MBC- Prince William

I’m sitting in the 10:45 service of our preview weekend at MBC Prince William. (Yes, I am on my laptop during a sermon. I’m multi-tasking.) God is good. Today has run so smoothly. I loved hearing the choir. You all were great. Alyce and the band were amazing. All the tech elements ran smoothly. Nice job team!

I also loved walking around the building and seeing the kids in their classrooms. We had students in Jr. High and High School at The Rock. It’s so exciting to see the building and programs that we’ve been working on for months finally in action. We all know that this building is just a building - a tool for us to use. It’s still exciting to see to see it in use. Praise God for a successful preview service today!

As part of the staff development process at MBC, we had a training session this week on how to be a good manager. Joe Henriques, Denny Harris, Sue Langlie, Bill Steele, and Jim Supp talked about various aspects of good management. We talked about needing to be a good student and a good follower, to manage yourself well, to communicate vision, and to develop others. I thought it was a great discussion. I appreciated hearing our leaders talk about leadership.

Sue Langlie pointed out that there are stages of change. Change doesn’t happen instantaneously and we have to remember that it takes time for people to process change. They need to grieve the loss of the way things were (even if the old way wasn’t bad). Then they need to spend some time processing. Only after going through these two stages can people get excited and get on board with the change.

That really resonated with me. The congregation and staff at McLean Bible Church have definitely been through change in the past few years. Personally, this summer has been filled with a lot of change. I switched jobs, switched campuses, and moved. I know many of you have been through even more significant changes, some good and some bad.

It’s so comforting to know that even when everything seems to be changing, God is still the same. James 1:17 says “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Hebrews 6:17 says “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath.” It’s nice to know that even when everything else seems to be changing, God remains the same. He’s still in control. He’s still in charge. He’s still God.

For those of you who are joining us from MBC Tysons, Alyce should be a familiar face.  Alyce has been at MBC Tysons for years.  She has lead the Worship Group, sang solos, and played keys on a regular basis.  Alyce also led worship at the MBC Women’s Conference in 2008 and leads at The Edge and MBC Loudoun from time to time.

As you should know by know, Alyce is our Worship Leader here at MBC Prince William.  We are truly blessed to have her.  Not only is she an amazing singer, but she has a tremendous heart for worship. it’s clear that God has blessed her with a heart for worship and for people.

Alyce grew up in the DC area and has served in the music ministry of several different churches.  She also worked for some time as a teacher, so she’s extremely organized (which I appreciate!) and loves kids. She and her husband Walter, are fluent in Spanish and Italian.  Sharing an office with her has helped me to remember my Spanish skills!  They recently adopted a Yorkie, Rocco, and are working on puppy training.

If you haven’t met Alyce yet, feel free to say hi this weekend at the preview service.  9:00 am and 10:45 am.  Kid’s Quest and The Rock will both be open.  See you Sunday!

If you are interested in auditioning for the vocal team… and maybe you’re a little nervous…  or you don’t know Alyce yet… or you just want some more information about the vocal ministry… tonight’s event is for you!

Meet and Greet with Alyce - 7:30 pm - MBC Prince William Campus.

Email Alyce at alyce.metallo@mcleanbible.org if you’d like more information!

If you enjoy working behind the scenes or if you have any technical inclination whatsoever, we’d love for you to join the PW Tech team.  Don’t worry, while we like working with people who have some experience, we will definitely train you.  When I started volunteering with the MBC Tech Team 9 years ago, I had no technical experience at all.  A desire to serve and a teachable spirit are the only prerequisites.

If you are at all interested, come out to one of our training dates.  Craig Campesi is running training sessions every weekend until we launch. The actual schedule is below.  Come check us out or email Craig for more information!!

