kylegilbert

This past week I finally got around to updating Josh Whitehead’s blog, and I think it turned out pretty nice.  It’s the same basic theme that he already had on there, but I spruced it up a bit.

You’ll need a wide-screen monitor to get the full effect.

I’m a rather huge fan of the Faith Promise Internet Campus. We’ve added a third service at 9 pm, and this online ministry continues to gain momentum.

The ministry happening online continues to blow me away. Just this weekend:

• People were connected from four countries outside the United States (Canada, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and El Salvador).
• One family connected from their hospital room the day after their new baby was born. (Yay, Crass family!)
• One family connected while traveling on vacation to Disney. (I think to make the rest of us jealous.)
• Our worship staff connected while traveling home after the roads were closed on their way back from a mission trip in NYC.
• I spoke on the phone with someone who gave his life to Christ three weeks ago while watching the iCampus and now wants to follow up by being baptized.

And that’s just the stories I heard about this weekend. Many others attend anonymously until they are ready to take the next spiritual step.

My favorite part of the iCampus is that although the staff has provided this tool, it’s people leveraging their social networks via email, Facebook, and Twitter that has spread the word. If you haven’t already, you’re help letting people know about this would be appreciated and could even make an eternal difference in someone’s life. Just make sure that you include http:// so that the link will be clickable, and posting right before or during an online service is the most helpful.

To those of you who already play a part in spreading the word and who serve online as volunteers… thanks so much! You guys rock!

Today was the day of group presentations at Faith Promise, and I have to say that I was totally blown away by the quality and creativity of the presentations presented by our staff today. Each had a unique approach and a fresh way of communicating their ideas.

My group decided to do almost the entire presentation through video, and you can watch it below.

(better quality video coming soon – Done, thanks to Matt James)

In case you weren’t able to attend our last First Wednesday service at Faith Promise (or if you just want to enjoy it again), this is the “Jesus in the Manger” skit from that service. The two guys carrying Jesus around are the Pastor’s sons.

I think it’s amazing how a short presentation like this can be so funny and yet also get to the heart of things.

Things have really busy since the Thanksgiving holiday, largely due to a group project that I’ve been working on. Our entire staff was divided up into interdepartmental teams to compete against one another as we each worked to come up with solutions to various problems that are facing our church body. (You can get Josh’s perspective here.)

Like normal, I’ve found myself in the position of project manager. The process has been both very fun and very challenging at times.

We’re putting the finishing touches on our presentation now, and I hope to share it in video format once the presentation is over. I was tempted to put a couple of behind-the-scenes photos in with this post, but I don’t want to spoil any surprises (or give away any ideas to the other teams).

I love being the pastor of our Internet Campus, and I love the people who gather there each week. It’s an eclectic group from all over the United States (as well as a few from other parts of the world), and I get to listen to the stories as we see people’s lives impacted by God. It’s amazing.

Some people who log on there are just checking out our church before they visit. Others are attending because they’re sick, home with a new baby, or home bound. Some attend because they are Deaf, and we offer ASL interpreted worship services. Even though it’s different from traditional methods, God is meeting people there.

Let me give you one recent example:

Last week I made a follow up phone call to a young woman who lives out of state but attends online each week and wants to start serving through our Internet Campus.* After a short conversation with her, I realized that she hadn’t committed her life to Christ, and I got to lead her to the Lord. Since then, we’ve connected a couple of times, she’s going to be visiting Faith Promise over the Christmas holidays, and I’m scheduled to baptize her during the service when we do the recording for iCampus. Amazing.

While some are suspicious and fearful of this kind of ministry, we see both the current impact and the future potential. Because of that (and a group of people who have stepped up to the plate in service), I’m very pleased to announce that beginning this Sunday, our iCampus will now feature three service times: 10 am, 11:45 am, and 9:00 pm.

I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Please join with me in praying that God would continue to bless this online ministry – to impact lives for His Glory alone.

——–

*In case you don’t know, we have online greeters, prayer volunteers, administrators, and soon we’ll have our first online small group. There’s room for more, so shoot me an email or drop a comment on here, if you’re interested.

Prior to coming to Knoxville a year ago, I spent two years as a Campus Pastor at a second campus of my church. It was a great experience, God opened all of our eyes to new ways of doing church, and I built some lifelong friends, but we didn’t see a lot of growth or people coming to Christ. It was a time of enormous sowing, but very little reaping.

In some ways, things did not go the way we hoped and dreamed. It caused me to question my ability to lead and my capacity in ministry, and I began to work through my insecurities to rediscover that my personal worth has nothing to do with my performance. Through Christ, I have worth. I don’t have to spend my life trying to prove myself.

Now, a year later, I’ve found myself in the totally opposite situation. Things are going well. We’ve launched a new website, an Internet Campus, and done a bunch of other cool projects this year. The list of accomplishments is impressive, and people’s lives are being impacted each week through new initiatives.

Now that things are different, who gets the credit?

God, please protect me from my pride. Show me how to give you the credit and glory – for it all belongs to you.

At Faith Promise, we just finished a marathon weekend of five productions of Home Invasion, Sacred Storm, a story of one family’s struggles and the spiritual battle happening around them.

The acting and script was great, and attendance was pretty amazing. All services combined, there were over 5,300 in attendance. From the stories I’ve heard, it’s clear that God impacted a lot of lives.

But not only was it an exciting day on our physical campus, it was also a great day on our Internet Campus as well. Combined online attendance for the day was 504 – a figure that is nearly three times our normal online weekend attendance.

The graphic above is a representation of the 279 connections during our 9:00 broadcast this evening.

Some other interesting stats for the iCampus today:

• Over 600 hours of video were streamed
• People from five countries joined in
• 45 connected in the chat area
• Twelve people streamed the sign language video format

One of the many things I love about my job is the opportunities to build out event-specific websites. The screen capture above is from the re-launch of the Sacred Storm website to promote the upcoming Halloween production at Faith Promise Church called Home Invasion, Sacred Storm.

Even if you’re not in the Knoxville area, you can still be a part of this event since there will be three broadcasts on our Internet Campus on Sunday, November 1st:

• 9:45 AM
• 11:45 AM
• 9:00 PM

We’d also love it if you’d do us a favor and help us spread the word by sharing this event with your social networks. I believe God will use it to make a significant impact in people’s lives.

I’m in the middle of trying to kick off an online small group using webcams for people to connect with each other. I think it will be a great way to build community and discipleship into the lives of people who are already connecting to our Internet Campus each weekend, and several churches seem to be using this technology very effectively.

Just in case someone else trying to do the same thing stumbles across this post, I’ve put together some guidelines and recommendations into a document. I’m sure that it will be a work in progress, but you can download it in a couple of different formats below:

Online Small Group Guidelines (pdf) (Word Doc)