.bE
April 21, 2004
We put on .bE last night in a beautiful facility (see more photos below), the Eighth Street Center in Buhl, ID. It’s always interesting to see who comes to .bE….and who doesn’t. I really don’t know how to advertise .bE any more. For this time, I limited myself to 15 churches in Buhl and the next town, Filer. I sent out a mailing, called the next week, sent some more information, visited with some pastors, made some more phone calls. After all of that, there were 4 churches who expressed some real interest in this. They advertised it to their congregations, took posters, put it in their newsletters…not one person from those churches came.
At 8.30pm, when we were going to begin, there were maybe 8 people there [keep in mind, this is after all day preparation and 3.5 hours of set-up]. By 8.45pm there were close to 20 and we started then. I think a total of 30 people came. It’s hard to trust God that those that needed to be there were there, and it’s hard after putting so much work into something to only have 30 people come, and to have many, many more tell you they were extremely excited about it and then not show at all. But I had some great comments from people about the evening.
Some wonderful comments came from the owners of the Eighth Street Center. While the building used to be a Presbyterian church (in the early 1900’s) it is now very much a multi-use facility: after-school activities, art shows, plays, concerts, etc. It houses the office for the Universal Life Church and many people associated with the center are very into non-traditional forms of spirituality, healing and wholeness. One of the women read a couple of the .bE pamphlets I had and told me that seeing me do this “gave her hope” and she knew that it was “so right” that I was doing this. I’m guessing that our definitions of God, religion, spirituality probably vary quite a bit - but to know that something like alt.worship could be used as a way to get conversations going about spirituality and that something like .bE offers a place where people of all spiritual walks can worship and experience God together…there is something very cool about that.
So…it was good. I had some wonderful help (thanks Jacque, Jean, Andrew, Jeff, Melissa, Jessica, Brady, Hailey and anyone else I forgot). Here are a few photos from the evening…
- The Prayer Pool: As a kid splashing around in a kiddie pool, I never thought I’d have use for one again…
- People Praying
- Prayer Station
- People At Stations
- View from Upstairs
- The Eighth Street Center: Just a beautiful facility. They had the sets of pillars in the 4 corners of the room, facing N, E, S and W (Native American spirituality has special meanings for the directions)
Posted in Check out some related posts:
- No related posts
Subscribe to RSS
Subscribe to Feed | Subscribe via email
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
April 21st, 2004 at 1:26 pm
Have you considered a direct mail campaign? You could target specific neighborhoods, though it would cost money. Perhaps a donations box, description, and request for help at the front of each .bE? Flyers galore? …just some ideas.
April 21st, 2004 at 1:47 pm
The very first time I did .bE, I mailed something to every church in the Magic Valley (around 10 cities near us): 150 churches. That just doesn’t work. Flyers at the local coffeehouses: check. We have a donations box at .bE: check. I think it may just be the southern Idaho culture…(?)
April 21st, 2004 at 1:57 pm
I can relate to the discouragement. Last summer I led the planning team for three similar prayer/worship events(for lack of a better term). Our largest turnout was a dismal 6. Very discouraging. This year we tried another tactic. We did an interactive Tenebrae service on Good Friday evening. Over 100 people turned out. Some of them, I’m sure, experienced some culture shock, but overall it was an amazing experience that helped people experience God and (hopefully) opened the way for more in the future. (It only took three years to prime the pump…)
April 21st, 2004 at 2:30 pm
I think people are afraid of what they dont know and dont understand.
I hope you were encouraged though - it looks like a great event….the pictures were beautiful.
April 21st, 2004 at 6:18 pm
Bro.
Looks like you .wErE faithful. ;)
Peace
April 21st, 2004 at 6:56 pm
The pool pic is a great station. I saved it to use as my wallpaper sometimes.
April 21st, 2004 at 7:53 pm
Ok, I like what you did but I have a growing hard time when we (the church) put in a ton of time and are upset that only–add number here– showed and it was not enough. The goal is obedience and through our obedience can we truly disciple others in worship, life, whatever…I like to think that when events only reach a certain number even after all the planning I’d go through it has less to do with my failure and more to do with the number my team and I would have been able to love on and exemplify His grace more efficiently.
I don’t mean to rant but the church is too concerned with numbers and less with teaching others what it means to be obedient. That is the consumer church and I don’t get that vibe from your posts except from this one. I may be out of line and if so, I apologize. But please, let us flee from the notion that numbers equal effectiveness.
peace
April 21st, 2004 at 8:46 pm
Joel, let me say that our obsession with “numbers” is also a big beef that I have with the church today. I’ve only been doing youth ministry for 2 years, but that’s the question: “So how many kids do you have?” And I am at a very small church, and I’m used to having lower numbers, and I’m okay with that. So no, I’m definitely not one of those who are obsessed with numbers. I think my disappointment came more so from the people who I knew were excited about .bE, and who told me they were definitely coming - and then to not see them there. And yes, it is hard when you’ve spent an entire day in preparation and hours and hours decorating and putting together an event like this, and you want as many people as can be there to experience it….and then not as many as you hoped showed up. But I do trust that God worked last night in the lives of those who were there….
April 21st, 2004 at 11:13 pm
so, i was there… and it seemed full. i didn’t even notice how many people were there, but that it was sometimes hard to walk around because .bE is totally the kinda thing where people are sprawled all over praying. i understand the discouragement about people who acted interested not showing, but i don’t think it had anything to do with .bE. i think it is a rough time of year where everyone is busy and people who have time don’t want to be out late cuz they’ve got responsibilities in the morning… i was really happy with the turn out, so i was kinda taken back at this post. there were kids in my youth group who totally wanted to come but each had a real reason why they couldn’t, and the kids at the college were the same way.
also, when it comes to getting the word out about postmodern kinda services, i truly believe word of mouth from someone who has experienced it is the only deeply effective method… our generation is one who doesn’t trust that anything is worth their time until someone they trust is excited about it… but we must remember that even then there are often life conflicts.
regardless of all this mumbo jumbo, God was totally ministering to people’s hearts, including mine…
i like what joel and josh said about obedience and faithfulness… so often its about refining our character and choosing to serve and do what God tells us to even if the results aren’t what we wanted them to be (its beautiful how He often makes them even better than we imagined but in a totally different way!). its about glorifying God, not .bE… and in that case it was complete!
April 22nd, 2004 at 9:50 am
wow cool…looks great….reminds me of the feel we’ve gone for with a few nights we’ve had….great stuff…tell us more!
April 22nd, 2004 at 2:49 pm
This looks like a great worship experience! Are you in a rural area? I would love to learn more about what you are attempting to do. I am a pastor in rural Colorado and I would love to offer these kinds of things here. Any suggestions, thoughts? Keep up the good and hard work! God measures us by our faithfulness not by how many come. (At least that’s how us rural pastors feel better about ourselves and our dying churches!).
Grace and peace,
Steve
April 23rd, 2004 at 7:06 pm
A. I would love to know what .bE is. It looks tasty. What is the philosophy/theology? What R the stations?
B. One thing that delineates pomo’s from mo’s (?) is that pomo’s are terminally busy. I hope that whatever lies beyond pomomergence employs the smooth and simple stylings of God’s slow and steady grace.
C. It looks like .bE is ALL about slow and steady, but the comers aren’t…necessarily…in my experience.
Peace and thanks for the headline,
Chris
October 29th, 2004 at 11:26 am
Hi.
I run the Universal Life Church Seminary and it’s nice to see that people are using their ordinations to run centers of spiritual development. If anyone has any stories to share about their experiences, I have a section for that on the site where I post regularly. Thanks!
–Amy
http://www.ulcseminary.org