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We wanted to let you know that we have added an "Employment" page to our web site. It's a great place to find out about any employment opportunities at Connexus. There are two roles posted there now so why don't you check it out.
Nadine Russell
Two things happened in the last 24 hours I just have to share with you.
First, we shot our Good Friday message video today - outside. Why on earth did we pick the coldest day of 2008 to shoot the video? I haven't been that cold in years. In fact, tonight at home six hours later, I'm still cold! The good news is I'm really excited by the format (we shot it at various locations -- all part of the script) and the message. It's all about the cross -- and reflecting on the cross as I wrote the script earlier this week brought me to tears.
Why did we shoot our Good Friday message video a month in advance? We did it so that I could actually preach in two places at once on Good Friday (Barrie and Orillia at 10:00 a.m.). I'm deeply excited by what God might do through the message and the service. I think it could be incredible. Please pray with us as the day approaches.
Second, I spent Tuesday night with about 20 small group leaders who serve in Waumba Land and UpStreet. I wish you all could have been there. We talked about why we don't do class room environments for kids at Connexus, and why their role as your child's small group leader is so pivotal. We want every child to have someone working with parents to personally help a child trust God in every season of life. The leaders in the room are simply amazing people who every week, carry the best interests of your son or daughter in their hearts. I left so grateful for that crew!
Thanks to everyone who serves in our children and student ministry environments. I also left grateful that I somehow get to serve as pastor of this place. You folks just rock the house!
- Carey
Have you ever noticed how much FREE stuff there is on the internet? You can take any course at the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for without paying a penny - the whole course including listening to the lectures, taking the exams, and even participating in online discussions about the material being taught. The folks over at Wikipedia have produced a free online encyclopedia that is as accurate as the "pay for use" one that they use to sell door to door. Google is giving away a series of free online applications that increase productivity and open up new opportunities for people all over the world. In fact, there is so much "freeing" going on the internet that there are whole directories dedicated to helping people find free stuff to help them in life.
Why is everybody giving stuff away on the Internet? Well that's a longer discussion that we can have here. . . the cost of distributing information in the last 15 years has dropped so dramatically that it costs almost nothing . . . the nature of many industries are changing as new business models are employed online . . . it seems like information simply "wants" to be free - that is - we've entered an age when information is shared globally irrespective of previous "perceived" borders.
(A "micro-rant" is coming . . . sorry if you're offend . . . kinda . . .)
So what is happening in the broader church doing when it comes to providing stuff on the internet? Some churches are still charging to listen to messages online. What!? It's true. Right at the moment when the internet is becoming a global gathering point for discussion about a wide range of topics the church is demanding that people pay to download messages. Huh!? Does that make sense at all? I can understand charging for "physical" product like a CD or book or something like that. But downloadable content costs barely anything to post online and is only getting cheaper every day. This seems like one of those areas where we are missing a great opportunity and might be totally out of step with the broader culture.
Do Jesus' words of "freely you have received, freely give" apply to the core content we produce every week at Connexus? We think so.
We give away content for free on our web for a few key reasons . . .
Samples for our Guests - We want to make the transition into our church as easy as possible for your friends and family who don't normally attend church. By providing the core messages from our adult services online we are giving you a tool to help invite your friends to Connexus. Pass it along!
A Service to our Community Groups - A number of our Community Groups use the weekly discussion guides that we generate as the basis of their discussion. If a member of your group happens to not be able to attend one Sunday morning we want to provide the messages online so that people can be caught up for the discussion at Community Group.
Back Catalog - As we generate content every week we end up developing a pretty cool catalog of material on a wide variety of topics. In the future this back catalog will be invaluable for you in personal study and reflection.
Broader Discussion - We think that the church should engage the broader culture and not shrink away from it. By posting our content online we are allowing anyone in the world to stumble upon what we are talking about and to join the conversation. This can happen as individuals use our content or as small groups of people around the world use our material to fuel conversation. (We've heard about this happening in a few Universities . . . that's kinda cool!)
It would seem like some sort of crime to charge for our content for any of these uses. So we've decided to give it away!
A Quick Guide to Accessing Our Content Online
As a general rule all of this content is online and ready to be viewed by Tuesday morning. (Most weeks it's up well before that.)
1) Watch the most recent message.
On every page of our website on the right hand side you can view our most recent message. After each message is done it plays the week prior to that through our entire catalog - it's hours of viewing just waiting for you!
2) Subscribe to our podcast for automatic delivery.
You can set up your computer so that the messages will automatically arrive every week with a service called "podcasting". By following these links you open up a piece of software called itunes that will watch our servers and as soon as the messages are ready will automatically download them to your computer for listening - in your computer, ipod or any mp3 player.
3) Quick access to our most recent messages
On every page of our site there is a series of links on the right that give you access to five most recent messages at Connexus. It also shows you what "content" is available for that message. (Speaker for MP3 audio file, film reel for video download, adobe symbol for Community Discussion Guide.) Simply click the title of the most recent message to see more detail about it.
