Launch Sunday Aftermath

I have been meaning to blog all week regarding our Launch Sunday this past week, but it has been crazy insane - in a great way! I would like to highlight some stuff on Sunday and what has been happening since then.

• Launch Day Attendance - 300 (+/- 2.5) - about 75 of the 300 were from out of town or have a church but came to see Chris Sligh. 200-225 were people in our area that are legitimate prospects.

• Launch Day Decisions - 5 new believers! This is why we do what we do!

• We had an awesome volunteer team in place! There were 14 people that came to help us from our sending church (Marcus Pointe Baptist, Pensacola, FL). We also had several local churches donate volunteers to help in different capacities. Thanks to all who helped!

• We had the most exciting environment set-up in the lobby where we served coffee and donuts. A few weeks ago, I was eating at sandwich place and met a man that was playing acoustic guitar and singing some classic songs in the corner. I invited him to play for our lobby on Launch Sunday. He came and was a instant hit!

• We gave out about 100 books to first time guests (1 per family). The book was "How Good is Good Enough" by Andy Stanley. We had also put a personal handwritten letter in each book.

• Met so many people as they left. Had some awesome conversations - "looking for a new church home", "we are coming back next week", "we have been catholics all of our lives and we're tired of all the rules, so we plan to make Lakepointe our new home", etc.

• Great week of follow-ups. On Monday, we emailed all of our first time guests with an optional survey to be filled out. Also on Monday, we mailed handwritten "thank you" notes with a $5 coffee card to each 1st time guest families. On Tuesday-Friday, we made personal phone calls to every family to thank them for coming and to see if they had any questions about our church - we still have more calls to make but hope to contact everyone by Easter.

• We collected about 19 great responses from the survey. We asked 4 questions: 1. What did you notice first?, 2. What did you like best?, 3. What was your overall impression? and 4. How can we pray for you?. I'll try to post some of the top responses next week.

• The buzz about Lakepointe is still going on. Today, we had a team of people involved in a community outreach at the Macomb Rec Center inviting people to our Easter service. Many people mentioned that they knew about our church!

• Yesterday, we mailed out 20,000 mailers promoting Easter. We are praying for a great turnout on one of the biggest day in the year!

• On a side note, last Sunday was Nate (my son) birthday! He turned 3. This evening, we had a party for him and had a great time at my parent's house.

Please continue to pray for us as we establish Lakepointe in our community! We are off to a great start - to our God be the glory as we continue to make His NAME more famous in Macomb, MI! Time for bed - we get to do this again tomorrow AM!