Aug 15 (Saturday) 1:00 - 3:00 PM Training & Stage Set Up
Aug 15 (Saturday) 3:00 - 5:30 PM Rehearsal
Aug 15 (Saturday) 5:30-7:30 PM - System Overview and Downlink training… (live service from Tyson’s)

Aug 16 (Sunday) 8:30 AM - 10 AM - System Overview and Downlink training… (live service from Tyson’s)
Aug 16 (Sunday) 10:30 AM - Noon - System Overview and Downlink training… (live service from Tyson’s)

Aug 22 (Saturday) 1:00 - 3:00 PM Training & Stage Set Up
Aug 22 (Saturday) 3:00 - 5:30 PM Rehearsal
Aug 22 (Saturday) 5:30-7:30 PM - System Overview and Downlink training… (live service from Tyson’s)

Aug 23 (Sunday) 7:00 AM Setup
Aug 23 (Sunday) 09:00 PREVIEW EVENT
Aug 23 (Sunday) 10:45 PREVIEW EVENT

Sep 5 (Saturday) 1:00 - 3:00 PM Training & Stage Set Up
Sep 5 (Saturday) 3:00 - 5:30 PM Rehearsal
Sep 5 (Saturday) 5:30-7:30 PM - System Overview and Downlink training… (live service from Tyson’s)

Sep 6 (Sunday) 8:30 AM - 10 AM - System Overview and Downlink training… (live service from Tyson’s)
Sep 6 (Sunday) 10:30 AM - Noon - System Overview and Downlink training… (live service from Tyson’s)

If you read yesterday’s post, you may be wondering why I did those things I never expected to do.  Yes, each of those things had a reason.  Well, except for the song about the artist’s cat.  I still don’t get that one.  Everything else really did have a purpose and a meaning behind it.

MBC Core Value Number 4 says “Ministry and Evangelism must be carried out in a relevant way”.  You may not understand how an Avril Lavigne song can be used to communicate Christ, but a teenage girl would have a totally different perspective.  You may not understand how a surfboard could be used in worship, but a 5 year old attending KIDStuff would have a totally different perspective.  You may not understand Twitter or Facebook, but millions of people use both every day.  Hopefully you do understand why we’d want the water to be warm when people are baptized.  But if not, email me and I’ll explain it to you.

But even deeper than that is the reality that Christ transforms lives.  1 Corinthians 5:17 says “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has gone, the new has come.”  Galatians 2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and who gave himself for me.”  God sent his Son to give himself for me.  And for you.  The Creator of the universe loves me enough to send His Son to die for me.  And He loves you enough to send His Son to die for you.  Not only that, but He sent His Son to live in you so that you may be forever changed. Think about that for a second…

That’s why I researched glow sticks (by the way - the shelf life is 2 years).  That’s why I cleaned up salad that had been thrown onstage.  That’s why Mark wore a plunger on his head at VBS last week.  That’s why Thomas and Rachel put twigs in their hair.  That’s why we’re starting a campus in Prince William County.  To share that love in a relevant way and impact secular DC for Christ.

Everyone has an idea of what it is like to be “in ministry”.  Some of it is what you would expect - relationship building, events, outreach, Bible study.  And then, there is the rest.  The “other duties as assigned”.  The things you never expect to do as part of your job.  Mark Davis can now add “wear a plunger on your head” to that list.  Ask him about it sometime.

I’ve been experiencing a lot of these “other duties” over the past few months, so I thought I’d share in no particular order.  (side note- I love these “other duties”.  They have been a lot of fun.  I just never expected to do them as part of my job).

1.  Join Twitter - yes, this is a plug.  @stephcue.  Follow me.  I promise you’ll learn something.  And if not, you’ll still have fun. I resisted for a while, but I’ve caved.

2. Research the shelf life of glow sticks - For years, I was the resident expert on glow sticks.  We used them on Christmas Eve when the Fire Marshall wouldn’t let us use candles anymore.

3. Locate a surfboard - On a Friday afternoon at 4 pm. Needed it for the KIDStuff rehearsal Saturday morning. Oh, and 90% of our staff is off on Fridays.  (God provided one through Kent Husted.)

4. Find a portable water heating system - This was today’s assignment. We’re trying to find a way to keep the water warm in the baptistry from Saturday night to Sunday morning. We don’t want anyone to be baptized in freezing cold water!

5. Take a self-defense course - Just trying to be prepared in case anything were to happen on a weekend.

6. Be wardrobe consultant - Men, you won’t understand this one. It’s hard for women to pick outfits that meet all the prerequisites for cameras (no white or black, preferably solid colors, no loud patterns) while also maintaining appropriate modesty.  All this while also trying to look cute!  It’s a balancing act.