4) Detailed view of content for each message
When you click through to an individual message you will find even more content for your use. Can you download a CD quality MP3 for use on your computer, mp3 player or to burn to CD. You can download the Community Group Discussion PDF for that message. You can even download a DVD quality video of the message - perfect for small group use. The DVD files are big (around 1 gig) but you can download it and burn it onto a DVD for your use. Plus you can watch a larger version of the video than the one in the toolbar on the right.
We'll probably add some more services to our content offerings in the future. Probably a search function for searching through back content - we're already "tagging" the content on the back end in anticipation of that. We might even add content from our other environments. Who knows!
Did you know that every week we have the same number of people download our content as attend the adult services at either of campuses? It will be interesting to see what happens in the future as you invite people you know to use our content and as the archive grows.
What do you think about all this? We'd love your feedback in the comments section.
Rich Birch
rich.birch@connexuscommunity.com
Executive Director of Operations
Connexus Community Church
Hey friends . . .
It's nice to be back from a week with the inlaws in Myrtle Beach. (Wait . . . that might sound like I don't like being with my inlaws! Nothing can be further from the truth. We had a great time hanging out with them.) Last Sunday we visited two churches (I know . . . I know. . . What does this pastor do when he's on vacation? Go to church!) and it was fun to see what was going on Beach Church and kidstuf at Ocean View Baptist Church. Even though it was nice to go on vacation - it was great to be at our Barrie location this morning. I saw a few things that I thought I would quickly blog about here . . .
Intentional Apprenticing - I was so proud of a number of our team leaders that I saw training new people today. This is a sure sign that we are moving beyond the start up mode and getting into a much more sustainable pace. Thank you to everyone who is looking to recruit new team members and then see them well trained and ready to go! Who are you making sure can take your place? It helps us prepare for growth and allows other people get plugged into the community! Reproduce yourself today!
Constant Improvement - Today I went wandering around our environments looking for people I could help. As always our E-Team did a great job getting everything ready to go! (Plug . . . if you looking for a great team to join . . . jump on board with the E-Team!) 
I wandered into UpStreet and saw that someone took some great initiative and set up the lights in a really cool way. I took a picture to show you. They used the coloured gel lights to make a multi-coloured "box" around the video screen. This extra colour on the screen just made the room pop! I'm sure that we can all think of ways that we could help improve our environments on a Sunday morning. This was a simple but great example of a team member taking some initiative to improve the environment that didn't cost us any extra money but made a nice difference. If you are serving on a team ... can you think of something like this that could improve our service to our guests? Talk with your team leader about those ideas!
Great Team Leaders - I also had a quick conversation with two team leaders today that were looking for ways to make the experience of their teams. It was great to see them looking for ways to make the service opportunity better for the people on their teams. I am so thankful for the people that step up to lead our teams. It is because of their leadership that we are able to host so many guests every week. Thanks team leaders!
Anyways . . . enough for the brain dump. I'll have to start digging out from the emails and voicemails. Glad to be back at work!
Rich Birch
rich.birch@connexuscommunity.com
Executive Director of Operations
Connexus Community Church
I'm afraid to even say it...but the forecast for Sunday looks great. No freezing rain...no snow...no monsoons...just...well, nice weather. That would be an incredible change, and one that would make it just so much easier and maybe even more fun!
Good thing too...because I think we're right in the midst of a series that has already got people talking. The series is Authentic. It start
ed in Barrie last weekend and moves to Orillia this weekend. You won't want to miss the conversation about what the church we all really long for could be.
Orillia Campus | 8:30 and 10:00 |Authentic | Part One: Inauthentic
They are your friends, family, children and colleagues. They are under 30 and despite what you think, they actually are spiritually curious. They just don’t think the church can help.Join us as Shauna Simmonds – a twenty-something who specializes in youth culture and spirituality – and Carey Nieuwhof talk about the challenges and incredible opportunities to reach people under 30. You hold the key to welcoming them back into your life and the church.
Barrie Campus | 8:30 and 10:00 | Authentic | Part Two: Imagine
Imagine being part of a community that really is authentic. Imagine being able to build into other people’s lives and have people build into yours in a way that brings positive, lasting impact. How do you realize that kind of transformation? We’ll show you the key to moving from the sidelines to the frontlines of authentic, transformative relationships this weekend. Carey Nieuwhof leads us through part two of Authentic.
Can't wait to see you there Sunday!
P.S. We continue to be encouraged by story after story we hear of people inviting their friends who don't go to church, who in turn bring others, who in turn...well you know. One day we'll look back on all this and realize how much was actually at stake, and we'll be so thankful we invited who we invited!
- Carey
I'm pinch hitting for Rich Birch today. Rich is on his way home from a well deserved week of holidays with his family where there's not nearly as much snow. Nice!
So it's my privilege to introduce the team members of the week. This week, we're thanking two families that serve together unbelievably well week in, week out. This was a total surprise to us. I think we imagined adults serving...but entire families? That blew us away.
Our staff is just amazed at the dedication of these families who get their entire household up at ungodly hours to do incredibly godly work.
