We are just a couple of days away from a Ty Pennington style church renovation! In a matter of hours we will begin to put a creative twist and an artistic bent to our second campus and we’ll be nearly finished in 36 hours. We LOVE making church buildings look different, unique, and interesting. We love creating an environment that surprises people when they walk through the door expecting a typical church setting. It ignites us to add a bit of creativity to a blank canvas!

I think that churches have often missed the boat on the importance of esthetics in our culture. Environment clearly matters! Starbucks took a cup of coffee and made it an icon, largely because they partnered that coffee with an environment that encouraged relationships. People wanted to be in their trendy little coffee shops! It’s where they feel welcome, content, and relaxed. Imagine if Starbucks served the same product in a beige, multi-purpose room with outdated furniture. Environment simply matters!

So, as we paint our new church some vibrant color, add some metal, brick, and reclaimed lumber, remember that each piece is placed because we want to create exactly what Starbucks did. The only difference is that our purpose is far greater than a cup of coffee and making a profit. Our purpose is Jesus and our bottom line is eternity.

If you’d like to help, here’s the details:

500 SW Eaton Blvd
Battle Ground, WA 98604

Friday – 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Saturday – 9:00 am – 9:00 pm

Bring general tools, work clothes, good paint brushes, electric screw drivers, etc. We also have jobs that require no hard labor as well. See you this weekend!

Here’s the Hazel Dell Highlights:

Great morning with our guest speaker, Jeffery Portmann! He and his wife are long-time friends of ours and we appreciate him coming down to be a part of the Coffee Church for a morning.

Matt lead a great set of worship! Love that new “White Flag” song, don’t you? Although it’s now constantly running in my head…

We had a bunch of people out yesterday running the Shamrock Run. We’re proud of you, but I will never understand running. In Montana we run when bears are chasing us and that’s about it. Although bears only chase tourists, so I guess that means we never run.

We had to say goodbye to Demetri yesterday. He’s moving to Florida, which is a bummer, because he is an amazing servant who knows a lot about how to make things happen at North Creek. We’ll miss you, Demetri!

And here’s some Battle Ground Highlights:

Mark and Chris went to co-teach on our vision and values. I LOVE when the two of them get to share the stage. They are so different in their giftings, but unified in their communication, so they play off of each other really well.

Alissa lead worship with a full band for the first time at BG yesterday. It went off without a hitch, with many thanks to some guys who went late on Saturday to get the system up and running.

From behind the scenes it was a bit of chaos as we began to figure out how things work at Battle Ground. We’re on a learning curve to get to know people and know what needs to be done. Thankfully, everyone seems to be patient and helpful all around, so we’ll get there soon!

Deaf Church had a good service as well! They meet at 11:30 am on Sundays, if you are ever interested in being with them on a Sunday morning. They experienced the death of a friend this week, so would you take some time and pray for that man’s family?

We have our BIG work weekend coming up this Friday and Saturday for people from both campuses. We’re going Ty Pennington style and doing the whole renovation in a matter of days. Someone should get me a bullhorn… We send out details via email, so if you’re missing that information, email me at stacy@coffeechurch.com and we’ll get you signed up.

Happy Birthday to our Preschool Director, Kelly Eldred! If you are looking for a great preschool next fall, North Creek happens to have one in Battle Ground!

Hope you have a very blessed week!

Someone asked me today how our original campus is dealing with the merge, so I thought I would take a moment to brag on them! Since the moment that the people from our Hazel Dell campus heard about our merge, they have been nothing but excited! They have jumped at the idea of helping, serving, going, and giving in any way that they can. Our teenagers are opening wide the gates of welcoming and can’t wait for new friends to join them. We get daily emails talking about how thrilled our people are for empty seats that God will fill. Every word spoken, every resource given, and every email sent brings tears to my eyes of gratitude.

This show of unflinching support speaks loudly to me that the people who call North Creek home simply get it. They are willing to send half of our staff away to another campus, they are willing to work, they are willing to share their pastors, and they are willing to give their money for something that will give to others what Jesus has given to them. We could not be more impressed with the character, courage, and faith that is flowing out of our church in the last month.

So, thank you, Hazel Dell Campus, for loving our community more than your comfort. Thank you for trusting our vision. Thank you for allowing Mark and I to do what God has asked us to do. We so deeply love being your pastors and our prayer is that you will see this community changed by your willingness to be used by God.

