by Mark Warnock Hello everyone. Most of our readers subscribed for weekly email updates back when we were promoting our Christmas album, Tell the Story. (By the way, it was quite a success–thanks for all your support!) Now, we are retooling our newsletter into a monthly update on our ministry. Over the next several weeks, our team members will be blogging about our experience writing songs with a group of Dove and Grammy Award winning songwriters. Some other things you can look forward to hearing about: Upcoming plans for a recording project featuring some of our best new songs. Our new worship leader training process. Future plans for FC Worship on tour. We hope you continue to enjoy enjoy receiving these monthly updates. (If you prefer not to, however, simply scroll to the bottom of your newsletter and there is an easy unsubscribe link.) You can always find the latest content at www.familychurchworship.org/news/. Mark Warnock is the administrative pastor for Family Church Worship.
Every Idea Is a Good Idea
by Christian Ramos “Pet Night”… I will never forget it… or I should say, some people won’t let me forget it. In my brain it all worked perfectly: people would invite friends to our outdoor amphitheater and everyone would bring their pet. It would turn out to be an incredible time, right? Well, it seemed that most could not see what I was envisioning. Let me tell you the whole story. Several years ago while our church was trying to find a pastor, our leadership team was trying to reconnect with our community by doing some outdoor events that would bring the whole family together on Wednesday evenings. While we were in the creative meeting to develop these incredibly engaging events, our team leader decided to have us come up with the best ideas we could. I was excited because, as many folks who work with me know, I love to share my “creative” ideas with everyone (sometimes a bit too much). So for several long, grueling and arduous minutes I thought about our community and the importance of an event that would redefine the relationship between them and our church. It was then that I felt a still small voice whisper in my ear and say: “Pet Night”. It was a revelation that could only come from above. It was (in my mind) the greatest and most exciting event our church was about to have. As it turned out, nobody liked the idea and in fact, most people still laugh about it many years later. After that experience it became easy for me to think that not every idea was a good idea. In fact, that is what I chose to learn. I even thought that some ideas were just flat out bad. I allowed this thinking to permeate my creative process and it even spilled into our creative endeavors within the worship ministry. Unknowingly, “Pet Night’ was still haunting my creative process many years later. It wasn’t until February of this year after we made the decision to bring some extremely gifted songwriters into our songwriting retreat that I started to think differently. While learning from the Pros I realized that they valued every idea that came out of each person. They chose to chase down ideas that I would have never even considered in a million years. It was as if they knew something I didn’t. It was as if every idea was a good idea. As I worked with them and began to see how intentional they were about making every idea count, I began to change my thinking. I saw our team blossom as they were appreciated for every thought that was shared. That appreciation helped our worship leaders develop a healthy sense of confidence in the songwriting process that we had never been able to achieve before. As I sat down days later and began to ponder upon the spiritual implications of that lesson in my life, I realized that God has been telling …
Sound System Upgrade
Here’s a nice write up on our recent AV upgrade at Family Church Downtown. Features Michael Millington, our tech director, and Doug Lettsome, Operations Director.
Music Video for “Go Tell It”
Here is the music video for “Go Tell It.” Do us a favor and share it all over social media–we want to spread the love and the fun!
Más grande que yo
Recuerdo claramente el título de esa serie de enseñanzas en nuestra iglesia. La razón de por qué la recuerdo con tanta claridad? Pues, además de las razones obvias, es porque definió exactamente lo que sentí la primera vez que puse mis pies en FC. Conservo esa tarde invernal en mi memoria como si fuera hoy mismo. No había colocado aún un pie dentro y exclamé: Impresionante! Lejos estaba de imaginar que esta iglesia se volvería en mi nueva familia, que el hombre sonriente que me estrechó la mano en la puerta se convertiría en mi pastor y alguien de quién aprendería mucho; y además, que me esperaba algo que realmente me excedía por mucho en todos los sentidos. Como muchos líderes he enfrentado, varias veces, el desafío de estar bajo el liderazgo de personas que probablemente tengan menos cualificaciones, menos actitudes para el liderato o, por qué no decirlo, personas que probablemente no están en la posición de ministerio correcta. Eso, si eres maduro y aprovechas cada lección para formar tu carácter, muchas veces va dándote un anhelo genuino y limpio por formar parte de algo que sea mayor. Y no hablo precisamente en términos numéricos, sino que la visión sea tan grande como para apostarle el resto de tu vida, y tan inclusiva como para admitir a alguien con una cultura y trasfondo totalmente diferente. Dios arregló todo para que en las próximas semanas tuviera la oportunidad de ser invitado a liderar la alabanza y ahí comenzó el proceso de cambio más grande que he sufrido en mi vida. Después de tener un ministerio reconocido a nivel nacional, varios estudios teológicos terminados y haber participado en la plantación de varias iglesias, uno puede llegar a pensar que ha recorrido una buena parte del camino, puedes pensar que tienes suficiente experiencia o que has llegado bastante lejos. Y de momento te vez en una de las 10 iglesias de más crecimiento en todos los Estados Unidos, rodeado de gente que te supera en títulos, conocimiento y experiencia. Sabes cómo se siente eso: INCREIBLEMENTE BIEN! Se siente como estar viviendo dentro de un sueño. Es impresionantemente bueno saber que Dios te ama lo suficiente como para seguir dándote oportunidades de crecimiento y cambio. Si tuviera que resumir mi experiencia como pastor en Family Church en una sola palabra sería: crecimiento. Ser retado por algo mucho más grande y más trascendente que tú. Mayor que tu visión personal y que lo que hubieras podido alcanzar por tus propios esfuerzos. Iglesia Familiar es un lugar de crecimiento y desarrollo. Lo veo cada semana en los servicios y la adoración, lo veo en nuestras clases de discipulado y primeras conexiones, lo veo cada lunes en nuestro programa de formación de pastores y líderes; y dentro de la cabina de grabación rodeado de muchos de los más talentosos y humildes músicos que he conocido, así como cada miércoles trabajando con los niños y niñas. No muchos tienen la oportunidad de compartir con tantas áreas de …
Music Video: O Ven, O Ven Emanuel
We’re proud to release our first Tell the Story music video. O Ven O Ven Emmanuel, featuring Niko Collazo.