7. Watch cheesy Christmas movies - It was research for the Christmas show a few years ago.  Nothing I saw in the movies I watched was actually used in our show.

8. Produce a Korean event where everyone involved only spoke Korean. I do not speak any Korean. It was very interesting for all of us tech folks.  It’s hard to take cues when you can’t understand what the people onstage are saying.

9. Produce an event where the lead act takes off his shirt during the concert.  Seriously.  Also in this category: watch the artist dump salad all over the stage, bring his dog onstage, sing about his cat, or try to fix me up with his son.

And finally…. 10. Blog.  Someone referred to me as a “blogger” and it totally caught me by surprise.  But I guess, technically speaking, I am. 

I’m sure I will have more over the coming months.  Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences.

Here are a few pictures from last week’s VBS.

Ranger McPhearless and the Adventurers

Quint

Ranger McPhearless and Old Story

Kids

More kids worshipping

This August is unique for me.  I’m in a transition period, between finishing up my duties at Tysons and fully launching into weekly services at MBC-PW.  The fun part is I actually have several Sundays off to visit other churches.  When I told my family about this, they called it “checking out the competition”.  I laughed, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how wrong that attitude is.

One of the common misconceptions of the MBC campus strategy is that we want to take over other churches or take people from other churches.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  Let me say, if you are at a solid, Bible-teaching  church and you’re growing, stay there.  Seriously.  The global church needs local churches that are strong and growing.  We at MBC have no desire to steal you from your church.

We do feel strongly about impacting secular Washington, DC for Christ.  We want to see new believers come  to Christ and we feel that one of the ways we can be more effective is by putting campuses in multiple locations around DC.  We know that some people do drive an hour or more to come to MBC Tysons.  We also know that  there are a lot of people, particularly people who don’t know Christ,  who don’t want to drive that far or to deal with the traffic.  So we’re reaching out to them.

I love visiting other churches.  I love seeing what  God is doing in them.  I visited one church in Haymarket that meets in an elementary school gym.  It was great.  I visited another church that meets in a building similar to our PW campus.  In both cases, I was reminded of things that we at MBC could do better.  I was also reminded to be thankful for our staff and volunteers.  God is blessing us in so many ways.  I am really excited about launching services at PW.  But I’m also excited that the church in the elementary school is building their own facility. 

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter which church you go to. What’s important is that you know Christ.  I hope you do like MBC-PW, but I’d rather that you loved Christ.

The MBC - PW staff had an amazing week.  I’m still excited about everything that happened.  This week we held our first ever MBC-PW Vacation Bible School.  I suppose it’s not a surprise that this was our first one.  We’ve only been in the building for a little under 2 months.  I have to give a big shout-out to the Kid’s Quest team for all their hard work to not only get the program ready, but also to do things like put tables and chairs in rooms.  Minor details.

All in all, 245 children and 107 adult and student volunteers spent the week at Wildwood Forest.  We learned how our wild and wonderful God is unpredictable, uncontainable, and unforgettable.  Alyce, our Austr-english tour guide and her team of student worshippers led us in song and praise.  Ranger McPhearless led our campers, Mimi and Quint, through the wilderness.   Small group activities reinforced the daily Bible verse and theme.  Our own campus pastor, Mark Davis, taught in the Great Oak Theater every day.

If you know me, I LOVE kids.  Practically all kids.  So this was an awesome week for me.  I loved seeing  kids as young as 2 years old singing about God and memorizing Bible verses.  There is something really sweet and pure about hearing small children talk about Christ.  Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. Or maybe because they have a pure faith that hasn’t been jaded by the  world around them.  Either  way, it’s always a great reminder to me of God’s love.  His uncontainable, unforgettable love.

If you missed out on this year’s VBS, don’t worry - we’re already talking about next year’s program.  Next year we won’t have to paint classrooms, so we’ll be that much further along!

Mimi and Quint, aka Rachel Fabian, Director of Ministry Teams, and Thomas Kovacs, Director of The Rock Student Ministries