reason we are so excited to talk about end times things instead of now times things, the reason we get so obsessive about issues is that we don't always trust God to make change in people's lives. I realized that I was thinking way too often that God was waiting for me to DO SOMETHING rather than waiting for me to let HIM do something. It was a constant God-smack for the two months leading up to the series, and the four weeks of the series, and now some of the fall out is being seen in our church in cool ways. More on that later, but God is still working on me after this series.
  

If you've got more stories to share about madatchurch.com, let me know. God did some amazing things, and I'm glad for all the wins along the way. Even if there were some tough lessons to learn, it was all worth it in the end, so PRAISE GOD and keep rolling!