Every pastor determines their church’s culture, whether they mean to or not. We do this by what we say “yes” to and what we say “no” to. There is just no other way around it! For the last five years, we have defined what we wanted our church to feel like and then we have evaluated everything that comes our way by it’s long term reprocusions to our culture. Here’s some examples of how North Creek has defined our culture:

1. You can belong before you believe. If you want to attend our church, be in a small group, and be on the greeting team, but you just aren’t sure about Jesus yet, that’s fine. We want you to come, learn about Him, meet people who are also learning about Him, and make a decision to serve Him (or not) when you know that you want to. We decided a long time ago to be teachers without a timeline. It’s not our job to win your heart…trust me, Jesus doesn’t need our help on that one! It’s our job to teach you His Word and give you all of the background of our beliefs as Christians.

2. We speak life and celebrate wins. We look people in the eye and tell them how much we like them. Sarcasm is a deflector for emotion and intimacy. We go with the emotion and let people know they are welcome, loved, and valuable as much as we can. We send out emails all of the time with “Stories of Changed Lives”, so that people hear about good things happening. Our staff meeting starts with what went well that week in people’s lives because that’s WHY we get up in the morning and do ministry.

3. We fight “culture killers”. If there is a person in the church with a gossip problem, we go there. If someone wants to put up a flier that doesn’t align with our values, we go there. If someone undermines one of our team members, we go there. Sometimes it’s obvious why it’s so important and sometimes it seems silly, but it’s not! What you allow and don’t allow defines your church.

4. We do everything on a Sunday morning through the lens of a new guest. How will they feel? Who will they meet first? Do they feel like their kids are safe? What impression does our signs, bulletins, building give them? Did they hear the message of Jesus in a way that they understand and is impactful to their lives? Did they walk away feeling valued?

That’s four of the key ones, but there’s a long list of other ways we create our culture. I hope that you see a method to our madness in the midst of it all. We have painstakingly thought about our vision and what it will take to protect it and see it out to completion! Sometimes it may seem like we are doing things that seem very opposite of the church you might have grown up in, but I guarantee you that there is a reason and purpose behind everything! More to come…

What a week! Several families in our church are facing some daunting circumstances and last week proved to be emotionally draining for many people. We are praying for God’s peace and strength across the board this week.

Simply Worship was on Friday! My favorite part of having a life devoted to Jesus is that He meets you wherever you are. If things are going well, worship becomes uplifting and fun. If there are struggles in your life, worship becomes deep and healing. For me, Friday was a much needed time to just cry and let God carry the burdens of His people. Thank you to our worship team for creating an environment where God can do what God does best!

We had our first work day at Battle Ground on Saturday. We didn’t have any major construction projects, so it was a fairly easy jumpstart. We cut down some bushes so that people driving by can see the building better. If you have a truck or tractor and a chain, we need 10 stumps pulled out. Let me know at stacy@coffeechurch.com. We also began to strip the interior for painting in a couple of weeks. It looks a little bare right now! Our biggest project is our advertising campaign, so we started assembling that. More info to come on how you can help!

Sunday we invited both campuses to Hazel Dell. The 9:30 service was PACKED tight, but we all fit in! I passed by Tim and said, “Put down your scone and start setting up more chairs.” Might be my favorite comment of the morning! It was awesome to meet new people and give the Battle Ground people a look at how we do things. Most noted comment: “It’s a little dark in here.” Yes, we know! Bright lights make guests feel like they are REALLY in the spotlight when they visit. If you are a guest in our church, you can easily feel like nobody is staring at you, which is a nice way to feel when you are new. We do put the Bible verses on the screen so that people can not only hear the Bible, but see it as well. We also encourage people to read along with us on their phones.

Wayne and Jenny (pastored the Battle Ground church) left yesterday for a couple of weeks. Wayne is going to Haiti for a missions trip and Jenny is spending time in California with friends. We wish them a relaxing and incredible time!

Mark preached an AMAZING message yesterday on Nehemiah 2. We KNOW that we KNOW that we KNOW that if our two campuses will unite, set aside weariness, fear, and comfort, and charge ahead on the mission of God, our community WILL be changed. That is a conviction that is not waivering in our spirits.

On that note, be blessed this week! When God is for us, who can be against us?