New Guest Experience

We are in the process of ramping up our experience for new guests here at AMP*D. We realize we get 1 shot to make a great first impression on our new peeps and we are constantly evaluating how to make the ENVIRONMENT one they will not forget and also one where they will not be forgotten. I thought I would share with you some of our methods we currently use and will be implementing to treat our new guests like VIP:

1.) When they arrive and our staff identifies them as first time guests, we walk them down the red carpet. Seriously, we roll out red carpet and have a special entrance into the building just for them. They are then checked in, usually earlier than everyone else and are linked up with a staff member to show them around. Also at this point they receive a colored wristband which serves 2 purposes: 1.) Helps our staff and students identify new folk so we can love on them and make them feel incredibly welcome 2.) Gains them access to an area we call the RENDEZVOUS...which brings me to the 2nd method...

2.) After service we invite all new students and the friend that brought them to a VIP lounge we set up called the REDEZVOUS. Here they are greeted by some of our adult leaders and come in to chill with some music videos rolling on a flat screen, snacks, sodas, etc. We then show them a video produced by our students that gives them the low down on our ministry and afterwards we kinda share who we are, why we do what we do, etc. Then each new student is given a free gift (either a t-shirt or a cool drawstring bag with some goodies). Before leaving we make sure we have their correct contact information and we have them fill out a short survey based on their experience with us that night. We are in the process of re-starting huddles post service in addition to life groups that meet in homes throughout the week. The RENDEZVOUS will serve as the "small group" for the new peeps that night and then we will assign them to a regular group for the next week and have a huddle group leader make contact with the new student usually within 2 days.

3.) Follow up: The most important piece. Each new guest on Thursday receives a phone call from us and a text message. We then mail a postcard to them, which by the way I takes it to a new level, since our students are so used to "techno convo" in the forms of texting, e-mail, and other social mediums. On the post card we tell the new student to bring the post card back with them the next week and find the leader with an orange bandana on their head...they approach that leader and the leader in turn blesses them with a gift card of some sort or some other random gift. This become a third point of contact with the new student and hopefully helps in the feeling of being lost in the numbers.

Hope some of this helps, we are definitely looking for new ways to show hospitality to our new students and would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

T-Dizzle Episode 3

T-Dizzle 3 from Jeremy Alexander on Vimeo.

Don't Miss It

Making It Happen

Youth RAK from Jeremy Alexander on Vimeo.

Quality

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and been immediately turned off? Maybe you wait for a few minutes to be seated and nobody helps you. Perhaps there is food on the floor or rude wait staff or a funky smell. Whatever it is, the lack of quality automatically sets us up for a bad experience.

The same that is true for a restaurant holds true for the church as well, and even more personally, the student ministry of our church. If I am expecting our student ministry to be "off the chain," it truly must be a quality experience for current and visiting students. In business you can have the best marketing plan in the world, but if the product doesn't deliver, then it is only a matter of time before word spreads and sales drop.

I have been asking myself some questions lately about our environment in student ministry, sort of a self-evaluation...

1.) Is the ministry God has given me to lead done with absolute excellence?
2.) Do I spend plenty of time planning, organizing, and praying for our mid-week service, or do I fly be the seat of my pant?
3.) Do I hear a steady stream of complaints from parents, volunteers, students that our student ministry is disorganized?
4.) Are my messages well prepared, well transitioned, and well illustrated?
5.) Am I unleashing the spiritual gifts and talents of the students and adults in my ministry?
6.) Is our student ministry a setting where our students are comfortable inviting their unchurched friends?

A lot of times it is so easy to get in the mindset of "if you build it they will come." While that is partially true, evaluation is crucial once you build it and with that evaluation we must be intentional about quality and excellence. The world is marketing their stuff to students with excellence and quality why shouldn't we be "marketing" the greatest message ever with the most quality and excellence?

