Elevator / Room Move Delayed

So close!


As of yesterday the elevator inspection has been delayed because of the unavailability for some electrical relays, required in order to pass. The relays are on order, but have not yet arrived and it is not going to be possible to complete the work and have the inspector come before Sunday. As far as the completion of the elevator depends on New Life we are now shooting for Sunday, December 12th. The work doesn't sound extensive so our part should be done.

Thus the usage of the new rooms will need to delayed.

We're getting there! Thanks for your patience and understanding!

On the positive side this gives us another week to paint our rooms! The newly painted rooms look great. Kudos to John Sutton's LG, Bob Hagman's LG, and Christian Brown's LG for jumping at the opportunity already!

Winter Schedule

Dear Life Group Teachers & Coordinators,

In an effort to give you as much notice as possible we'd like to make an announcement concerning our Sunday schedule for this winter. As we all know, winters in Oregon can be all but impossible to predict and are almost always more severe at night making the early morning hours perilous for travelers.

With that in mind, we will be altering our Sunday schedule during the winter months and will re-evaluate things again in the spring. The new schedule will be as follows:

• 9am        - Life Groups
• 10am      - Fellowship
• 10:30am  - Worship

• 5pm         -  Deeper Life Service

This new schedule will begin December12th. This will allow a couple of weeks to let everyone know and get ahead of the slick roads that we are already experiencing.

Obviously, the biggest difference will be not having an early service. Conducting a worship service requires more than just arriving at starting time. For many people like the greeters, audio/visual techs, nursery workers and staff, an 8:30 service means being on the roads as early as 7am. That's even more true for anyone serving in the worship band as they have a run-through every Sunday before service. Considering the low average attendance of the early service and the fact that we have ample space for everyone to combine into one service, it just proves prudent to make the change.

This also provides opportunities for us as a church to come together and strengthen our unity. We will be able to experience more fellowship than was possible before by offering a 30 minute fellowship time between Life Groups and worship. All age groups will have opportunity to mingle and get to know one another as we share coffee and refreshments together in the fellowship hall. Another advantage to the new schedule will be a pre-noon release time providing more time in the afternoon for families.

We will also be starting a new Deeper Life Service on Sunday evenings. These discipleship focused services will provide an opportunity for people to really dive deep into God's Word in a way not possible in the morning service. It will also be an alternative for those that cannot participate in the morning service due to schedules or ministry obligations. The Deeper Life Service will mirror the Awana schedule.

All in all, we believe this will serve as a way to not only keep members of our family safer during these upcoming months, but also meet some other needs and help bring us together as one body connecting, growing and serving together.

Sincerely,
New Life Staff

Announcements for Sunday, November 20, 2010

• Women's Christmas Party - There are flyers/announcements on the bulletin boards in most rooms.  Click here for a preview of the flyer.
• Nehemiah Challenge - Help contribute to the cost of painting and putting in baseboards for your new room.  Click here to see the flyer that will be on each wall.  Also, check out the approved color palette on the wall next to Ron's classroom to get ideas for your new room!
• Thanksgiving Day Flag Football - Thanksgiving Day, 8am at 53rd Ave Community Park.  Everyone one is invited: kids, youth and adults.  Contact Torrey for more information.
• Also, Curriculum starting in December has been placed in your classroom.

Date Change for New Room Locations - November 14th

Please make note of a change in the date regarding room location.  The elevator is progressing nicely, but an additional week is needed to complete the work.

The exciting times continue with the installation of the elevator allowing us to take full advantage of the upstairs classrooms on November 14th!

Take a look at your room this week and see what improvements you would like to make.  A new coat of paint, new baseboards, a good cleaning of the carpet and wipeboard can go a long way to sprucing up the rooms and making our guests feel really welcome.

New Classroom Locations - November 7th

The exciting times continue with the installation of the elevator allowing us to take full advantage of the upstairs classrooms on November 7th!

Take a look at your room this week and see what improvements you would like to make.  A new coat of paint, new baseboards, a good cleaning of the carpet and wipeboard can go a long way to sprucing up the rooms and making our guests feel really welcome.

Class Coordinator Training

What:     Class Coordinator Training

Who:      Teachers and Class Coordinators

Where:   Northwest Baptist Convention Center, Vancouver

               Meet at Brookwood at 7am for Carpool

When:    Saturday, August 14th

Why:      To help organize our groups for care, ministry and outreach.
How:       Contact Torrey Lewis for more information!


Pastor Carter Shotwell is coming back to the Northwest to help train our Life Group Teachers and Class Coordinators.  The session will show how to develop a team approach in order to organize the group for care, ministry, and outreach. Teachers are encouraged to come and bring potential class coordinators. As a reminder, coordinators are those who oversee the fellowship, care, and ministry in a class so the teacher is not overwhelmed in trying to do it all.

July 2010 Quarterly Team Huddle

Here are the slides that we will go through at this Saturday's Quarterly Team Huddle. Do let me know of anything additional you would like to add!

See you Saturday at 4pm!

July 2010 Teacher-Coordinator Meeting

Curriculum Order Due

If you haven't already done so, please turn in your curriculum order this Sunday.  If you can't find me on Sunday, place your sheet in your folder, or better yet send me an email with your requests.