Orillia: Ross, Jennifer, Derek and Colin Jermey
Every Sunday morning, the Jermeys get up long before the sun and Ross and his sons head over to our Orillia trailer site to get the trailers ready for our drivers, ensuring the trailers arrive at our Orillia campus by 6 a.m. sharp. But that just begins the day. They serve on e-teams and help get our environments fueled to perfection. Colin helps out with sound and lights, as does Derek.
Jen's a dynamo, and is one of those team members who can stick handle through just about anything. She set up computerized registration for Upstreet and Waumba at our Orillia campus, volunteers in small group ministry and in our office (and is currently pinch hitting for Cindy a couple days a week while Cindy recovers).
If there's one phrase that describes the Jermeys it's "willingness to help". If they see a need, they'll always pitch in. And every single time, they thank you for the opportunity. If you know them, you know exactly what I'm talking about!
Barrie: The Sabo Family
Lewis and Anna Sabo have taught their family the value of serving in phenomenal ways. Their youngest son, Simon, was the first person to roll a case off the first Connexus trailer back in November 07...and that led the way for their family. Simon's sister Victoria, brothers Jacob and Dylan, and mom and dad are there week in week out getting our Barrie campus set up -- with smiles on their face.
The Sabos are also synonymous with Xtreme and InsideOut. Lewis is our campus point person for Xtreme. Jacob leads in Waumba Land. Victoria and Anna are always there helping out in whatever way they can in multiple roles. You've just got to see their incredible dedication to believe it.
I have watched the Sabos retreat to their van to grab packed lunches for the whole family as they serve in ministry -- they hang in there as long as anyone, sometimes longer.
I think we have a lot to learn about being a family from the Sabos and the Jermeys! Guys -- you rock, and this week, we thank our God for you and applaud you!
- Carey
So many of you have been asking...so we're so pretty pumped to share the news.
Group Link is ready to roll for Spring 2008. Mark your calendars -- our Spring Group Link is Saturday, April 26th from 7-9 p.m.. It's an all-campus event hosted in Barrie. Location will be announced soon.
GroupLink is how everyone at Connexus finds their way into a community group -- so don't miss it! Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted.
I am totally loving my community group -- we've been meeting since just before Connexus launched. It's such a huge part of developing an authentic walk with God and with others.
For more on Group Link check out our the GroupLink pages on the Connexus website.
Many of you continue to pray daily for Cindy Morris and ask regularly about her condition. Thanks for your faithfulness.
Cindy is making progress in recovery. At last word, she is still in serious condition and in need of ample rest (there's "no visitation" policy still in effect), but is beginning to be able to have more normal conversations with family and is showing her trademark sense of humour.
She continues to receive excellent care at Sunnybrook in Toronto. It's hoped that at some point in the next few weeks she might be transfered to a hospital closer to home, but that's a wait and see proposition. Once again, her injuries will take much care, love, and a long, steady recovery.
It's hard not to be able to visit right now, but I know Cindy will one day be able to see how much care, prayer and love has been sent her way in recent weeks. Just a reminder that there has been a trust fund set up for Cindy. Just go to any CIBC bank and reference #00642 | Account: 2568535.
Knowing Cindy, it will mean the world to her to know how you have cared and prayed so deeply and passionately. Thank you!
We are about one month away from the center point of not only the Christian faith, but I think as we'll all see one day, the center point of human history -- Good Friday and Easter. While Christmas gets all the hype, there are no more meaningful celebrations than these.
We hope you'll use the month leading up to Easter to pray about who you will bring with you, and then invite them along. You can always use the e-vite on our home page, or just pick up the phone and talk about it.
So get out your calendars and mark this down:
- In Orillia, we'll wrap up a series I'm so excited about called Playing God, all about the use of power. Easter Sunday, we'll see how on the cross and in the tomb, Jesus combines ultimate power with ultimate humility, and what that can mean for our lives. It's an Orillia-only message for Easter Sunday. (Jesus the Guru begins the first Sunday after Easter in Orillia).
- All family ministry environments run at all services Easter Sunday, as per usual.
So there you have it. I am so thrilled, expectant and joyful as we count down the time to our first Easter together. Let's really pray into it and ask God to leverage it in every possible way He imagines.
It was neat for us to discover that iTunes has featured our Connexus podcast in their "new and notable" feature. How cool (not just for us, but for the Kingdom) is that?
If you have iTunes, just go to the iTunes store and click on podcasts, then go to religion and spirituality, then Christianity, and scroll through the "new and notable" at the top of the page and you should see us. This is something the iTunes staff selects -- we had nothing to do with it, so we're both surprised and grateful. If you need to get iTunes, you can download it from here. At any point, you can find our podcast in iTunes by searching "connexus community."
Cooler still, our podcasts (both the audio podcast and video podcast) are free. We want to share the message and relevant teaching from the Bible with anyone, anywhere. Tell your friends about it, and naturally, we'd love for you to subscribe too. You can even download our weekly community group study guide through iTunes when you get the podcast. It's neat to see how God is using this in different ways. We've heard of at least three Sunday 'gatherings' in university dorms around the country using our podcasts as their Sunday teaching.
Of course, you can always access the message off our website too.
However you get it, spread the love and spread the Word!
- Carey
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