Leadership Lessons From Jesus Part 2

#2: Jesus Never Tried to Succeed Alone.
"So don't go to war without wise guidance; victory depends on having many advisers."-Proverbs 24:6

As a leader I need people, more importantly I need God. Everything we have comes from God. Success is a collection of relationships. Without clients, a lawyer has no career. Without patients, a doctor has no one to heal. Without a composer, a singer has nothing to sing. As leaders our future is connected to people. Jesus constantly talked to His Heavenly Father. He talked to His disciples. He talked to everybody. At twelve, He exchanged with the scribes and priests in the temple. He talked to tax collectors, fishermen, doctors, and lawyers, He said, "I can do nothing of my own" (John 5:30). Jesus was so in tune with the voice of God and surrounded himself with others to carry out the ministry, because He saw the big picture and invited others to come on the journey with Him. Right now in my own ministry I feel that I am at a place where I am hearing so much from God and having more people step on the "bus" but I am just trying to find the right seat, because I realize that I will never be successful trying to run this race alone. My prayer is that God would give me guidance and wisdom in knowing who I can turn to.

Leadership Lessons From Jesus, Part 1

Leadership Lesson #1: Jesus Took Time to Plan

"Through skillful and godly Wisdom is a house [a life, a home, a family] built, and by understanding it is established [on a sound and good foundation]. And by knowledge shall the chambers [of its every area] be filled with all precious and pleasant riches."

-Proverbs 24:3,4

Champions plan. Planning is the starting point for any dream or goal that you possess. "Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that reads it." (Habakkuk 2:2). Think for a moment, God scheduled the birth, the crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus before the foundation of the earth. I think it's quite fascinating that God would schedule a meal, the marriage supper, 6,000 years ahead of time. Throughout the entire Bible, God honored and blessed men who planned. Noah planned the building of the ark. Solomon, took time to plan the building of the temple. Moses, took time to plan the tabernacle. As a leader I need to not only read and hear the words of Jesus in Luke 14:28-31, but live them out in my ministry, in my life. I am finding it more and more helpful to make a list of things to do each day. At the end of the day it is great to see that list and know that I have accomplished those things. Planning is definitely not the most fun thing to do but sometimes you gotta do something you hate to create something you love. I pray that as a leader I would be more intentional about planning ahead, which will not only bless my life but will provide blessings and less heartache for others. Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Big Bad Birthday Bash 08

Big Bad Birthday Bash 08 from Amp'd Student Media on Vimeo.

The Movement Continues

The stories of our students REVOLUTING their world continue to flood in! Check out the site, see the movement and share your story!

hayley, 15, north myrtle beach, US
today i went into the gas station thinking i was about to by a pack of gum. i saw the perfect oppurtunity to do something good for tgr and taped two dollars and a tgr card on a bottle of soda. i felt great walking out that door with nothing but strong faith in god (:


Kelli Krebs:), 15, North Myrtle Beach, SC
Last Friday, i got some birthday money and went to the mall in hopes of getting some sweet deals on some clothes. I decided to go into KB toys and buy a soccer ball for the Toys 4 Tots Drive. As i stood in line i remembered how hard it is for some people to give their kids some nice gifts for christmas. So when i got to the counter i asked to put $10 on a gift card. When i handed it back to the cashier with a gift revolution card, she was very confused and even asked me if this was some kind of prank. I explained what i was doing and although she was still confused as i walked away, she gave it to the 5th costumer as i asked. i felt so great to do that! it was funny cause after i did that, all i wanted to do was spend the rest of my money for other people! Also, i got so pumped in class the other day. My teacher (who isn't supposed to talk about god to the class, but kinda does anyway:) started telling us about how she had run into seeing the gift revolution card again and again and didn't know much about it. She did some research and descovered what it is. She challenged the class to go out and do a random act of kindness and write which was more meaningfull for them and offered extra credit for an essay on it. I thought it was the coolest thing that my teacher, who lives like 45 minutes from nmb, even knew about it! When were she's not allowed to talk about God in the public school, challenged us to do this!


marisa gregory, 15, north myrtle beach, US
well, i was shopping at target for a new thing of lipgloss,, and i reached in my purse to see wat lip gloss it was that i needed and i saw my revolution card,,. so then i bought some tape and went back and taped $3 and the revolution card to a BIG tube of lip gloss. . (:

T Dizzle

T-Dizzle Episode 1 from Jeremy Alexander on Vimeo.