Join Our Thunderclap
Are you on Facebook or Twitter? We’d like to borrow your account… one time… for one message. Thunderclap is a platform that sends one message out at the same time across social media platforms. We’re using it to encourage our friends this year to make Christmas about Jesus. Would you donate a tweet or Facebook status to help us send that message? It’s easy! Here’s the message we want to send: We need at least 100 supporters! Click below to support our Thunderclap or to learn more!
Advent / Christmas Resources for Your Church
As churches celebrate Christmas year after year, it is challenging to find fresh resources to help our congregations focus on Jesus’ coming as our Savior. Additionally, we have to compete with a culture that gets louder, busier and more materialist every year. Even our own church members get dragged farther and farther from the worshipful reverence for Jesus that characterized the first Christmas. At Family Church, we have produced two resources that might be helpful to you or your church. First, our pastors have written Tell the Story, an Advent Devotional book as a resource to help keep Christ first this Christmas, in our families and in our hearts. It features 30 daily devotional readings, based on the Bible’s account of the birth of Jesus. To help encourage families, the book also features five easy-to-lead family devotionals, one for each week of Advent, and one for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. (The book is available on Amazon.) Churches might be interested in bulk purchase of these devotionals as gifts for newcomers, as a resource for staff, or to use as a congregation-wide growth campaign. Orders can be placed here: familychurchworship.org/advent. Second, our Tell the Story Christmas album features fresh arrangements of classic Christmas hymns in a variety of styles. There are fourteen tracks on the album: eight songs are in English and six songs are in Spanish. It would be a particularly effective resource for churches in areas with significant numbers of Spanish speakers. You can listen to samples here. (The album is also available at iTunes and Amazon.) The Tell the Story CD would be a great gift for welcome bags, for a neighborhood outreach, or for members’ personal devotional use. Free lead sheets are available at familychurchworship.org/charts. Orchestrations and multitracks are available for purchase also. At Family Church, we have had great response by offering both the book and CD at a discounted price. If you are interested in bulk discount purchase of either of these resources for your congregation, please contact Mark Warnock (mwarnock@gofamilychurch.org, or 561.650.7400). Order now for timely delivery. Know a church that might be interested in this resource? Share this page with them, below!
Release Weekend Updates
It’s finally here! The Tell the Story Christmas album and devotional book officially release this coming Sunday, November 1st. On behalf of all of us at Family Church, we want to thank you for your support. We have great news to report. Our pre-order campaign has gone terrific. We closed pre-orders yesterday afternoon with 517 albums sold, and 203 books! Since it’s not even Halloween yet, we think that is extraordinary. It shows how much love and support we have from our Family Church family! Our goal is to move at least 2,500 units (books and/or albums), which will allow us to break even on our expenses. Proceeds beyond that will support future Family Church projects of a similar nature. Could we ask you to pray with us for a few specific things? Pray that God will use this project to bring people another step closer to him. Pray that Family Church people will catch the vision for how sharing music with friends and neighbors who are far from God can help them take a first, second, or even a final step towards Jesus. Pray that God will use the devotional book to help people draw near to him this Advent season, and feel again the wonder of Jesus’ coming to earth to save us. Pray that God will make this project a financial success. It’s important that we’re able to recover our expenses. Pray that Jesus will be seen for the wonderful Savior and glorious Lord that he is this Christmas, all over South Florida and beyond.
“Tell the Story” at Family Christian Store
Excited to announce that Family Christian Store in Boynton Beach will be stocking and selling our “Tell the Story” Christmas album and devotional book. We appreciate their willingness to partner with local churches in this way. When you stop in, thank them for their support, and pick up an extra copy as a gift or for yourself!