I have been full-time for Chalice for almost 2 months now. And part of the grant for the funding my salary is spending the first few months setting up this “new campus.”
And that has been a handful!
The good news is:
We are not alone in this journey.
There are other churches that are doing similar things to us. And, they are progressive churches as well!
While this history of a true hybrid, digital and physical, presence as a church is only 20ish years old, we have a wealth of expereince, celebrations and failures, to learn from.
In the coming weeks, be ready to learn more about Chalice Circle, a self-contained, safe and secure, private, just for us social hub. Complete with groups for specific groups and purposes, video conferences, a wall for posting news and updates about our lives, prayer concerns, official church documents, and much more. No more searching for the ever changing Zoom and Google Meet links, it will all be “RIGHT THERE!” on Chalice Circle.
The idea of Chalice Circle is to be the online church campus. Close your eyes, and pretend you are walking into a church on a Tuesday afternoon, in the olden days, just poppping into the church to drop off things, say hello, or just see what is going on. So to will Chalice Circle. There will be drop-in times where I will open up a Circle room and if you want to say hi, pop-in, talk church business (even Liz, our administator can join), this will be that place. A church with classrooms, one for each of our classes and new ones for future classes. An online chapel with prayer resources, and even a dedicated prayer time each week to gather.
Our next Leadership Council (Thursday, September 10 from 7:15-8:30) will meet at Chalice Circle (more on when to get signed up to come next week).
I can’t wait to experience Chalice Circle with y’all!
A new newsletter format and schedule started this week, along with a new format for our bulletin. Our weekly Sojourner is now being sent Monday instead of Thursday and is right here on Substack! And our bulletin will contain a perforarted page that will have our new Connection Card on it. Please continue to fill that out each week and drop it in the Offering Plate!
You may have also noticed a small increase in the online content coming from the church: more regular podcasts, a mobile worship video each week, and a few other videos are starting to make their way out. Make sure you are subscribed to our Youtube channel (SMASH THAT LIKE AND HIT THE SUBSCRIBE!) Tiktok is coming.
Working on a ministry plan that involves content creation, is different from what they taught me in seminary!
But that is just what I am doing… what are things you can be doing?
Let’s start easy: anytime you see something from Chalice, share it on your social media. Let’s sprinkle our Chalice love all over social media.
You can make sure you are subscribed to Youtube, and even here to Substack:
Harder: Invite your friends to join us for worship or a book study. Send them links to our content through text message, saying “Look at what my church is doing, I think you would be into this!”
I am really excited to take Chalice into this new direction, and to see who God call us to be!
Peace,
Pastor Jay
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