April Quarterly Team Huddle Slides with Notes

Here are the updated slides with notes.  Please let me know if I missed something.

Great attendance guys and ladies!  Keep up the good work!

April 2010 Teacher-Coordinator Meeting with Notes

April Quarterly Team Huddle Slides

Here are the slides that we will go through at this Saturday's Quarterly Team Huddle. Do let me know of anything additional you would like to add!

See you Saturday at 4pm!

April 2010 Teacher-Coordinator Meeting

Quarter Point Curriculum Review Meeting

Believe it or not, next Sunday (March 28th) we will be one-fourth of the way through our study in Philippians!  (Get it?  We're at the "quarter" point!  Hehe...)  Time flies when you're studying great Scripture!

Logistically, we will need to have a real good idea about the curriculum coming out of our Quarterly Life Group Team Huddle on April 17th (about the halfway point).  As such, I'd like to suggest that we get together as a group of Life Group Teachers (Class Coordinators optional) to discuss the curriculum:  what we like, what we don't like, things to tweak, etc.  Talking about it now will give us a chance to adjust and implement prior to the Quarterly Team Huddle.

So here's the proposed meeting time:

Date: Sunday, March 21st
Time: 4pm (before the 5pm Business Meeting)
Place: John Sutton's class room (i.e. Welcome Room)
Required Attendance: Life Group Teachers
Optional Attendance: Life Group Class Coordinators

Let me know yay or nay if you will be there.  Your input is needed, this will be an opportune time to brainstorm together and decide how to move forward.

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February Life Group Training in the Northwest Postponed to April

The NWBC has postponed the Life Group Training in the Northwest in order to allow for more churches to participate.  The schedule as we know it is listed above.

February LG Teacher and Coordinator Breakout Session Notes

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

1:00pm - ~2:15pm

 

Persons in Attendance: Bob Hagman, Russ Dusky, Donna Dusky, Jean Gard, Patti Ramos, Toby Zimmerman, Danine Brewer, Ted Cook

 

• Life Group Training in the NW
  
  • Had everybody mark down the dates that should interest them.
    
  • As soon as we know more information we will need to send it out.
    
  • Carpool from the church.
    
  • AR Torrey - check with Stewardship Team about helping with funding. NWBC says $10 per person. Is this for each session?
    
• We will be trying the Ministry Point Curriculum for March, April, May quarter
  
  • For this trial period:
    
    • Preference is verse-by-verse to start out with, similar to what we are doing now with Explore The Bible (ETB).
      
    • Choose a study that is about 12 weeks in length, so we can jump back to ETB if we choose to.
      
    • Preference would be for a New Testament study for the trial period.
      
    • Torrey made it clear to all that we will not be a church that only studies the New Testament, but we need to keep accountable to studying both the Old Testament and New Testament.
      
    • Based on this criteria the two leading options are:
      
      • Hebrews - 13 week study (completed November 2006, recommended commentary is Hebrews by Donald Guthrie)
        
      • Phillipians - 11 week study (completed August 2002, recommended commentary is The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Philippians)
        
  • AR Torrey - check with Stewardship Team and Dede as to when we could place the order for curriculum
    
  • AR Torrey / Office - When we receive the curriculum, print out all the material stapled together for the teachers. Right now this would be around 10 copies (teachers and substitutes).
    
  • AR Torrey / Office - For the students print out a stapled together packet of just the "Thee Word for The Week". This would be very similar to our learner guides we use now.
    
  • Visual element (i.e. video clips)
    
    • Video clips were well received.
      
    • As a side note: Talked with several people about helping with DVD creating. Torrey would like to get a team of 2 or 3 people to be able to share the duties of creating the DVDs. Provide Torrey with any possible interested people.
      
    • Once we have a single DVD, the duplicator in the sound booth can be used to make copies. In a trial run it seemed to take about 5 minutes to make 3 additional copies.
      
• Teacher and Coordinator Job Descriptions
  
  • AR Torrey - Somehow make it more clear that the Coordinator's main job is communication and enlisting the coordinators. The job description can seem overwhelming.
    
  • Pointed out that Class Coordinator has a 15 minute period of the class time to make announcements, etc. This won't be legalistically enforced, but is expected to vary a bit from class to class and a week to week basis.
    
  • AR Torrey - On the Job Description sheet need to add a list of all of the Primary Team leaders and their contact information (phone number, email).
    
  • There needs to be two way communication between the Primary Team Leaders and the class coordinators.
    
  • AR Office - Primary Team Leaders and contact information should be added to the first page of the church directory.
    
• Quarterly Team Huddle scheduling
  
  • Preference would be for Saturday afternoon/evening.
    
  • Times could vary based on the season. Seniors may have trouble driving as late as 7pm in the winter.
    
  • Saturday afternoon would most likely miss most of the kids' sports as many happen on Saturday morning.
    
  • Bit of preference for ending the meeting earlier than 7pm. Perhaps having it 2pm-5pm, or 3pm-6pm.
    
  • There seemed to be flexibility with the understanding that it was only once a quarter.
    

The time can vary from quarter to quarter based on the season and the needs of the meeting and calendaring issues.

Excerpts from Life Group Training - Part 1

Over the next few days I plan to post excerpts from the Life Group training held at Brookwood on October 18, 2009. Here's the first dose! Enjoy!

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