I thought I would share with you a glimpse into the life of our Gift Revolution Super hero. With every revolution comes a super hero. Here's ours, I introduce to you, T-DIZZLE.

The Revolution Continues...

The giftrevolution.com is in full swing and I am beyond excited to see our students catching on and being a part of something sooo much larger themselves. Wednesday night we shared the vision of this movement with our students and challenged them to go out with their minds and hearts set on blessing the world around them. They are doing just that, here are some of their stories.

walmart gift card
Hayley, 15, little river, US
a few friends and i went to the walmart one day knowing that we wanted to become a larger part in thegiftrevolution.com so i had a twenty five dollar gift card to walmart and after finding the right person to give it to i could tell he was over joyed. we told him about the revolution and he asked us about our church. it ended up that we payed for part of a christmas present for his wife/ two little girls mother. (:

thanks for help with laundry
Eric McNeill, 35, North Myrtle Beach, US
I was busy doing laundry Thursday night and a little down and out when I was gifted by a seventh grader from Barefoot Church with cash and a card. I wish I could remember his name but he knows who he is. The gift, the smile, and the help carrying out my clothes was very uplifting!

Hugs
Jessica {Jess}, 14, Little River, US
My friend was feeling down so I talked to her and stuff. Later on when we were done talking a gave her a hug to make her feel better. After that I gave her advice and said everything will be alright. She gave me a hug back and thanked me for being there when she needed someone the most.

Engage or Ignore

I have been spending some time reading Acts 17 and 1 Corinthians 9 and I feel like I am being stretched and inspired so much in the area of marketplace ministry. Someone shared a quote with me from John Piper a couple of weeks ago that has really stuck with me and caused me to really search God's Word on the matter of engaging culture with the TRUTH: "Don't pursue culture and find truth to interject, rather, find truth and then find culture to interject into the truth." Over the past couple of weeks I have had some time to really meditate on the 2 passages from Acts and 1 Corinthians and the more I think and pray on this, I feel such a tug on my heart to do something...go out to the edge and ledge, think outside of the box.

The reality of it all is that we have culture and it will exist until the day Jesus returns, now what we do with that is up to us...we could choose to ignore it, which by the way doesn't make it go away, we could choose to fight it (definitely an uphill battle) or we could choose to study it and leverage it to make the name of Jesus famous. Missionaries spend a great deal of time studying the culture of a foreign country before they begin work there,why is it we call that culture exploration STUDYING and call it COMPROMISE here on our turf if the church steps out and does a "secular" song or does something ATYPICAL??? God did not send Jesus into this world to condemn the world and He most certainly did not call us to condemn non-christians for acting like non-christians. This topic is so overwhelming in thought but is something I feel that God's Word is so clear...my prayer is that God would open our eyes, minds, and hearts to see the culture around us and do all we can to leverage it so that people far from God may come to know Jesus!

Go First

As leaders, God has given each of us a unique vision, and with that vision should come passion, anticipation, and RISK. When God gives us a clear picture of our direction, most of the times He stretches us to take steps of risk, but even more, steps of faith that should be taken first by us as leaders. It would be absolutely easy to just stand up in front of our people and challenge them to take risks and leaps of faith and for us to just ride comfortably, but we would totally miss where God wants to take us. 1 Chronicles 29 gives a clear picture of a leader who had received a big vision from God and was given resources to carry out the vision. David took inventory of what God had given him and before charging his people to give and risk, he WENT FIRST and gave ALL of his private treasures, WHY? Because of his devotion to the Temple (vs. 3). What's amazing is what happens next, his people FOLLOWED his example and gave willingly (vs 6). What's so amazing about this passage is verse 9, "the people rejoiced over the offerings for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord..." When we go first as leaders several things happen...

1.) God shows up in a big way
2.) People are inspired and are excited about giving because we gave first...I am conviced people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, but are looking to us as leaders to raise the bar and set the pace...we have to literally be "smoking what we're selling" and that is difficult more times than not, but so vital!
3.) People take ownership of the vision and are brought closer to the heart of God (we are never more like God, than when we give)